Kevin Kelly is a national treasure

It’s true. For those who don’t know, here are some of his projects:

  • The Technium is his main blog.
  • Cool Tools is what it says it is. Reviews of cool tools of all sorts.
  • Excellent Advice for Living is his latest book, which seems basically like a set of more intelligible and practical koans encapsulating his vision.

These (and tons of other stuff he makes) are cool and all, but it’s not exactly the specifics of what he’s done / made that inspire me, but more his approach and attitude towards life and living. Truly unique and self-driven.

Older stuff

I’ve got to try and be more regular with this. These are things I took note of some time ago, but haven’t yet published.

Mental health amongst the youths

There has been a lot of discussion around the decline of mental health among young people over the last decade or so. Lot’s of discussion of social media and smartphones, mostly led by Jon Haidt. Matt Yglesias offers a political theory, Noah Smith says it’s probably the phones, but we should just chill and we’ll probably figure it out.

I’m interested in this article by Derek Thompson. It seems to bring in an important element to the discussion that feels intuitive to me as a semi-scarred, former academic-to-be. The theory? That a culture of obsessive student achievement and long schoolwork hours can make kids depressed.

A good reason to scrutinize smartphone usage among teens is that it’s a very plausible contributor to youth distress. But pinning this whole thing on phones might lead us to overlook the other ways that modern life might be contributing to a more miserable childhood experience. “Sometimes I just think, my God,” Steinberg exclaimed at the end of our call. “Like, shouldn’t we care about giving kids a good experience of being a kid?”

Shocking, I know. But sometimes the obvious must be stated so we don’t forget it in all the hubbub.

Podcasts

I’m only about halfway through this Suzie Collier podcast with Chris Thile, but it’s already been very moving. Some good quotes:

Ooh, and isn’t that what chops are for. Really what chops are is the elimination of obstructions between your feelings and your fingertips.

I love this and would expand it to include not just feelings, but ideas too. I want the chops so bad. So much work to do.

The discussion around the similarities of live music and religious services and their communal experience is really good too.

I’m behind the times on this one, but Will Be Wild has been eye opening for me. I think I had been underestimating the significance of the January 6 riots and this has changed my perspective substantially. Episode 5 (The Tunnel) is an incredible piece of storytelling. On par with a good work of fiction in its humanity, complexity and character development, all in a 45 minute bit of journalism.