Nicolò

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last.21 That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone …”
― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology

“Imagine what would happen if people cheered you on for a little stumble rather than humiliated you. Imagine how you’d approach things if you treated them as experiments, where failure would be just as valuable as success. Might you now see the game of life slightly differently? Suddenly, the stakes are lower. And suddenly, you can afford to play around a little. If your goal is to find a fulfilling career and your hypothesis is that a corporate role might be fulfilling, then your data collection process might be to sample careers through internships and job placements. With an experimental mindset, an internship that you end up hating wouldn’t be a ‘failure’ or a ‘waste of time’; it’d just be another data point to help you realise that that’s not what you want. If your goal is to build a successful business, then your data collection process might involve testing different business ideas, products or services. With an experimental mindset, a product launch that doesn’t meet expectations wouldn’t be a failure or a disaster; it’d just be another data point to help you refine your strategy and better understand your target market.”
― Ali Abdaal, Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You

“was now further south, the farthest from home I’d ever been in my life. Scotland seemed so very far away right then. The hum of life on the Ramblas enveloped me like a new stage set does an actor treading the boards for the first time. It was absorbing. Back then, I was full of curiosity, thirsty to see and feel new places. I knew I wasn't the first – or last – person to visit them. And in reality, they weren't even really so far away. But for a young working-class boy from small-town Scotland, who had never really been abroad, this was the biggest adventure.”
― Mark Johnson, Changing Trains: One boy's journey of discovery across 1980s Europe

“The real problem with robots is not their own artificial intelligence, but rather the natural stupidity and cruelty of their human masters.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century