The Architecture of Happiness A Book by Alain de Botton www.alaindebotton.com A few millimeters apartTragic colorsClassical absurdityIdeas of a good lifeThe people we love+13 More architecturehappinesslife
On Love A Novel by Alain de Botton www.alaindebotton.com Not knowing quite what they meanWe're not children, you knowTo thinkA cruel paradoxShoes+11 More
Beauty and compression An Article by Scott Alexander astralcodexten.substack.com The Buddha discusses states of extreme bliss attainable through meditation: Secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by thought and examination, with rapture and happiness born of seclusion. ...If you could really concentrate on a metronome, it would be more blissful than a symphony. The jhāna is also a strong contender as a theory of beauty: beauty is that which is compressible but has not already been compressed. The Abode of the Unsymmetrical beautysilencesensesattention