Welcome to the Reading List, a Saturday roundup of readings and links about personal growth, business, entrepreneurship, good work, and the human condition.
This edition features: what it takes to do exceptional work, the reality of the world and luck and AI, a list of people who shaped Bangladesh in 2024, and a meditation on ocean and life.
“The pianist whose fingers seem supernaturally nimble, the presenter whose message seems viscerally compelling, and the artist whose paintings seem impossibly realistic all wield the same magic: they’ve invested more time than you’d expect.
It can be difficult, psychologically, to commit yourself to spend an extreme amount of time and attention towards a goal, no matter how worthwhile. Doing impossible things feels, well, impossible.
That’s why, generally, the approach is to start small, then increment. Do something, so you can change it. Get your reps in. Evolve your complex system from a simple one that works.
Eventually, years in, this will culminate in overnight success. You’ll have achieved something that seems magical – impossible, even.
It just takes some time.”
“The week before Nile was born I was wondering that he will be part of a generation that will grow up with AI assistants that patiently answer every curious 'why.' I was plenty curious as a child and while there were teachers who were very much willing to quench my inquisitive nature, I also knew there were plenty more who would get annoyed sooner than I could get all my answers. The ability to keep asking "whys" from early childhood may have profoundly positive implications in children across the world. In fact, I think it is certainly possible that by the time my son turns 16, he may have a more profound grasp of the world than I'll have at 50.
You may wonder wouldn't I too get back to asking my "whys" now that I have incredibly smart AIs ready to have conversation with me. Remember, for people in my (and older) generation, we need to unlearn our learned inhibition of asking "whys".”
“Netra News is marking its fifth birthday with a list of ten Bangladeshi individuals and groups who have been the most influential in 2024. These are not the best or most important people, nor have they exclusively made positive or productive contributions. For better and worse, 2024 has been an historic year for Bangladesh. These are the people who influenced the way in which the year would play out. As Netra News looks ahead to its first year of being able to operate openly in Bangladesh, here is a look back at the last year through the people who shaped it.”
“Whenever I walk down to the sea here, as I often do, I’m comforted not by its permanence but by its restlessness. Gravity contains it in the bowl between continents, but it conveys both peace and power by singing in its chains (per Dylan Thomas) and, on occasion, by claiming the land as its own.
At a dinner party once, all of us gathered around the table, when it was my turn to describe my life in twenty words or less, I offered a rough sequence of places I’d called home since birth: Maine, Seattle, Maine, Cape Cod, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Antarctica, New Zealand, Maine. With the exception of my years in college, I’ve always lived within a mile or three of the ocean. That proximity to restlessness is important to me.
Humans are desperately social creatures, but I think we’re equally attached to geography, each in our own way. We want to be loved, but we also want to be found, forever moving in self-conscious relation to place - Where am I? - and to each other - What am I to you?. Both questions are really asking Am I home? and Am I safe?.”
