76: Notes To Self

Yo, it’s Luke!

Happy belated Thanksgiving friends :)

Hope you give (gave?) your loved ones a big, long hug. One of those that makes your love and appreciation undeniably clear.

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

1. Architecture Is Frozen Music (The Culturalist)

Pythagoras worked out that a 2:1 weight ratio produces an octave (notes separated by an octave sound alike). Likewise, a 3:2 ratio creates a perfect fifth, and 4:3 a perfect fourth. This evolved into our musical scale of today.

Eventually, he came to the idea that the universe and everything in it (like music) could be understood in mathematical terms.

And so, people believed the universe was bound by a mathematical, musical harmony.

For example, if you went to university in the Middle Ages, you learned music as one of four sciences of the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

Pretty cool. Some truth in there for sure!

2. For a long time, nothing. Then, suddenly one has the right eyes (Nix)

“Learning to love art, or more broadly learning to love anything at all, requires defenselessness and openness to beauty. A willingness to tolerate strangeness long enough to be changed by it.”

Dang okay Nix!

3. Become A Vessel (Spencer Kier + Michael Nielsen)

A few great insights on the creative process:

• “You're not creating de novo, so much as exploring to find deep and marvellous structure already latent in reality.” - Michael

• “When something else is worthwhile enough, and you let yourself connect, your sense of self diminishes, at the same time as you are enlarged.” - Michael

• Creativity is born out of thinking of oneself less. Awe (Grand Canyon, night sky, newborn child) seems to be a shortcut to that position of perspective.

• So, “surrender yourself as a vessel in perpetual pursuit & expression of the platonic ideals of goodness, beauty, and truth.” - Spencer

So good.

4. knocking on strangers doors (shani)

One of my favorite new writers Shani went to Erie PA (a swing county) before the 2024 election. She wrote about it - it’s a beautiful piece, highly recommend.

And in there, she wrote this absolute banger of a quote:

• “When I read the news, I often have to remind myself: How complexity is flattened when we don’t listen to each other. How the most interesting conversations come from asking about someone’s fears and dreams and needs instead of their party affiliation. And someone’s political views snaps into focus, even without asking, once you understand what they are afraid of losing.”

5. Meaning Meme (Visakan Veerasamy)

So true.

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