Circle Three: the sixteenth
Beethoven's Deafness. Jumping height. Comfort.
Welcome back to Circle Three!
Last week's most-clicked link was on the unwritten rules of coffee chats. Enjoy this issue!
Cheers,
Dan
So what’s Circle Three? For new readers, the name comes from Seth Godin’s Linchpin, where he posits that the internet has created a circle beyond family and business: a tribe. Where knowledge is exchanged and our gifts are shared.
Thanks for being a part of this circle. Let’s create something.
One Big Idea
“A comfort zone can be a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” — Anonymous
Growth comes with age and with newness. Learn to recognize when you are growing and other times when you might need to leave the safety net of your comfort zone. If the scales are too tipped toward comfort or discomfort, how can you adjust?
Circles of Thought
Ever found yourself looking through the mail in your apartment building’s entry, forgetting if you should be expecting something? We are constantly bombarded with stuff, and The Atlantic probes into why that might be a problem, and how we can effect change moving forward.
In one of my favorite reads: explore how Elon Musk designs his own brain software and other mental models of successful leaders. Read and explore how you can unlock “a hidden, secret level in the game of life.”
Icons define brands and need to be usable across platforms. Nucleo is an app to collect and organize customizable icons for your team. Great applications for business teams and designers.
This mini-documentary from the New York Times studies people jumping from a 10-meter tower. Having stood on a 10-meter platform, it’s certainly higher than it looks. It’s entertaining to watch people’s reactions to something that might be intimidating. Would you make the jump?
FocusMate offers virtual coworking to be productive and accountable. It brings into the home the idea of working quietly in tandem with a stranger to get work done. It’s an interesting replication of why people like to work in coffee shops, where social pressure and wandering eyes can inspire a work ethic.
Inner Circle: Beethoven’s Silence
How silence and loss create connection.
Beethoven was completely deaf by the time he died. And he raged against his deterioration into deafness, smashing pianos and grieving his hearing loss.
But as I peer into his life, his situation holds great lessons.
"It seems a mystery," Arthur Brooks writes in his Washington Post op-ed, "that Beethoven became more original and brilliant as a composer in inverse proportion to his ability to hear his own — and others’ — music. But maybe it isn’t so surprising."
He would produce arguably the best music of his career after losing his hearing completely. He could hear neither the Ninth Symphony nor the standing ovation that met it after the performance.
During this snowy winter, I think about the two lessons from Beethoven: growing from loss of identity and embracing silence.
Beethoven had to navigate his loss of hearing that struck at the heart of who he was. It forced him to grow. He learned to respond by developing a new style, using different notes, and listening to the muse in his own head. He had no guarantee of success; he couldn't know his music would be cherished for hundreds of years. It had to be exasperating. He even threatened to end his life. But he grew into his limitations and created masterpieces through the struggles.
The silence, that especially comes during the winter snows on the East Coast this year, offers space to turn the volume down on the outside world and focus inward. It forces me to listen to the voice in my own head and offers space to sharpen my skills.
Beethoven lost his "greatest faculty" in his deafness and created Ode to Joy. We may find ourselves sitting at home dreaming of socialization instead of composing great symphonies, but let Beethoven inspire us to embrace the silence and grow to hear our own voice.
State of the Circle
Dan is a mechanical design engineer interested in the intersection of design and technology. I love making connections between concepts and passions. Start a conversation and reply to this email with what you’re working on.
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