Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

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Then, thirdly, I think thinking in terms of generations rather than just the immediate next quarter or next year — I think that also would enable us to manage the planet in a better way, because lots of the planetary things that we’re interested in and paying attention to have a longer-range dynamic than just the immediate year or two: the “short now,” we call it. I worked at University of Georgia in the science lab, and there was an Apple IIe there that was used in the lab for data stuff. I got a modem for it and I started to send information from the little catalog I was making to a local newspaper to have it typeset. But I discovered that there was this bulletin-board world on the modem. There was this online thing happening. I used the computer to telephone the modem into these bulletin boards where there was these conversations happening. For the first time, I felt that there was this organic technology. There was something very community-, Amish-barn-raising-like about it. COWEN: How many people asking for advice actually want advice? And to the extent they don’t, what is it they’re looking for? COWEN: Oh, sure. In more ordinary life — say, I won’t use a microwave. I feel it makes people lazy in their cooking.

Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Don’t focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. The journey we’re on doesn’t necessarily have a fixed destination; rather, it’s about moving in the right direction. We don’t truly reach a definitive endpoint, and for most of us, the majority of our lives are spent striving to become more authentic versions of ourselves. Presenting wisdom in this form enhances their memorability. It’s often said that one tends not to remember entire books but rather distinct sentences within them. My work here is akin to a compendium of such memorable sentences. When it comes to experiences of trauma, it’s evident that their distribution isn’t equal – some individuals bear a heavier burden than others. However, the critical aspect isn’t the adversity one faces, but how one responds to such adversity. This reaction, rather than the events themselves, forms the narrative of our lives. COWEN: But do you ever find that, say, you need to write a piece to figure out what you think about something, or maybe it’s the act of painting that is giving you the idea of the image, and there’s no way to reverse engineer that?

Joanna: Well, it's interesting, you say subterranean. I mean— Do we even know what it is that is broken in ourselves when we make our art? As the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and the author of several acclaimed books on technology and culture, Kevin Kelly has long been known for his visionary ideas and insights. But his latest work, Excellent Advice for Living takes a different approach, drawing on his own experience and wisdom to offer practical tips and advice for navigating life’s challenges.

You will thrive more — and so will others — when you promote what you love rather than bash what you hate. Life is short; focus on the good stuff. And there’s an interest, too, because I’ve been there and so I’m curious about — it’s like having met someone: you’re vested into their story. After visiting a country deeply, you’re now vested into their story. KELLY: Trying to do too much. I’ve learned a little bit better, but I am very ambitious in that, particularly if I’m with other people, like my family. I have to repeatedly try to accomplish too much.KELLY: [laughs] Advice? I think a good way to use advice is to try to use it as a reminder. Most of the advice — here’s a piece of advice: is that everything good has already been said, but we just need to say it again. People weren’t listening. COWEN: Now, my favorite creation of yours probably is this three-volume set: It’s called Vanishing Asia. If I understand correctly, it was a 50-year project based around roughly 200,000 photos; it’s three volumes. It’s one of the greatest picture books ever produced, possibly the greatest. That in turn makes it one of the greatest books ever produced. Joanna: Oh, no, I'm excited. And there is indeed a lot of excellent advice in the book. So I've pulled out some particular quotes for writers to explore further. And the first is: “Draw to discover what you see. Write to discover what you think.”

COWEN: Do you think it would have ended for not being profitable enough, or just slave owners would have given up all that wealth? So the medical kit was one thing. Other . . . I had a few little — duct tape! — tools that are essential to keeping things going. Some super glue. COWEN: Christianity in particular: How will it change? The idea of a demiurge will become more important? A piece of advice that I would be hesitant to talk about is — here’s one: I think you should have as many kids as you possibly can. That’s a piece of advice I did not include in the book.

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It's harder to think different when we're connected together. And I find that traveling, it being physical, having those hurdles that your body has, and being outside of your head and actually immersed in the world, and using your hands to do things, it ignites different ideas. It ignites ideas that you can't get just by thinking about things. I’ve learned not to travel around. When I go somewhere, I’m very content to not travel within a country but to travel around where I am in that, to exploit that. Still, I want to keep going. For the sake of others and my own sake, I’ve tried to slow down a little bit. But I keep making the mistake of trying to do too much. The number of people that died, the division that it caused, and everything else was wrong, and that it would have been better to have left the South to secede. I recently came to that conclusion.