Welcome to the Time Capsule — a weekly newsletter that serves as both my public journal and personal scrapbook. I write about the things on my mind and close to my heart in hopes that those who read it find value and enjoyment in it, and perhaps some solace too.
💭 Quote(s) of the Week
There are, Nastenka, though you may not know it, strange nooks in Petersberg. It seems as though the same sun as shines for all Petersberg people does not peep into those spots…let me tell you that in these corners live strange people—dreamers. The dreamer…not a human being, but a creature of an intermediate sort. For the most part he settles in some inaccessible corner, as though hiding from the light of day; once he slips into his corner, he grows to it like a snail, or, […] that remarkable creature, which is an animal and a house both at once, and is called a tortoise.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, in White Nights
✏️ La Première Semaine
Travelling to a foreign world, where one’s native tongue is as useless as the stub of an old pencil, is a revealing experience. You are stripped bare of all the customs and routines and social webs that predicated your former life. What is left is you: your smile, demeanour, and attitude towards living. Your daily experience is what you choose to make it. You can cower inside, reminiscing on your former world which was so integral to your former self, or you can burn away the man you were before, allowing your new world to build you again.
There are small moments of solace along the way. The niceties of life — a coffee with milk in a café, a familiar song played by a street artist, an old book returned to — allow you to rest for a moment in the familiar past. But only for a moment.
The buildings are old here on Rue des Argentiers. In fact, all the buildings are old here in the city centre. There is a leisurely pace here, but at the same time a real zest for the good things in life. Everyone drinks. A lot. The daily coffee is a ritual shared by all people on the economic ladder, and the Bordelaise wine flows like water from the taps. Good food and good wine are very important — a critical component of life here. Even at a budget location, one expects a certain level of quality. If the temperature of the Grave rouge is off, you send it back. The Brazilians, practicing their capoeira, add more flavour to the night as the 2nd [and 3rd] bottle of wine are engaged. It is an interesting life. I question its sustainability, but the locals seem unflustered. It is simply the way here.
📸 Photo(s) of the Week
📖 Book of the Week — Santé Publique Année Zéro by Barbara Stiegler & François Alla
On March 17, 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown began in France, beginning a long period of suspension of democratic life. For the two authors of this essay, a philosopher and a public health practitioner, this opposition between health and freedom was fueled by a new authoritarian liberalism contrary to the spirit of the "Charter of Ottawa for the promotion of health (1986)", and called into question the progress of recent history. As a result, the pandemic experience has, in addition to other negative effects, transformed the field of public health into a vast field of ruins. It is essential to reaffirm the centrality of the social and environmental determinants of public health, which should never have ceased to direct policies. This book offers the first great critical reading of the Covid years in France.
💡 Food for Thought
La vie commence là où finit votre zone de confort.
🔭 Sunday Best
Prayers — for guidance, direction, clarity & wisdom
Lord, I have a hard time deciding what to do. I am afraid to make the wrong decision, and this torments me greatly. Therefore, I turn to you and ask for your help. Show me your will in this decision. Give me peace of mind in the next steps! Thank you for your inspiration and advice. I am sure you hear me, and you hear my heart approaching you. I look forward to delivering on your promises and words. I seek your will every day as long as I live the life you give me. I know you will open the doors that need to be opened and you will close the ones that need to be closed. I go boldly, knowing that you are going with me!
Amen.
Why do narcissists find conspiracy theories so appealing? — par Cichocka, Marchlewska et Biddlestone
Recent developments in the study of narcissism suggest that it has three components: antagonism, agentic extraversion, and neuroticism. We argue that each of these components of narcissism might predispose people to endorse conspiracy theories due to different psychological processes. Specifically, we discuss the role of paranoia, gullibility, and the needs for dominance, control, and uniqueness. We also review parallel findings for narcissistic beliefs about one's social groups.
God, Gratitude, and Being at Home in the World — the 2021 Annual Charles Gore lecture by Miroslav Wolf
We will likely never feel at home in a disenchanted world in which there is no place for love and gratitude in public life. Anthony Kronman has recently argued that the Christian faith, with its imposition of impossible gratitude to God on its adherents, is the main culprit for the emergence of such a world. Leaning on Martin Luther, a pivotal figure in the history of the West whom Kronman considers the main culprit for our predicament, I will argue that joyful gratitude — a sense that we have received goods that weren’t owed to us but that are essential to our very being — is at the heart of the Christian doctrine of creation.
À bientôt!
AT