Desirable Debris

The Practical Polymath #54

Hi Friends, 

Greetings from Brooklyn!

Three random things that struck me in the past weeks:

• I’ve been wearing contact lenses since I was twelve. I can’t get over how amazing of an invention this tiny half-dome of silicon is.

• I’m getting more and more messages from friends around the world who are planning a trip to New York. Perhaps a sign that travel is resuming?

• The feeling of lacking time is often just a symptom of a cluttered mind. I just haven’t quite figured out how to unclutter mine. Tips welcome.

What’s one thing that has been on your mind?

See you in two weeks, 

Florian 

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Zip - Yuji Amegatsu

🚮 Desirable Debris: I have a soft spot for art that elevates the mundane. Japanese artist Yuji Amegatsu takes this to the next level. Since the mid-1990s, he’s been going on daily urban expeditions to collect “interesting” trash ranging from chewed gum to cigarette butts and other random trinkets. He then arranges them into cellophane sleeves stripped from a cigarette pack. What struck me is that when you look at it from afar, the patchwork of colors and the symmetry of the cigarette packs is aesthetically delightful. It’s only when you move closer that you realize it’s all an entangled mess of garbage. I don’t know what I admire the most, the idea itself or the ironclad discipline of that man. Here’s a great piece about him if you’re curious.

✍ Writing Wisdom: While we’re on the topic of discipline, my friend Matt published his 137th newsletter this week. He shared six lessons he’s learned along the way. His newsletter is one of the few I’ll make time to open and read from top to bottom every week. Check it out.

🕰 The Tail End: Warning, this piece by Tim Urban is slightly depressing. But it’s also an important one. Despite having a long life ahead of you, the majority of the time you’ll get to spend with some of the people who are most important in your life is already in the past.

Lateral Thought

“But although it is true that a unique event can sometimes change our lives completely, or leave its mark on us, it is not too much to say that, by and large, the overall character of our lives is given by those events which keep on recurring over and over again.”

Christopher Alexander