Friday Finds (Music, Whiplash, Movies, Bible, Books)

Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

We're in the heat of our Write of Passage launch and next week, we're trying something new. I'll be hosting a workshop called "What's Write of Passage?"

Somehow, even though I've been running the course for three years, I've never fully explained what we do and how we do it. It's time to change that. We'll have our alumni, mentors, community stewards, and team members there too. If you'd like to join the live presentation and see what the cutting-edge of education looks like, register here.

Here's what I want to share this week:

1. ​Hugging the X-Axis: Sometimes, you write a piece and it instantly changes how you think about everything. For the first time in my life, I have the language to describe why I should commit instead of bouncing around from thing to thing. This framework has already improved my relationships, business, and rate of learning. ​
   ​
2. ​How to Write a Book (with Ali Abdaal): I interviewed Ali Abdaal about his process for writing a book. Turns out that writing is still hard, even when you have 2.66 million subscribers on YouTube. This conversation was more like a therapy session, and if you're working on ambitious writing projects, I think you'll resonate with it.

Today's Finds

​Jordan Peterson, on Music: One of the most beautiful descriptions of music I've ever heard. Peterson argues that music is multiple patterns layered on top of each other, just like the structure of reality — which is made of patterns as much as objects. Thus, music is an analog of the structure of existence itself. Music also represents life by putting you on the border of chaos and order because good music is predictable enough to be coherent but unpredictable enough to surprise you.

​The Breakup Scene from Whiplash: Here's a scene from Kobe Bryant's favorite movie, Whiplash. Kobe loved it because it's about the sacrifices you make when you pursue excellence. In this scene, the ambitious drummer breaks up with his girlfriend because he wants to pursue greatness and doesn't think he can do it with her by his side. It's at once heartbreaking and a philosophical exploration of what it takes to be great. For a deep reflection into the scene, I recommend an article called Whiplash and Extreme Greatness.

​Northrop Frye's Biblical Lectures: This 25-part series explores the synthesis between the Bible and English Literature. It's worth watching because the Bible infuses just about every aspect of civilization. To the extent that the ideas feel so obvious, it's only because they've been so influential. They've become the water we swim in. These lectures explore the metaphorical side of these canonical texts. In one of his lectures, Frye said: “The accuracy of history in the Bible is in inverse proportion to its spiritual value.” You'll find a full transcript and show notes for every lecture here. ​

​Movie of the Night: The simplest way to filter and categorize movies and TV series based on genre, year released, and the streaming service they run on.

​Labor Supply and the Attention Tax: A long-form essay about why labor force participation has declined for men between ages 20-34. The authors propose that the drop in labor participation rate of young men is a result of a combination of factors: (i) a decrease in cost of access to media entertainment leisure, (ii) increases in both the availability and (iii) quality media entertainment leisure, and (iv) a decrease in the marginal signaling utility of (conspicuous) consumption goods for all but the highest earners.