Fury of Achilles by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1737) Daily Insight: Let Stories Flourish A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on par with ancient talismans. This is the tenth way that Italo Calvino defines a classic in his iconic Why Read the Classics? This book explores why the classics matter, and if you're stumped on what a "classic" is in the first place, it offers fourteen ways to define them. Conveniently, it answers both questions at...
18 days ago • 4 min read
The Plains of Heaven by John Martin, 1851 The Fountain: Charlie Kirk and the Symbolic Death of Civil Debate I don’t write on politics, but today there was nothing else to say. In fact, this email is beyond politics—this is a question of culture and morality. But why? What is it about this tragedy amongst the hundreds of others? Before I answer, I must preface: I’m proud of this community. From my conversations with you in emails and comments, I see a respect for critical thinking,...
30 days ago • 10 min read
Gentleman reclining on a sofa by Theodore Franken The Fountain: The False God of Optimization As a son of Russia's landed gentry, Ilya Ilyitch Oblomov has all the wealth for a happy future, and yet he taints it with his vice: extreme laziness. Every day he decays in bed, lost of all motivation, alive but not living. An anxious letter from his country estate warns of the financial peril brought on by his apathy, but what can Oblomov do? It took several chapters to merely get out of bed, and...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Ptolemy II in the Library of Alexandria by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, 1672 Daily Insight: True Education Stretches Far & Wide When the West got rich, we wiped the grime off our brow, polished our boots, and dusted our shirts clean, readied for the knowledge economy—our value was no longer tied to sweat or sinew, but in what we knew. We became salespeople, analysts, managers, we gave birth to a thousand new job titles that would sound like gibberish to a 1800's Lincolnshire farmer, and to...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Shoelace 5 by Rinat Voligamsi, 2019 Daily Insight: The first step to critical thinking Youtube street interviews teach us a lot about intellectual integrity. When I waste time on Youtube, but I want it to be somewhat-kinda-semi-thoughtful rather than complete slop, I opt for street debates and interviews. That also means I decide against inner peace for the day, but that's besides the point. In these videos, the youtuber heads into public - often to an event surrounding some political or...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Vialla di Poggio a Caiano by Giusto Utens The Fountain: The Four Realms of the Renaissance Man The Renaissance Man . . . is not a man. Nor a woman . . . Nor a horse—but an ideal. It's a rich expression of human will, a thirst for excellence in all things, and a spirit never content with a narrow life. It speaks to us because we're a society of specialization: our job title lingers above us for years, sometimes decades, as the ultimate arbiter for who we are: Market research analyst. Product...
3 months ago • 7 min read
Book Spotlight: The Epic of Gilgamesh Coming up: Overview Context (a damaged masterpiece, King Gilgamesh, and the monomyth) Core themes (mortality, humility, duty, masculinity, friendship) Writing style Who's it for? What gave me the fizz? Difficulty (major spoilers ahead, but it's been out for a while . . . ) Overview Assyriologist William Moran calls The Epic of Gilgamesh ‘a document on ancient humanism,’ but it’s also an adventure, an autobiography to warn future kings, and even the first...
4 months ago • 12 min read
The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest by Willem van Haecht (1628) Hobbies and skills: Why You Should Start a Collection Last year, I began to collect fragrances. I felt embarrassed, like it was a guilty pleasure to be locked away. I saw 'collectors' as hoarders*—neurotic harvesters of material goods who fear the responsibility of a real hobby, and instead, retreat to their wallet for pleasure. But truth dies without nuance. Today, I see that collectors and hoarders are two different ends on a...
4 months ago • 5 min read
Self-education: Five ways to learn with a notebook Notebooks are the map to wisdom. Their emptiness is their strength; we have no choice but to fill it with our discoveries, and as you write, you echo a part of God and the universe—creation. It’s a privilege no other creature on earth shares (except for beavers). By writing, you learn what it means to be conscious, not just as an individual, but as a soul, a community, and as a bearer of knowledge in the chain we call history. High and mighty...
5 months ago • 8 min read