🔥 🧌 Frankenstein’s Monster, Simone Weil on attention, a new lovely note tablet, a note ✍️ to myself about parenthood

#65: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.

Welcome to the 65th edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.

And Happy Halloween 👻! May your bedtimes be early & your sugar crashes be brief.

This week we get spooky with an amazing podcast on Frankenstein’s Monster. Simone Weil reveals the greatest gift we can give. And I share a new tablet & a post-bedtime note.

And I’m going to say this out of context, but 1.) it’s my newsletter and 2.) I mean it:

Life is truly incredible. How lucky are we? Soak up as many seconds as you can.

With love,
Chris

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Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:

1. a new perspective 🧌 on Frankenstein’s Monster

2. Simone Weil 👩🏻 on attention

3. a note tablet 📝 I’m surprisingly enjoying

4. a note ✍️ to myself about parenthood

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1.) a new perspective 🧌 on Frankenstein’s Monster

Philosophize This! has consumed the vast majority of my listening hours since I found it in May. There’s rarely a time when I don’t have it on in the car. Stephen West’s short, engaging episodes continue to open my eyes to the wonderful world of philosophy.

And so I was caught off guard when a recent episode featuring Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein popped up in the feed. Having never read the original, I figured it was a kind of cutesy Halloween stunt.

Boy, was I wrong.

Not only is it one of the (maybe the) earliest works of science fiction ever written (and by a woman in 1819!), it’s also a timeless pieces of philosophy that’s provides an incredible framework for how we can think about technology in the modern world.

It also happens to be an incredible story!

I’m going to leave it at this—but do yourself a favor (especially if you’ve never read the book) and give this episode a listen.

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2.) Simone Weil 👩🏻 on attention

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

Simone Weil

As distraction becomes our near-perpetual state of being, attention becomes an ever more precious gift we have to give.

As I remind myself, put the phone down. Gladly miss out.

Truly be with whoever you’re with or whatever you’re doing.

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3.) a note tablet 📝 I’m surprisingly enjoying

On a recent business trip, I encountered three separate folks with the reMarkable Pro Tablet (best described as a Kindle you can write on). I had never seen one before.

Two were kind enough to let me play around and scribble a few test notes. This proved sufficiently intriguing to result in one arriving at my door the following week.

For years, I’d bounced back and forth between digital and paper notetaking. The digital medium always left me unsatisfied, and before long I’d return to pen and paper. But then the disorganization of my messy college-ruled notebooks would inevitably lure me back to digital.

I truly thought I was going to return the reMarkable—especially since I’ve been trying to move away from unnecessary technology—but instead, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It’s increased my pen-to-(digital)-paper writing. Plus I can actually find notes and expand on the ideas!

So, instead of losing ideas in a pile of half-filled notebooks, I can capture them all in one place—still written by hand, still personal, just finally… retrievable.

Plus the thing is pretty “dumb”. There is no browser, no apps, no avenues for distraction. It’s there for free-hand notes/sketches & reading/noting PDFs. That’s it.

It’s actually been really nice. I’m starting to love the thing. Enough to recommend anyone who has their interest piqued to give it a try.

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4.) a note ✍️ to myself about parenthood

Parenthood and fatherhood are among those rare, beautiful things in life that hold both ends of a spectrum at once.

You have exhaustion and energy. Love and resentment. Purpose and listlessness.

It’s all of these things and more—often experienced within the same millisecond.

And to deny the painful parts is to deny the whole.

Timeless wisdom? Or a tired dad’s post-bedtime ramblings? You decide 🤔.

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Two last things for you this week:

1. Give your attention generously to someone this week. All of it.

2. Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥

With love,
Chris

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