No phone

A film still by director <n>Andrei Tarkovsky</n>.

Do it now. The conditions are always impossible

—Doris Lessing

<n>Michel Subor</n> in a still from <n>Jean-Luc Godard</n>'s film <n>Le Petit Soldat</n> (1962).

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time.

— Nayyirah Waheed

Addiction: a tax for social media like tobacco - Polytechnique Insights

When we over-index on documenting our lives, or infuse it with the aesthetic of cinema, scoring the climaxes, editing out the in-betweens that make up a life, we risk inverting its utility. Instead of being an existential hedge against dying, it becomes one against living. We end up believing things about our former selves that weren’t quite true, or doing it for the gram, or missing a hike before it’s even over. In our search for meaning we obscure it.

An illustration often shared by online mental health platform <n>BetterMynd</n>.

loneliness is still time spent with the world

A scene from the 1951 <n>Walt Disney Productions</n> film, <n>Alice in Wonderland</n>, featuring the character <n>Alice</n>.

“I want everything quiet and simple. For me: walking barefoot, sitting still, reading, listening to stories, and now and then telling some myself. Eating fruit, drinking milk, longing to create, but with patience and many insights.”


— Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Lou Salomé witten c. March 1904

Actor <n>Ian McKellen</n> as <n>Gandalf</n> on the set of <n>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</n> (2012).

From the poem <n>Sometimes</n> by <n>Mary Oliver</n>, published in the book <n>Red Bird</n> by <n>Beacon Press</n>.

A still of <n>Hayao Miyazaki</n> from the 2016 documentary <n>Never Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki</n>.

You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else - that's how you'll get ahead.


(p. 19) Kleon, A. (2012). Steal Like An Artist.

A scene from <n>Hayao Miyazaki</n>'s 1986 film, <n>Castle in the Sky</n>.

Let the quiet envelop you. Make peace with it; let things flow. ⁠