Weekly thoughts #5
Thank you for being interested in this creative space. It adds a new layer of meaning to this blog to know that my reflection or thoughts might positively impact your life.
Here is a summary of what interested me this week and my published posts. Enjoy!
Books I am reading
Dreyfus and Kelly, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (2011)
An unrelenting flow of choices confronts us at nearly every moment of our lives, and yet our culture offers us no clear way to choose. This predicament seems inevitable, but in fact it's quite new. In medieval Europe, God's calling was a grounding force. In ancient Greece, a whole pantheon of shining gods stood ready to draw an appropriate action out of you. Like an athlete in "the zone," you were called to a harmonious attunement with the world, so absorbed in it that you couldn't make a "wrong" choice.
If our culture no longer takes for granted a belief in God, can we nevertheless get in touch with the Homeric moods of wonder and gratitude, and be guided by the meanings they reveal? All Things Shining says we can. Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly illuminate some of the greatest works of the West to reveal how we have lost our passionate engagement with and responsiveness to the world. Their journey takes us from the wonder and openness of Homer's polytheism to the monotheism of Dante; from the autonomy of Kant to the multiple worlds of Melville; and, finally, to the spiritual difficulties evoked by modern authors such as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Gilbert.
Dreyfus, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, for forty years, is an original thinker who finds in the classic texts of our culture a new relevance for people's everyday lives. His lively, thought-provoking lectures have earned him a podcast audience that often reaches the iTunesU Top 40. Kelly, chair of the philosophy department at Harvard University, is an eloquent new voice whose sensitivity to the sadness of the culture--and to what remains of the wonder and gratitude that could chase it away--captures a generation adrift.
Re-envisioning modern spiritual life through their examination of literature, philosophy, and religious testimony, Dreyfus and Kelly unearth ancient sources of meaning, and teach us how to rediscover the sacred, shining things that surround us every day. This book will change the way we understand our culture, our history, our sacred practices, and ourselves. It offers a new--and very old--way to celebrate and be grateful for our existence in the modern world.
Vaclav Smil, How the world really works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going (2022)
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.
In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn’t inevitable—the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world’s rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020—and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions.
Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.
Most recent posts
Silent retreat - part 1: Why? - Link to share
Why a silent retreat?
Short answer:
It just feels like the right thing to do. Break patterns. Reset a baseline for external stimuli.
Long answer:
My family and I have recently realised how I have been more prone to distractions. My attention span and tolerance for breaks have been shrinking with time. I take up the phone, refresh a few pages and look at a couple of inboxes more often than I would like.
Being a first-time entrepreneur made a significant impact.
I always felt under the pressure of the "carpe diem" mentality, which is something I love in bursts but not as a chronic state. Time is scarce; you want to do the best for the people around you, and you could always squeeze in a bit more productivity. Plus, what if the mail you were waiting for suddenly drops in your inbox? Did you check it? Or, if it just came in your inbox, let's answer it directly! This habit became somewhat engrained without any particular conscious choice on my side. I could see how my brain sends me signals to context-switch and seek novelty whenever I am close to or in front of one of the electronic tools I use at work. There were months when I could not recall the last time I worked on a single task without interruptions for more than 1 hour.
Remote meetings just made it even harder. It is a powerful tool to cover distances and connect. However, this connection happens on devices too tightly coupled to a "to-do" list.
Long term, I could envision a direction in my life filled with slow productivity. Another stable equilibrium that favours long streaks of focus, digesting knowledge, engaging meaningfully with technology and building relationships (more on that in another post).
Another significant tectonic shift has been parenthood. Adding one important relationship to my life profoundly affected my lifestyle and priorities.
There is much more life and joy around me, together with more responsibility and harder prioritisation. I love my daughter and partner more than I think I could love anyone, and I want to bring my best self to the table. My best self is a version of me that is in touch with my being human, connected at the moment, and has a direction to move towards. I realised that "Alone time" and reflections matter and allow me to be present in each moment.
The question is, how do I balance my personal needs, together with my family needs and entrepreneurial needs? Who is my new self? What does my core voice tell me at the moment? Answering these questions while running on several fronts is pretty hard.
You might see the pattern here: I feel that the habits that helped me support people and live an examined life are hindering me from continuing to rediscover myself.
In other words, it feels like I have built some brain decision-loops that might have been useful some years ago but are no longer. And, for that, they should be thanked and let go.
That's when silence comes into the picture. There is nothing more intense than the absence of inputs. A perfect chance to break the "novelty trigger cascade" and explore the depth of the mundane and my feelings.
The question is, how could you do it while still working in an entrepreneurial environment? And what about family life?
That would be something for the next reflection.
Thank you again for taking the time and joining me on this journey. Let me know if there is anything that you found most exciting or any reflection you might have.
Feel free to forward this mail to anyone that could be interested!
Have a fantastic day/night wherever you are,
Francesco