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The Observe and Rapport Newsletter
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A weekly guide of my favorite books, articles, products, and lifestyle habits.
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May 24th, 2024 | by Kyle Brennan
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Thought of the Week
"If you think someone is normal, you don't know them very well.
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Your job is to discover their weird genius." - Kevin Kelly
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Small talk at cocktail parties can be exhausting. We tend to enter conversations with a particular goal in mind - either to pass the time or to get it over with as quickly as possible.
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But as Kelly suggests, if we approach each conversation with the idea that each person has something unique to offer, we can learn and enjoy those small interactions that much more.
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One of my favorite things to do with new coworkers is have them present a 5-slide PowerPoint presentation about their personal lives.
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- Slide 1: Work/school history
- Slide 2: Where they live, where they grew up, family, significant others
- Slide 3: Likes / Dislikes
- Slide 4: Doppelgangers or hidden talents
- Slide 5: Your most embarrassing story
It's amazing how often these presentations create new friendships. You may work with someone for years and never that they are a massive Formula 1 fan, that they give tennis lessons on the weekend, or that they were born in a different country.
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It provides an opportunity to appreciate the uniqueness of each of your colleagues.
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To me, nothing is cooler than someone who is unapologetically nerdy about a particular thing - pottery, boxing, trading stocks, whatever. I love seeing people do something passionately, and chances are, the person you sit next to every day has something truly spectacular that they've never brought up in conversation before.
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Kevin Kelly's bits of advice are so poignant, I revisit them often for practical wisdom I can apply to everyday situations.
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What I'm Reading
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I will admit, I gave up on this book about halfway through.
Multiple people have told me that I must check out Chuck Palahniuk’s books (Fight Club, Choke, etc), but I think I made the unfortunate mistake of starting with one of his less popular novels.
This book is written in first person mangled alien-English dialect. It was manageable for a while, but after the fourth day of brain-straining reading, I no longer looked forward to opening up the book for the next chapter.
While I was curious to finish the plot to know what happened, I have a hard and fast rule if I’m not enjoying a book after a few days, I give up. Life is too short to read bad books, and there are too many good ones out there that I could spend my time reading.
Plot: Pygmy is focused on the experiences of Agent Number 67, a 13-year old secret agent from an unnamed totalitarian state. Agent Number 67 along with 11 other young men and women take a journey to America disguised as foreign exchange students with the ultimate goal of executing a terrorist attack named Operation Havoc upon the American society.
Rating: 1.6 / 5 ⭐️
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Instantly Catalog Your Personal Library
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If, like me, you have a large collection of books stored on bookshelves throughout your home, you can quickly and easily index every book on every shelf in just a few minutes by taking a photo of each bookshelf or set of shelves.
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After taking pics of all your bookshelves, just wait a few minutes for your phone to OCR and index all of the text from the spine on each book.
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Then open your photos app and search for any partial book title you own. Your phone should give you the option to view “Text found in photos” and will highlight exactly where the book sits on your shelf.
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(This all applies to iPhones, but I’m assuming that Android has the same functionality)
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Create a Literary Pinterest
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Sublime is a personal knowledge management tool crafted with soul.
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It allows you to digitally compile all of the beautiful words and insightful advice you may find online. Everything you save in Sublime becomes a card, and these cards can be organized into collections - much like Pinterest for quotes.
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There's also a communal aspect to Sublime; you can follow other users and search public collections for cards to add to your library. I love that it encourages connections, synchronicities, and learning. I will import all of my Readwise book highlights and use Sublime as a literary Pinterest.
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The app is still in beta, and there is a waitlist, but Recomendo readers can skip the line and test it out for free. If you do sign up, here’s my profile — follow me and I’ll follow you back!
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What I'm Listening To
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You probably know actor Terrence Howard from his work in Crash, Iron Man, Empire, or Shirley. What you probably didn't know is that he may also know all of the secrets of the universe???
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Howard has 97 patents and waxed poetically with high-level knowledge of physics, chemistry, and gravity.
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He's either having a schizophrenic break, or he is on of the smartest people on the planet. I, for one, had trouble following what he was talking about throughout the whole episode, but some of his theories certainly had me questioning common parlance.
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I thought it was interesting and I'm glad someone is thinking outside the box with unconventional theories. I don't think an actor like Terrence Howard is going to change the world with his ideas and theories, but he may be a stepping stone that someone else hears to invent something useful for humankind. At least he’s waking up the world a bit, but in his own way.
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Judge for yourself. It's a wild ride. Get past the first 20 minutes or so and get your mind blown.
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Quote I'm Pondering
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"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice India yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heat, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightests faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls."
-- Carl Jing
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Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss the lack of public unrest during the election year, the accuracy of Aldous Huxley on predictions about cultural details in the future, why its important to look at societal dilemmas through an inverted perspective, and the current music, podcasts and books that they recommend.
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Books mentioned in this episode:
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Check Out My Amazon Favorites Bookstore
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Browse my favorite book selections hand-curated by me. I also earn commissions so if you buy anything, those earnings get reinvested right back into this fancy newsletter ;)
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Kyle's Published Work
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33 Life Lessons on My 33rd Birthday
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Thirty-three was a big one. Mostly because I became a dad. Our daughter was born on New Year’s Eve — a fitting arrival for a kid destined to reset everything. It’s been a beautiful, if slightly sleep-deprived blur ever since. I’ve only been “Dad” for less than ten months, but if I’m being honest, I’ve been preparing for the role for over …
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Depth Over Downloads: Why Spending Time with Books Still Matters
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Everyone wants faster information. But no one asks if faster information leads to better understanding — or a better life. In the age of AI and tweet-sized wisdom, we’ve confused information with transformation. But there’s a massive difference between knowing what a book says and being changed by it. The Delusion of Instant Learning In a recent interview, political journalist Ezra Klein admitted he once believed …
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The Jack Reacher Approach to Never Being Caught Off Guard
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There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.’ Either way, nothing happens.” —Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia I don’t read much fiction, but I’ve always been hooked on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. He’s not your typical …
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