Sign up to get the Sloww Sunday newsletter via email for free:👇
Sloww Sunday Newsletter 081 (Oct 24, 2021) — Brain Pickings Synthesis, Making Meaning, Appreciating Time, & More
Happy Sunday!
Here’s the latest from Sloww along with the most interesting things I discovered last week. To respect your time and attention, every newsletter can be read in under 5 minutes. 🙏
Sloww Stuff
Updated Post:
3 Top Life Lessons from Maria Popova of “Brain Pickings” (now “The Marginalian”)
Maria Popova just celebrated the 15th anniversary of Brain Pickings yesterday. And, guess what? She rebranded it! Goodbye “Brain Pickings”—hello “The Marginalian.” I’m continually fascinated by people like Maria who have consumed, curated, and created countless things. They are the types of people you want to ask, “What are the three secrets to living a good life?”
🔒 New Premium Synthesis:
As far as I can tell, a comprehensive synthesis of Maria Popova does not exist anywhere online. I went through 50+ articles, interviews, podcasts, and videos to compile this synthesis. While I’ve explored Maria in the past, this is by far my deepest dive down the rabbit hole of her life and work—which she considers one and the same.
🔒 New on the Sloww Society:
All Premium members have been officially invited to the new Sloww Society community! If you didn’t receive an invite or are having trouble logging in, please reply to this email and let me know.
• Sloww Sunday Surplus: 7 bonus links not included in this newsletter
• Meet the Members: New feature to search/scroll all members
• Resource List: Getting to “Know Thyself”
• Let’s Celebrate: What were your weekly wins?
🧬 Modern Knowledge
Making Your Own Meaning of Life — Richard Dawkins
(19 mins | YouTube)
Richard Dawkins’ speech The Purpose of Purpose melted my mind when I first listened to it, and I still think about it all the time. In this new video, Dawkins sums it all up even more succinctly.
Highlights:
• Archi-Purpose: “The archi-purpose of everything in life is gene survival … All living creatures have a global goal which is gene survival.”
• Neo-Purpose: “The neo-purpose applies to humans only … The neo-purpose is what we choose to make it—what the designer of the thing (a computer, car, plane, etc) designed it for … In the service of the global goal, we set up a series of sub-goals (finding a mate, finding food, etc) and sub-sub-goals (courting the mate, locating the food, etc).”
• Subversion: “There’s something very odd about humans … We, in many ways, subvert our selfish genes … What’s happened with subversion is that the sub-goals have been hijacked away from the global goal … We are constantly hijacking the global goal of gene survival and becoming obsessed with sub-goals of all sorts of other things … The brain mechanism for setting up sub-goals has taken over, and we forget about the main goal.”
“We don’t feel motivated to pass on our DNA. We have other goals which can be very moving, very important—they could even be called spiritual in some cases. We want to understand the riddle of the universe. We want to understand consciousness. We want to understand how the brain works … They are a far cry from the fundamental, biological goal which is the propagation of DNA. But, the machinery that enables us to set up these higher-level goals is originally programmed into us by natural selection.” — Richard Dawkins
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
“Two” (Parable of Two) — A Film Fable by Satyajit Ray
(12 mins | YouTube)
Deep on many levels: privilege, inequality, rivalry, war, envy, freedom, and more.
“(The film) packs quite a punch in its ten minutes.” — Satyajit Ray
🤯 Mind Expanding
Appreciating Time through Time-lapse Videos
(Various Lengths | YouTube)
Time is a tough thing for us to wrap our heads around. These time-lapse videos are some of the best I’ve found to fully appreciate it:
· Time-lapse video of ant farms, mushrooms, sunflowers, and more.
· Time-lapse video of city growth between 1984 and today.
· Time-lapse video of forest change between 1984 and today.
💡 Deep Thought
Paradox: Humans are problem solvers, but problems only exist in the human mind.
💬 Wise Words
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been.” — Daniel Gilbert
Sharing: If you enjoyed this issue, please help grow Sloww by sending this post to some friends and family or by sharing it on social media. It’s free and easy for anyone to subscribe here.
Support: Sloww is a one-human labor of love. If you’re interested in supporting me, there are several financial and non-financial ways to support.
Feedback: Have something you want to say, or just want to say hi? It’s always much appreciated. Just send me an email or reach out socially.
Have an open-minded week!
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur, Sloww
