38: Notes To Self

Yo, it’s Luke!

Hope you have a serendipitous weekend.

That said, here is your weekly dose of 5 noteworthy ideas & things I learned about last week. Click on each link to dive further on that topic.

1. The Bees Are Back (Washington Post)

“After almost two decades of relentless colony collapse coverage, we were stunned to run the numbers on the new Census of Agriculture: America’s honeybee population has rocketed to an all-time high.”

2. The Road To Self-Renewal (Drew Dickson)

Check out this banger quote from a great piece of writing:

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”

3. The Invention of ‘Jaywalking’ (Clive Thompson)

In the 1920s, new car sales were falling, so the industry promoted the term ‘jaywalking’ to blame accidents on pedestrians, rather than aggressive drivers.

4. China Building Solar and Wind (Muyu Xu)

China is building 450 gigawatts of solar and wind power generation in the Gobi desert.

That’s six times the total power generation capacity of the UK.

5. Ram Dass On Self Judgement

I really like this analogy for how to judge yourself less harshly:

“I think that part of it is observing oneself more impersonally. I often use this image. When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.”

Turn people into trees.

Thanks for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday! If you liked this edition, send it over to a friend who would like it too 🤝 

Cheers,

Luke

PS: Have a topic you think I’d like learning about? Send it to me here.

PPS: Got questions you want me to answer? I made an anonymous form for that.

PPPS: you can find more rabbit holes here & my writing here.