Hello!

Here's the weekly Amazing Things & Ideas newsletter. (Wow. I’ve been at this for 50 straight weeks now.)

As always, find one original idea followed by the List.

Breaking off chains

The everyday things get so accommodating that a lack of purpose tends to creep up. Inertia keeps the flame alive. But the spark seems to be gone.

It’s a pity but a lot of our time is spent in this zone. For some, almost whole lives are.

It’s relatively popular now to recognize this sort of existing as just being alive (synonymous to “being dead”). And the beautiful opposite as truly living.

When you’re just alive you don’t realize the significance of that fact of being itself.

It’s not that nothing happens when you’re just alive. Small changes might take place. But it’s almost like being guided by inertia, not purpose or reason.

Just an unexamined, mindlessly driven state of existence.

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”

― Rosa Luxemburg

Truly living is breaking the chains. And experiencing wonder and all the beautiful things that come with the act of living.

It’s hard to realize in the moment whether you’re bounded by these chains. Try moving, make the chains appear, then break them. Habit is a double-edged sword.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

• Our ship to the exploration of the cosmos:

SpaceX's Supersized Starship Rocket and the Future of Galactic Exploration | Jennifer Heldmann | TED

The majority of people don’t even know where we’re at at exploring the cosmos.

We’re getting close to cross and have already crossed extraordinary frontiers.

Watch this TED Talk to get a sense of what’s coming in the near future for galactic exploration. Get a sense of Starship:

• On thinking vs. actually doing and how we break the chain:

“We don’t think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking”

— Richard Rohr

• All progress depends on being unreasonable:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Posts from my blog this week:

• “Is it compulsory?” (#166):

A dialogue between the teacher and student.

(Writing this script form was very fun. I would appreciate feedback and thoughts on whether you'd like to read more Student/Teacher scenarios like this.)

• On realizing the potential for agency (#165):

Dense post on taking agency: the obvious secret, Elon Musk, not asking for permission and some "advice" on how to take agency and get the job done.

Thank you for reading.

If you liked this newsletter, I encourage you to share it for others to see it too.

If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or criticisms, I'd love to hear them from you; please write to me by replying to this email or DM me on Twitter.

Onward, 
Arjun