Gluttons and Ascetics
The Practical Polymath #72
Hi Friends,
Greetings from Brooklyn!
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After two weeks spent in Europe with family, eating an unsafe amount of cheese, pastries and croissants, I’m slowly getting back into a more austere routine of yoga, intermittent fasting and no sugar. Learning to excel at both gluttony and privation is, I believe, an underrated discipline. Moderation is fear of discomfort disguised as a virtue.
Florian
On my mind
My high-school jazz teacher once told me with a slightly irritated tone to stop playing all of the guitar chords on the sheet music. He said to me, “the ones you leave out are just as important, you have to let your audience fill in the blanks”. There is a metaphor for life hidden in there and I’m still looking for it. Please help.
I like airports because you’re neither here nor there. “Where are you from?” “Ok, but where were you born?” “Do you feel more Italian or French?” It’s hard to find refuge from the tyranny of place.
Notion? Roam? Obsidian? Fellow writer Michael Dean says “note-taking is really all about developing the awareness that you are having an idea”. I took my phone out of my pocket and wrote it down on Google Keep.
Weekly Wisdom
🧲 Mimetic Desire: What if everything you desire, from lifestyle to career all the way to what you wear, is driven by other people? “Wanting” by Luke Burgis explores the theory of “mimetic desire” or how we are predisposed to model other people’s desires. French philosopher and father of the theory René Girard once wrote “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind”. The book does a really good job revealing how mimetic desire manifests in everyday life. The author’s practical tips on how to escape it are less convincing. Short of retreating to a Bhutanese monastery, I still feel relatively clueless about the way forward: But I guess naming a problem is a problem half-solved.
🌍 Climate Tribes: The debate around climate change is (fortunately) not about whether or not it’s happening any longer. But that doesn’t mean a debate is no longer raging. This piece puts the spotlight on the heterogeneity of approaches to tackling global warming and the tribes who advocate for them. It’s a fascinating and incredibly well-researched piece of writing that you’ll come out of knowing whether you’re more of a neopastoralist, an energy maximalist or, god help you, a doomer.
😶 Silent Retreat: I’ve been mildly obsessed with silent retreats lately and researching what they entail. One of them caught my attention because of how hardcore it seems to be. It’s a 10-day introduction to Vipassana meditation where you relinquish your phone, wake up at 4am every day and meditate 10 hours a day without being allowed to utter a single word for the entirety of your stay. Tempting. Although when I picture it, I have a slight panic attack thinking I wouldn’t be able to have news from my wife and son for ten days. Parents with silent retreat experience, please reach out with advice! In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed this incredibly raw account of someone who went through the retreat thinking it was going to be more like a spa getaway.
Lateral Thought
“It is better to need less than to have more.”
St. Augustine of Hippo
I have heard Sir Richard Branson mention he indulges in a similar gluttony and privation. He binge drinks over a weekend or so, and then goes full dry for a period. Rinse, repeat.
I've dropped out of all social media. Books- you know those paper things with words on them. As far as gluttony goes, sadly the flesh is weak. I've been a pescatarian for a couple of years but my sweet tooth cries out for attention. I have my meditation pillows and Buddhas in the same room that I play my brushes on, and I walk by them to my easel with rare visits yet I miss it.