Dickie's Digest - Vermont, ODESZA, and Exponential Learning
Friends,
I’ve spent the last few days honing my admittedly poor but steadily improving snowboarding skills. What’s great about my current skill level is that I can notice an improvement after every single run, which creates a very satisfying and enjoyable feedback loop. This period of exponential improvement that occurs early on while learning a new topic or skill is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. We’re all quite familiar with what comes after this initial learning phase— a bit of frustration as our improvement slows and we begin to understand just how little we know and how far we have to go. Wouldn’t it then make sense to spend a lot of our time becoming proficient at a lot of different things, spending as much time in this very satisfying initial learning phase? But at the same time, overcoming the frustrating phase that follows is the crux of becoming exceptional (versus just proficient) at anything we do. This trade-off is something I’m exploring in an essay that I’ll link to in the future. If you have any thoughts on this idea, definitely shoot them my way.
Place I’m Exploring
Stowe, Vermont
The last four days I’ve been posted up in Stowe, Vermont tearing up the slopes on my snowboard. And by tearing up I mean doing my best to make it to the 4 pm apres-ski in one piece.
There were 14 inches of snow on Friday, which lead to absolutely elite snowboarding conditions for the entire weekend.
Right off the mountain there’s a famous local bar named Matterhorn. The second the lifts close, this place starts pumping live music and quickly fills up with locals and tourists all looking to kick back after a long day of riding.
It was at the Matterhorn where I tried a beer called the Heady Topper, brewed at the Alchemist brewery right in Stowe. This beer is the fifth-highest rated beer in the world for good reason— truly the most delicious beer I’ve ever tasted.
If you’re looking for an epic mountain and a really neat town, I can’t recommend Stowe highly enough.
What I'm Listening To
A Moment Apart by ODESZA
While on the mountain, my headphones primarily shuffled this album by ODESZA. I’ve been a fan of their music for some time, often looping it in the background while I’m working or studying.
ODESZA’s music is difficult to describe in words, but the dreamy melodic beats were really fun to listen to while boarding. Late Night, Bloom, and Line of Sight are my favorite three.
What I’m Reading
Very Short Introductions - Wikipedia
Given that Stowe was a seven-hour car ride away from New York, I had plenty of time to get some reading done. I recently stumbled upon the Oxford University Press series of titles called Very Short Introductions.
The Very Short Introductions are a growing collection of roughly 700 books, each giving a short, 75-or-so-page introduction to a single topic. The topics cover nearly anything one could think of, from Architecture to Modern Cooking and everything in between. Each book is under 100 pages and gives you the 20% of information that allows you to understand 80% of the topic.
So far, I’ve found the editions on Philosophy, Modern China, and Consciousness particularly interesting. The entire list can be found here— let me know if you read one of them!
End Note
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Have an epic week,
Dickie