Plato insisted that mathematics strengthened the mind for other tasks. Abraham Lincoln set out to master Euclid’s treatises on geometry in order to sharpen his use of language and logic. Mathematician and author Manil Suri says research has disproved the assumption. “The theory of formal discipline says if you exercise your brain in one aspect it can leapfrog and help you do other tasks. It doesn’t.”
This was the bear that comforted me, age three, after my older sister sat me in front of a TV, gave me a spoon and a giant bowl of cold mashed potatoes, and told me it was ice cream.
Essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out that as we grow older and more curious, we accumulate an “antilibrary” of unread books that are far more valuable than the books we have already read. Having an antilibrary keeps us humble and curious, he says. It “challenges our self-estimation by providing a constant, niggling reminder of all we don’t know.”
In the world of metaphor, flying just means breaking free of gravity’s pull, shaking off restrictions, soaring under our own power, reaching new heights. Live right, and you are already flying. But could I manage a life that dramatic?
Eliot never would have admitted a connection to his failed love life. Poetry “is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality,” he said. Still, I wonder: why do we listen so eagerly to writers who are unhappy?
Color can so easily go silly, like wine tasting and horoscopes.
Nourishment, enjoyment, sharing, pleasure, life. Do what you need to do. These are thighs. Be sensuous. Get serious at last.
She is called the Blood Countess of Hungary, but the bloodiest part of her reputation is probably apocryphal; it emerged two hundred years after her death, during the vampire craze.
Let us take the recent case in point of Missouri Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush who, during last week’s Republican comedy of errors entitled “choosing a new House Speaker,” called Florida Republican Congressman Bryon Donalds “a prop” when he was nominated for the Speakership and at one point received sixteen votes and even, in the giddiness of the moment, voted for himself.
A new study found that the decrease in neuroticism had faded by 2021-2022, as normalcy seeped back into our lives. Now, though, there were small but significant declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. But not for everyone.