Finished reading: Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig 📚
Grotta della Poesia in Salento is beautiful at this time of the year.
Finished reading: Company of One by Paul Jarvis 📚
Finished reading: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates 📚
My home office now feels more like home.
Finished reading: Being Alive by Neil Astley 📚
Just like it used to be @ Masseria le Stanzìe in Puglia.
Lunch with a view.
Finished reading: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug 📚
Published: #4 of the Greener Returns newsletter 📝
Finished reading: The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac 📚
Published: #3 of the Greener Returns newsletter 📝
Finished reading: Selected Poems by Dylan Thomas 📚
A shot from our walk this morning in Santa Caterina, Nardò.
Published: #2 of the Greener Returns newsletter 📝
Finished reading: What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban 📚
Published: #1 of the Greener Returns newsletter. 📝
This is a new project of mine. Here’s a link where you can learn more and subscribe.
Great quote from Hunter S. Thompson:
“It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.”
Finished reading: Principles of Sustainable Finance by Dirk Schoenmaker and Willem Schramade 📚
Finished reading: A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver 📚
Some useful definitions of diction, tone and voice from Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook.
Diction:
“‘Watch your language!’ you may say to someone who has just expressed himself with the help of slang or an expletive. What you really mean is ‘Watch your diction!’ Diction means word choice."
Tone:
“The overall effect of the diction of a piece of writing, in addition to other elements, such as choice of subject, imagery, design of the poem, etc., is called tone.”
Voice:
“The term voice is used to identify the agency or agent who is speaking through the poem, apart from those passages that are actual dialogue. This voice, or speaker of the poem, is often called the persona.”
Finished reading: A Life on Our Planet by Sir David Attenborough 📚
Finished reading: A Path Through the Jungle by Prof Steve Peters 📚
What a fantastic book. Strongly recommend it to anybody looking for some practical, step-by-step advice for taking more control of your mind.
A quote that hit home:
“Every day that we get up, we change. We are a different person from the one who went to bed the night before. By making small changes to your thinking and behaviours, over time, you will move yourself in the direction that you want to go.”
This seems like solid advice too:
“Sometimes, life seems more like a circus than a jungle. If you see life as a circus then stay in your seat and laugh at the clowns; don’t enter the ring and risk becoming one.”
Delighted to have been awarded a distinction in my journalism diploma from the London School of Journalism. 🎓
Finished reading: Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison 📚
Finished reading: How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton 📚
As the dust settles on the US election result, those who care about what it means for the climate may find some strength in these words from James Stockdale.
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
He was a U.S. prisoner tortured and held captive for over seven years during the Vietnam War. It is known as the Stockdale Paradox.
Keep faith in the future but confront reality head on. Mix outrage and optimism.
Sir Jonathan Bate has commented on the shift from humanities to STEM subjects among students seeking well-paying jobs.
“The irony of that, of course, is that if you speak to employers, they really like English students because the best of them can write, communicate and think critically. The deeper irony is, with the AI revolution, the people who are really going to lose their jobs are the computer programmers.”
He has a point. But in my opinion, what we need more of is writers who can code and coders who can write. I think AI can really help people expand their skillset.
As reliance on AI grows, those who develop deep, ‘analogue’ expertise in whatever it is they specialise in will stand head and shoulders above the rest.
I think how AI is used in education is particularly important. Especially if the machines break or get turned off one day.
Venus is shining bright as the sun goes down. Seems like the only star in the sky.
Finished reading: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 📚
Every now and then something happens in my life that reminds me of the importance of having a compassionate mind, both towards others and towards myself.
For example, a stranger was quite rude to me the other day. It was completely unprovoked, surprising and caught me off guard.
Instead of turning to anger or losing confidence, I thanked them and understood that their life may not be where they want it to be. And I was just some person who for whatever reason got in their way as they tried to keep going.
What may have once developed into a confrontation or knocked my confidence ended up as this blog post and a chance to reflect on how much I’ve grown.
Big fan of iA Writer. Its measured approach to incorporating AI in its writing tool is interesting.
Instead of adding OpenAI & Co. to our app like everybody else, we figured that visually separating artificial and human text was the kind of problem we had to solve. So we did.
Here’s a link to a blog post with more detail about iA Writer’s Authorship tracking feature. Looks cool.
Stopped for a lunchtime drink at a bar in Rome and, unknown to me, a French girl sitting at the next table was drawing me as I was talking on the phone.
She’s talented. She explained that she’s an art student and likes to do this when she travels.
The room in Rome where John Keats died.
Walked past some old building in Rome around sunset tonight.
“Being kind to others is mostly about your actions. Being kind to yourself is mostly about your thoughts.”
From James Clear’s newsletter.
Finished reading: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 📚
A beach at the Porto Selvaggio nature reserve in Salento.
You need to walk through woods for 30 minutes from the nearest parking spot. Worth it every time.
Finished working my way through the Earth’s Changing Climate course by Professor Richard Wolfson, available on Audible or directly through The Great Courses.
Old (2007), but still a solid intro to the science behind climate change.
Great article by Helen Thomson in The Observer about the mental health benefits of taking walks in nature.
Throughout the pandemic, I tried to take a long walk in the countryside every day. Doing this helped me get through a difficult time, that’s for sure, but I didn’t really give much thought as to why. The article explains some good reasons I can relate to.
Although it may sound great to people living in cooler parts of the world planning a summer holiday, one of the main downsides of living in southern Italy is how unbearably hot the summers are. Walking, and being outside in general, feels impossible for much of the day.
Now summer is finally over and the temperature is more manageable, I want to explore more of the Puglia countryside.
As the title of the article says: “Nature is free, and the best kind of medicine”.