Hey everyone! Welcome to The Daily Spark's Roundup. Each week, I gather a collection of interesting things that caught my eye. I hope this week's picks spark your interest!
An Emersonian Guide to Taking Control of Your Life
by Arthur Brooks
Arthur Brooks delivers a thought-provoking guide inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here are the key takeaways:
1. Be a private person; never share details of your life with total strangers.
2. Don’t conform to any conventional wisdom; question everything.
3. Make independence your goal; walk alone when necessary.
4. Don’t take the easiest path; choose to do hard things.
5. Get the cultural garbage out of your life; focus only on what edifies you.
6. Change your mind as you see fit; make no apologies for doing so.
7. Commit to complete honesty; this includes honesty with yourself.
8. Do not count on external forces for your happiness; look within.
The Curious Case of Flatfish
Flatfish have both eyes on one side of their head, puzzling biologists for ages. Darwin’s critics even used them to challenge his theories. Check out the fascinating story: Flatfish Offer an Evolutionary Puzzle: How Did One Eye Gradually Migrate to the Other Side?. (Great idea, but the article fell a bit flat😂.)
See’s Candy Ice Cream Sparked My Taste Buds!
Can't wait to get my hands on this! See’s Candies and McConnell’s Fine Ice Creams are launching four limited-time ice cream flavors in time for National Ice Cream Month. See all four special flavors here.
Malcolm Gladwell's New Podcast: Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage
Episode one will have you on the edge of your seat. Listen here.
Selected Sections from “Courage”
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The child is as much in danger from a staircase, or the fire-grate, or a bath-tub, or a cat, as the soldier from a cannon or an ambush. Each surmounts the fear as fast as he precisely understands the peril and learns the means of resistance. Each is liable to panic, which is, exactly, the terror of ignorance surrendered to the imagination. Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes fear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again.”
“Courage consists in equality to the problem before us. The school-boy is daunted before his tutor by a question of arithmetic, because he does not yet command the simple steps of the solution which the boy beside him has mastered. These once seen, he is as cool as Archimedes, and cheerily proceeds a step farther. Courage is equality to the problem, in affairs, in science, in trade, in council, or in action; consists in the conviction that the agents with whom you contend are not superior in strength of resources or spirit to you. The general must stimulate the mind of his soldiers to the perception that they are men, and the enemy is no more. Knowledge, yes; for the danger of dangers is illusion.”
Society and Solitude, not published until 1870, is comprised of lectures turned into essays that Emerson gave over many years as he toured the country. Check out the full writings on courage here.
This weeks roundup is so cool… each one is fascinating.
Just love Emerson. This Spark makes me want to read all these suggestions.