i read this on Yom Kippur and it helped a lot
I. ON SAVING TIME
Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius:
1. Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words,—that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. 2. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands.
Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. 3. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity,—time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.
4. You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practising. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and manner of the loss; I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man. My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.
5. What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.[1] Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell.
—Seneca, translated by Richard Mott Gummere
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I. ON SAVING TIME
Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius:
1. Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words,—that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. 2. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands.
Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. 3. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity,—time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.
4. You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practising. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and manner of the loss; I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man. My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.
5. What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.[1] Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell.
—Seneca, translated by Richard Mott Gummere
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excited to read all these! highly recommend ted kooser’s splitting an order! beautiful, ordinary poems for a complicated time
everyone’s book picks, btw:
@iscoe, splitting an order by ted kooser
@ettinger, confessions of an advertising man by david ogilvy
@anuatluru, animal farm by george orwell
@arakharazian, john & paul by ian leslie
@kneelingbus, understanding media by marshall mcluhan
@freialobo, close to the machine by ellen ullman
@left_pad, tools for conviviality by ivan illich
@jackiehluo, games: agency as art by c. thi nguyen
@jacksondahl, seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees by lawrence weschler
@Jhovde2121, dataclysm by christian rudder
@barsisyphus, seeing like a state by james scott
@kasrak, creativity, inc. by ed catmull
@katiewav, seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees by lawrence weschler (2x!)
@thesephist, diaspora by greg egan
@m1shti, the journalist and the murderer by janet malcolm
@sebkrier, a canticle for leibowitz by walter miller
@kickingkeys, spacesuit: fashioning apollo by nicholas de monchaux
we had a lot of fun with this one, excited for the next
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good dad alert. also: good airplanes
@steveruizok ok my time has come! Flight tracker for my 4 year old to follow planes as they approach LGA. Tried to film without doxxing myself into oblivion.
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i have watched this an unreasonable number of times and am now prepared to argue that the Mac dock is one of the great narrative forms
Notion
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quick read: “McDonald’s secret sauce is really commercial surveillance." always interesting to see what companies know about us. (and fun to request the data.)
wired.com/story/mcdonalds-bu…
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fyi
A Progress 96 cargo craft will launch from Kazakhstan at 12:15 p.m. EDT Wednesday (9:15 p.m. Baikonur time) and dock Friday at 2:37 p.m., bringing supplies to the Expedition 75 crew. @NASA+ will stream both events live. More... go.nasa.gov/4cuWvwC
ALT The Roscosmos Progress 92 cargo spacecraft is photographed in March 2026 from the International Space Station as it flies into an orbital sunset 267 miles above Earth’s surface.
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cool
Researchers at Cornell have created an interactive map identifying 1.8 million individual trees in New York City, with a new approach that could optimize the placement of trees for cooling in cities around the world.
In the study, researchers identify the types of trees using satellite imagery as well as on-the-ground datasets and 3D data collected with lidar, short for light detection and ranging. The approach was 82% accurate overall and higher for common types of New York City trees.
It’s the first “wall-to-wall,” citywide map identifying trees in natural areas and other unsurveyed areas, which together constitute an estimated 65% of the city’s canopy and have not been accounted for on previous maps.
The research team will use the map to determine which trees are best for cooling, and the data could inform a host of other planting decisions where the type of tree makes a difference, from reducing allergens to managing invasive pests.
Read more: news.cornell.edu/stories/202…
ALT In a new interactive map of New York City, researchers were able to identify 1.8 million trees, 1.4 million of which had never been surveyed.
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why are we slaughtering wild horses?
nytimes.com/2026/08/20/us/tr…
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truly incredible
Perspective is everything. 🌍 Gazing down at Earth from above offers an incredibly profound one, as does looking back at the @Space_Station from a window in the Russian segment. Our crewmate Anna Kikina captured this incredible footage during @astro_anil and my spacewalk on Aug. 6. Even suited up in our bulky spacesuits, we look like tiny little worker bees at the hive given the massive scale of the station.
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