8.21.23

Thought

Tsundoku is the Japanese practice of accumulating books on your shelf with the intention of reading them, but never getting around to it. Counter intuitively, the books can still serve as a reminder - of all that we don’t know:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. [Your] library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Quote

Essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson on self determinism:

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

Moment of Gratitude

I’m grateful I got to hang out in the California sun this week.  

What are you grateful for?

Happy Monday,

Val