Keep some souvenirs of your past, or how will you ever prove it wasn’t all a dream?
~ Ashleigh Brilliant
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Souvenirs →
What’s our five-paragraph essay? →
The article I’m linking to below is about AI â wait don’t run away. It made me actually think about: What is the purpose of the five-paragraph essay? How does one write such a thingâwhat exactly am I doing when I go through the soul-sucking process of doing it?
So you don’t have to read the short, linked article⌠but I recommend it.
The five-paragraph essay is a mainstay of high school writing instruction, designed to teach students how to compose a simple thesis and defend it in a methodical, easily graded package. It’s literature analysis at its most basic, and most rigid, level.
~ Emma Camp, from Rethinking the 5-Paragraph Essay in the Age of AI
Back to the question in my title:
In podcasting, what is our five-paragraph essay?
The five-paragraph essay is a blunt tool, sure. But it is clearly one, important but small, piece of a large puzzle called “learning to write well.” You do it very early in “learning to write well” and then you leave it behind.
What is our five-paragraph essay?
Any one of the following could be our five-paragraph essayâŚ
- Write a terrific, single, “hook sentence” from a podcast episode.
- Write a paragraph of 3-5 sentences from a podcast episode.
- Find at least one quotable portion from a podcast episode.
- Write a list of takeaways in a specific style and with specific formatting.
Why do I say those things? Because once I understood how to do them by hand, turning to tools like AI is not cheating. The AI does a solid B+ (ref article above) job, which I can then finish to my A-level.
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Good questions →
You can’t say that it’s a question of national peculiarities or even entirely political peculiarities. I mean, I think when the technological and applied scientific means are developed they just tend to be used. I mean, I think one can say that the whole history of recent times [âŚ] shows that if you plant the seed [âŚ] it grows and it tends to grow according to the law of its own being, and the laws of its being are not necessarily the same as the laws of our being.
~ Aldous Huxley, from 1961: Aldous Huxley on the power of TECHNOLOGY!
It’s interesting to hear an author speak about his own ideas. I’ve read Brave New World and a selection of his essays (Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow). That short videoâI’m linking to YouTube, I hope I don’t regret that in another decade ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻâcontains a few questions; Huxley presents more questions than answers. And they’re just as relevant more than half a century later.
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100 issues of my “7 for Sunday” email →
As some of you know, I write a weekly email that isn’t related to my podcasting efforts. On Sunday, Sept 1, issue 100 of 7 for Sunday will go out. (See https://7forsunday.com to sign up or to simply read any issue.)
From the first issue of 7 for Sunday, I’ve always wondered if I’d make it to 100, and I’m glad I stuck with it. Some weeks it was a right struggle to get it done. In a very real sense, knowing there were readers out there gave me a goal to get through some dark days. Yes, external validation is not a great idea. But also, the life preserver that saves you is necessarily thrown by another.
Thanks to a suggestion from 7 for Sunday reader Wayne, the centennial issue is about books. 7 books, of course. Each book is presented with bibliofervor (the urge to leap out of one’s chair, race to find a friend, and press a book into their hands, see Issue â 60.)
Sometimes people express amazement at all that I get doneâ
Please realize that I struggle just as much as everyone does to create. And, boy howdy!, do I hope that any part of anything I ever do somehow helps you, in even the slightest way, to move forward!
I appreciate your time and attention, and I don’t take it for granted.
É
Inlet to the soul →
The eye is the inlet to the soul, and it is well to beware of him whose visual organs avoid your honest regard.
~ Hosea Ballou
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Everyone else →
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
~ Haruki Murakami
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Benevolence →
Benevolence and self-direction (described below) are usually near the top of the values we all share. Each of us also has an internal hierarchy of values, where we rank our values based on those we find extremely important to those that donât really motivate us at all.
~ Chris Bailey, from There are just 10 basic values
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Benevolenceâin my opinionâonly pops up on our radar once we have enough time, energy and resources. Whether or not it’s clear in that moment, that’s because we, for the first time, manage an honest look back and actually realize all the places where we’ve received help from others. So that’s nice for ourselves, but also for the entire human race.
É
Decide →
Decide! There is nothing in the world so pitiable as an undecided man, who wavers between two feelings, hoping to reconcile them, and does not understand that nothing can unite them.
~ Goethe
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Victims of our own technology →
Just a couÂple of days ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweetÂed out a video proÂmotÂing, âthe new iPad Pro: the thinnest prodÂuct weâve ever creÂatÂed.â The response has been overÂwhelmÂing, and overÂwhelmÂingÂly negÂaÂtive: for many viewÂers, the adâs imagery of a hydraulic press crushÂing a heap of musiÂcal instruÂments, art supÂplies, and vinÂtage enterÂtainÂment into a sinÂgle tablet inadÂverÂtentÂly articÂuÂlatÂed a disÂcomÂfort theyâve long felt with techÂnolÂoÂgyâs direcÂtion in the past couÂple of decades. As the novÂelÂist Hari KunÂzru put it, âCrushÂing the symÂbols of human creÂativÂiÂty to proÂduce a homogÂeÂnized brandÂed slab is pretÂty much where the tech indusÂtry is at in 2024.â
~ Colin Marshall, from Aldous Huxley Explains How Man Became âthe Victim of His Own Technologyâ (1961)
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Setting aside the marketing brouhaha, I was gobsmacked by the phrase, “Crushing the symbols of human creativity to produce a homogenized brand-slab [âŚ]” Yes, “homogenized brand-slab” is brilliant and feels like a line of dialog from THX-1138. But I was really fish-hooked by the “symbols of human creativity” part. I talk a lot and often these days about creativity, but I’d never really considered the question: What are symbolsâimages, place holders, iconographyâof creativity?
Because it doesn’t seem to make sense to me why a paint brush, or a trumpet (for example) represent creativity. It’s the mind of the person that does the creativity part… and so: What are symbols of creativity?
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Knowing →
This is the game we play: The only thing you really know is what you can put into words.
~ Alan Watts
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