Read an interesting article from Ted Gioia. Who is doing some nice documentation on the state of culture today.

Like a doctor perpetually checking in on a patient who appears to be slowly dying, Gioia updates us all with the bad reports.

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We all seem to know our culture and our world is in crisis these days.

Yet we don't really know what to do about it or how to conceive of what's going on.

I started asking myself the question: How did we get 'here'?

And I decided to start working backwards, through history.

History is a chain of events inspired by ideas.

So the great actors and thinkers of history might provide some clues for helping understand our current state.

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That said, I've gone back as far as I can, to the world of the ancients. Archaic religion and pagan society.

reading the Iliad and the plays of Sophocles.

Will make my way along the arch of history by way of the unfurling of Western Literature.

That said, the timbre and tone of these emails will change, to reflect my current interests, and hopefully arrive at a more resonant and personally fulfilling point.

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What does it mean to be alive right now?

What's the story that's unfolding in our lifetimes?

And is it possible to be aware of that story, and to know it?

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"Where you think you stand determines what you think you see."

Let's figure out where we stand so we can begin to look, and hopefully see.

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Exercises I found interesting this week:

-From Dan Koe: "Reverse Engineer what you spend your money on"

-From Rene Girard: Write down your scapegoats, the people from your life, past and present, who you regard with some hatred, and are certain of their evilness and guilt.

-From Steve Richards and Rene Girard: Write down your personal Myth. The story of your life from as far back as you can remember (Plato's anemnesis: all knowledge is remembering) and then once you've done that, recall Girard's maxim, that Myth is always a Lie. And then go back into your personal and dispel the lies with your Personal Revelation: The times you hated someone and scapegoated them, believed they were justly condemned as being in the wrong or evil.

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Ideas I found interesting this week:

-From Luke Burgis: Financial Nihilism, and while I skimmed it, I found the idea interesting, especially as Roaring Kitty is back and confusing the masses.

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P