Expansiveness

Current location: Milwaukee, WI, USA

Reading: Forget The Alamo by Bryan Burrough

Listening: Solar Power by Lorde

(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status)

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Expansiveness

In my experience, the more I learn about all the things, the easier it becomes to learn about any single, specific thing.

My understanding of design grew more rapidly after I started looking into fine art, computer science, and publishing.

My comprehension of South American history plateaud until I learned more about the economics of supply chains.

Reading a book about prediction markets helped me better understand my own decision-making process, and reading a journal article about embodied cognition helped me develop a better morning routine.

Learning more broadly tends to help us learn more deeply, because an expansiveness of understanding builds connective tissue between seemingly orthogonal bodies of knowledge. That interconnective matrix serves as an increasingly stable foundation for data, while also introducing new ways of thinking about otherwise siloed, mono-focal pursuits.

This concept seems to apply beyond the world of fact- and skill-based learning, as well.

I find that the more I learn about people—all sorts of people, from all sorts of places, with all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives—the more I'm able to perceive things more three-dimensionally, but also the more appreciative I am of my personal perspective and background.

Being able to place my own experiences into that larger context has helped me realize that what I've seen and done and shared and benefitted from has value, even—and perhaps especially—within the larger amalgam of cultural and civilizational experiences.

Said another way:

Many of us think of our own elemental components as the vanilla, basic option, while everyone else's life-derived wisdom is exotic and valuable by virtue of being different from what we've seen and done and learned along the way.

As I've met more people, seen more ways of living, and learned more about how folks from around the world, growing up within all sorts of cultures and faiths and historical contexts perceive things—and act upon those perceptions—it's become clear that not only is my way not the default, it's also foreign and unusual and thus, interesting and valuable to many people who are not me.

Expanding our understanding and perception, then, can provide us with broader, more stable footing, but it can also help us focus: that larger context serving as a high-magnification lens through which to view the familiar.

Through that lens it's possible to perceive things we might not otherwise have noticed, including relationships between seemingly disparate concepts and ideas and people, which can in turn help us better appreciate the interconnectivity of everything, and the value of each individual node in that network.

If you found some value in this essay, consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee.

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After far too long, I'll be going museuming this weekend. I sometimes give museum tours on Instagram Stories, and you can page through some of my past tours of museums around the world via the saved Story links on my profile (@colinismyname).

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Projects

Brain Lenses: Number Systems & Mind-Body Dissonance

Let’s Know Things: China's Economic Crackdown

Curiosity Weekly: August 24, 2021

One Sentence News: Info / Subscribe

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Interesting & Useful

Some things to click:

The Sweet Science: Capturing the Capital of Ghanaian Boxing

In this feature from HIGHEnergy, step into Jamestown, the hub of all things boxing in Ghana.

808 Cube 808 Cube is a Chrome experiment that combines the Roland TR-808 drum machine with the Rubik's Cube.

Bathysphere

The Bathysphere was a unique spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934.

1800s Astronomical Drawings vs. NASA Images Comparing astrological drawings from our Digital Collections to NASA images.

Learning Morse Code The Ludwig Koch Way

Most countries have dropped the requirement for learning Morse code to become a ham radio operator. Because of that, you might think Morse code is dead. But it isn’t.

PS: subscribe to Curiosity Weekly (link in the previous section) to receive an email containing just curated links every Tuesday

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I do museum tours to share work that stands out to me with other people who might not otherwise think to visit such places. Keep in mind, though: you don't need to know anything about art, art history, or anything else to have an aesthetic experience. Just visit a place with art (if and when it's safe to do so), expose yourself to the works there, and allow yourself to feel whatever you feel. And note that feeling. Read the little informational signs, if you're feeling ambitious. But don't feel like you need to do anything in any particular way: art shouldn't be a stressful thing, and there's no single, proper way to experience it.

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Outro

My 2007 Prius' hybrid battery died about a week ago; this on the heels of having to replace the catalytic converter (which was stolen), and then having to replace the ABS system (which broke for some reason).

All of which is to say: I've poured enough money into my old, (typically very) reliable little car that I'm keen to actually use it, now that it should (theoretically) work without flashy, angry dashboard lights glaring at me every time I turn it on.

Thus, I'm looking for suggestions for mini-roadtrips around the Milwaukee area. Ideally stuff within a 2-hour drive of MKE, and ideally things that are outdoors or in well-ventilated, pandemic-optimized indoor settings.

I've already got a list of options for MKE that kind folks provided me when I moved here a few months ago, but I'm especially keen to hit the road semi-regularly in the coming weeks, so if you have ideas/suggestions for where I should drive, I'd love to have them :)

Also: feel free to shoot me an email and tell me a bit about what you're up to, how things are going, and what sorts of plans you're making for the coming months.

Even if you just want to rant or ramble or vent, I'm here, and I respond to every email I receive.

Drop me a message by replying directly to this newsletter, or at colin@exilelifestyle.com.

You can also communicate via the typical methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or city sound-map.

If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work via one of these methods: Become a patron / Buy a book / Buy me a coffee

Peter the Great's Beard Tax.