Second Thoughts

I’ve written many letters (and emails) the sentiments of which I reconsidered and disavowed. Fortunately, I had already sent very few of these.

Soul Exercise

I like the odd self-improvement books that feature games, and games that feature self-improvement card decks, insight exercises. One of the oddest of all was recently returned to me by a friend who’d borrowed it too long. The book is Kokology, “The Game of Self-Discovery.”

I think we must sometimes trick ourselves into understanding ourselves. Surely the meta of self-understanding is of necessity a magical state. As Arthur C. Clarke put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Insight into one’s own insight—meta insight—is certainly a matter by definition beyond our understanding. (Though we try.)