J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the most well-known and influential authors of the 20th century. Still, it is necessary to approach this writer’s figure for being the architect of The Lord of the Rings and his interesting perspective on art, creation, and literature. Above all, Tolkien was an academic, an essayist of great depth who left many pearls through books and letters. Today I am going to select some of his best tips.
Vanity is useless.
Advice that, without a doubt, many current authors should take into account. Tolkien comments on this in a letter where he assures that he hopes to leave The Lord of the Rings revised and well finished so that the world can throw it away. All books, in the end, in this world, end up there anyway. …
I used to teach at a high school. I have always found myself teaching others while learning from them at the same time. I want to share my experiences with you.
To teach others well, one must be concerned about genuinely guiding and growing others. That is the essence of teaching and helping others develop into better people. People should not be treated as a mere profession. It must be regarded and done as a selfless act.
Teaching requires sensitivity as to when, where, what, and how to teach someone. A lack of sensitivity and a generic approach to pedagogy only spoils the opportunity to provide and gain insight since learning depends on the learner’s nature to a great extent. A sound mentor knows this well.
Teaching is a two-way process, which requires openness and humility on the part of the teacher. Students were a significant source of insight, which helped me improve as a person. …
After I finish Seneca’s book about life, I decided to write about it. Seneca is a stoic philosopher, and stoicism is an ancient school of philosophy. He is famous for his thoughts on how to live a happy life.
Seneca was considered a pretty wise individual in his time. What makes him exceptional is he has very unusual thoughts on happiness, anger, and the shortness of life. His views are taken directly from his essay, which he wrote around the 1st century.
Seneca says as humans, we all desire to live happily. However, he says our minds are blinded to have a clear vision of just what it is that makes us happy. …
Scissors cuts paper. Paper covers rock. Rock crushes.
Rock, paper, scissors is an ancient game of cunning and chance, and when it comes right down to it, a silly, unwinnable two-player game. Or we can say it is a strategic system with a strong psychological foundation. But it is not a random game of chance. If you think it is a random game, that’s why you are not winning. Humans, however, are somewhat predictable. There are some probability and dirty psychology behind the game. That probability knowledge and dirty psychology turn out a few key strategies dominate at rock-paper-scissors and not to wash dishes tonight.
By the way, if you want to learn more about this game, you should read Drew Daywalt’s “The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors” and Len Fisher’s “Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life.” …
Who has not ever been to a city and has been interested in all the historical events? Who has not ever wondered what it would be like to live in another era in history? Well, all these answers can be found by reading hundreds of novels and historical documentation.
Many authors have reflected throughout their writings what it would be like to live in a certain time, writing and transferring society, culture, and customs of it more or less clearly. Some have done it through contemporary writings, and others have done it a posteriori, based on other previous authors’ writings.
An obvious example is found when treating and analyzing ancient history. The treatment of ancient Greece and Rome stand out for their attractiveness and contributions to Universal History. Thanks to novels and historical stories, we can put ourselves in the shoes of a Roman legionnaire, stationed in Britain or Germany, fighting for the emperor and the empire. …
I love writing about the subject, mathematics, that we love back in school. I believe life is all about math, but I will not write about the math that most people think of today. This article will not about the Pythagorean theorem where a² + b² = c² or e =mc², or the unique number pi, which is almost 3.141559.
Do you remember that CPCTC thing from your Geometry class? You needed to prove all those theorems about corresponding parts of congruent triangles. Probably you thought who cares if they’re congruent or not.
Anyway, I believe life is all about a mathematical approach. Every single thing in life can be approached mathematically, and the great thing about mathematics is mathematics formulas can be proven. …
The reading universe has its specific jargon, a whole series of terms used among readers to refer to individual attitudes and customs. So, if we talk about bibliomania, we will refer to an obsessive-compulsive disorder for collecting books.
If someone is a bibliophile, they feel a deep love for reading without incurring madness. With a slightly more pessimistic reading, we find ourselves before the term bibliokleptomania, which refers to the desire to steal books compulsively. In other words, it may be funny, but after all, no one likes having a book stolen.
Have you ever been the author of such a crime? Indeed sometimes you have kept a book from the library or from a friend who has lent it to you and to whom you have never returned it. But don’t worry, due to a specific error, you cannot be considered a bibliokleptomaniac. On the other hand, stealing books worth $ 200,000 is considered compulsive theft. …
You can gain more knowledge by reading books, but you cannot read anything. Not all of them will help you improve your life or develop a more precise understanding that makes you stand out from others. You have to read what everyone else is not reading and think in ways that others do not.
For that purpose, I started thinking about how smart people read books. Then I found Bill Gates’ words on Youtube. I learned a lot of things from his words, and I decided to share them here.
Bill Gates doesn’t let himself start a book that he is not going to finish. He knows that when he is reading, he has to be careful that he is concentrating. Mainly, if it’s a non-fiction book, he takes a new knowledge and attaches to the knowledge he has. …
For most people, emotional growth would be somewhat easy to achieve as long as you truly desire it. We slowly learn that the world does not revolve around us, but we are still essential for its well being. So we start watching our actions. As we go down that path, we learn to be tender at times and stern when required to be. We learn to express our emotions and put them into words that will resonate with those around us because they come from deep within. Next, we go on on our journey of constant growth.
If we are somewhat socially retarded like me, then firstly, we need to dig through the enormous pile of repressed feelings and thoughts in our head, then sift through all the inexistent reasons for our unhappiness. After that, we will learn how to be social again, and stop freaking out every person we meet, perhaps by talking like a doll with no expression or forgetting to relax our facial muscles, and we don’t look like we are about to murder someone. Besides, to fight all the demons that crawl out from the recesses of our mind, we ventured too far and shook the wrong nests. We are juggling other things. That could go on forever if we don’t stop ourselves. We get where this is going. …
Over the years, numerous studies conducted by various and influential universities have shown the benefits of growing with books. These benefits are obtained during the initial stage of our life since childhood. The human body is much more receptive to stimuli, as well as learning. In this way, the assiduous reading of books gives children a much greater probability of increasing their linguistic and social skills during the first years. On the other hand, those children who cannot read to the same extent see these same diminished capabilities.
Reading is not only necessary during the first years of life, but it is vitally important that throughout their development, young people continue to train and read, from literary novels and didactic manuals to essays or opinion articles. Exposure of adolescents to books is an essential part of their cognitive and social development. The journal Social Science Research, an online platform with an electronic library with more than 900,000 research articles, published a study a few years ago on the importance of growing up surrounded by books. It affirmed that reading is an integral part of social practices that promote literacy, numeracy, communication, and technology skills. …
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