What I've Been Reading | May 2023
Poetry, good reasons for bad feelings, and Greek mythology
Hi – my name’s Caleb. I’m one of the founders of Stoa and have a background in academic philosophy and startups. Welcome to my newsletter.
And here’s a list of what I’ve been reading in April 2023.
📖 Poetry As Enchantment, 99 Poems: New & Selected by Dana Gioia
I noted Dana Gioia’s translation of Seneca's Hercules Furens last missive. His poetry is excellent too. The man doesn’t miss. The following pieces from 99 Poems stuck out to me: “The Apple Orchard”, “Pity the Beautiful”, “Interrogation at Noon”, “Majority”, and “Unsaid.”
Poetry As Enchantment is a short essay, a defense of poetry as spellbinding. The key argument is that poetry is an embodied and auditory art form, not a merely cerebral and written one. Treating it like a purely symbolic work robs it of its power. This is correct and shapes the way I’ve interacted with the stuff.
📖 How To Save The West by Spencer Klavan
A broadly conservative and classical reading on what is going on right now. Spencer is a smooth writer and well-read – this book inspired me to try to do a Stoa Conversation with him. Stay tuned.
📖 Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Randolph Nesse
Re-read. An evolutionary theory of mental disorders.
One way to make sense of mental disorders from an evolutionary standpoint is to consider them adaptations. This doesn’t work for the simple reason that most people with mental disorders are not fit in the evolutionary sense (they do not have a lot of kids). Instead, the approach is to look at how evolution made us vulnerable to psychic pain and dysfunction.
The work challenges assumptions behind much modern talk about mental disorders. In particular, it criticizes the trend of treating symptoms as diseases:
Bad feelings like anxiety and low mood seem obviously abnormal. But they are features, not flaws. Natural selection shaped them because they are useful. They are symptoms not diseases.
This is a great book. Nesse has been thinking about these issues for years. He is practically and philosophically sophisticated. Yes, it has some flaws. I’ll likely write more about it later.
📖 Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis
Amazing book. A Christian re-reading of the myth Psyche and Eros. I love that myth – one of the few with a happy ending (for Psyche and Eros). Lewis’s version is not how I’d retell the story – or even how I see it – but this is done wonderfully.
One of the characters is explicitly Stoic. It can be read as a critique of Stoicism and versions of modern religion.
Apart from these intellectual aspects, I found the book generally a joy to read.
📖 $100M Offers by Alex Hormizi
Easy listening with solid marketing frameworks. It’s direct, with minimal fluff and some good advice. At one point, the audiobook pauses and Alex asks for Amazon reviews in the audio. That’s smart – expect to see something like that more often. Also makes me envious of people going B2B. The grass always greener etc.
Let me know if you pick any of these up and let me know what you’ve read this month.