Books
Algebra of Happiness, by Scott Galloway
This is the type of book we should all strive to write and leave to our children, it’s a highly personal distillation of Galloway’s life experiences for his students at NYU (and more importantly, his own children). If you do not like his self-absorbed presentation in his other mediums, you probably won’t like this either, but I find Scott entertaining, pithy, and refreshing in his directness. Chock full of things I wish I knew when I was 20.
Web
The Case for First-Brain Memory, by Tasshin
This post is a refreshingly through investigation of when it makes sense to memorize something, and when it doesn’t. I was blown away watching LeBron James recall a particular a series of plays after a game. It goes to show you that world-class athleticism is never purely physical.
Podcasts
The Portal is one of my new favorites for in-depth long-form interviews with people that have truly unique viewpoints on the world. The first three episodes all contain dangerous thoughts and mental models, but this one with Werner Herzog sparked my curiosity so much that I paid a transcription service to provide me the text. I knew very little about Werner Herzog prior to this interview, but he’s clearly one of the most creative forces in film. To hear him describe the challenges that he and his artists endure is a testament to uncompromising vision.
I first became aware of Werner Herzog when I was 16 and just entering the University of Pennsylvania and a friend of mine said, ‘You’ve got to see this movie, Fitzcarraldo.’
‘I said, what is Fitzcarraldo?’
He says, ‘if nothing else, it’s a story about a man so possessed by an idée fixe, that he drags a boat over a mountain in the jungle in order to somehow build an opera house.’ The whole thing sounded incredibly mad, and in fact, what was so interesting about this film was that the director actually had to do, in real life, with the crazy fictional character did inside of the story line.
Eric Weinstein
Movie
Fitzcarraldo, by Werner Herzog
You can’t listen to the podcast recommended above and NOT immediately want to go see this movie. The imagery and vision are haunting me weeks later—as do the ethical questions that the making of the money engender. I’m definitely going to be following up with the “making of” film.
Quote I’m thinking about…
Eric Frankl.in 