In a world of “who has time?”, a sentence can have more impact than a whole article.
You’ll hear a lot over the course of your life – and experience it too, I imagine – about books, films, conversations etc. that gave you pause to think, that may have even altered you in some fashion. During the time of Emperor Nasi Goreng, sorry, I mean shortened attention spans, people are searching (and finding) one minute videos or a sentence here and there enough to give them what they need – the proverbial cure for the itch.
I’ve had a number of people over the years tell me they’d love to read my weekly writings, but they don’t have time. “Yes, of course. Who has time? Who has time? But then if we never take time, how can we have time?”, I instinctually respond like I’m the Merovingian from The Matrix Reloaded. I’m conscious of the time-sensitive, and for a lot of people, time-poor, nature of modernity, that even five minutes reading an article can be too much for most.
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book - what others do not say in a whole book.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
So, today’s exercise is a little different, call it moving with the times, but also still potentially achieving a similar outcome.
Now, I’m no Nietzsche, but below you will find 10-20 lines/sentences/statements that will: stimulate your thinking/become more interesting the longer you think about them/lead to exploration of greater themes or deeper topics/reveal things about you.
1/ Fascination does not have a moral compass.
2/ People don’t believe in heroes anymore.
3/ The world I know is disappearing (and it scares me), but is it as bad I as imagine?
4/ The quality of the world that comes to your attention depends on the quality of your attention that you bring to it.
5/ People don't have ideas, ideas have people.
6/ We don't live in an enlightened era, we live in an endarkened era where what we think is enlightening us is in fact inducing misery.
7/ Why does there feel like there's increasingly less to live for?
8/ There is power in being first.
9/ Majority rules, except when it doesn’t.
10/ Just because you display your emotions doesn't mean you understand your emotions.
11/ You can always not have an opinion.
12/ Why do I feel full of doubt yet others are so certain of themselves?
13/ Imagine no one being able to understand you. Now, imagine if you were unable to understand anyone. Both are terrifying.
14/ Your intellect comes up with thoughts, your attention gathers information.
15/ Failure isn't final, it's necessary.
16/ Why doesn’t good news sell better?
17/ Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge.
18/ We have to stop doing this to ourselves.
19/ What if the bad person won?
20/ 2024 is objectively the "best time" in the history of civilisation. So, why doesn’t it feel like it?
I feel sometimes not everything warrants a full article, and sometimes we can get what we’re looking for out of something much shorter. I have a feeling I’ll incorporate this into my weekly material I put out on social media on a bit more of a regular basis. I hope you enjoyed the slight change this week and let me know which point caught your interest the most.
In the meantime, take care.
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