Five Things (Including the school Elon Musk's children attend)

1.
On My Essay

One of my lecturers responded to my essay about Why I’m Studying in the UK. I had referenced her module – Mindset Lab. She mentions that she shares the same curiosity as I do on how to reconcile pure creative thoughts with commercial pursuits. And she mentioned the papers she published last year on the subject. I couldn’t resist looking for one of them. I found one - Art-Identity Founders, Venturing Processes, and Entrepreneurship: Implications for Policy.

In the essay, she explores the tension under the skin of mostly purist artists who are constrained (“condemned” seems more suitable) to survive within traditional entrepreneurial modes and how policies do not usually accommodate their peculiarities. It would be great to find further papers that examine this reality especially the temperamental underpinnings that foster the tensions.

2.
The Portuguese (Re)Constitution

I found that this piece of work just won a Grand Prix in the Design category at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. Every year, I look forward to the best pieces of creative works that are awarded at the festival. Back then, I used to make predictions about them, sometimes curated on Pinterest, before the event. I haven’t followed this year’s own as much but this one has flown around my radar, and I like it. Perhaps, because it relates to books. The craft and message are impressive.

(I am certain that I would still curate some of the works that resonate with me. Before then, all the winning works are here)

3.
Beauty Matters.

I love Beauty (capitalised, yes). It’s an intimation I recognise when surrounded or confronted by it. I’d say it bothers on the spiritual. One may wonder what concept of Beauty I refer to since everything, subjectively, could be described as beautiful. This line of thinking tends to admit every form of cultural expressions. To some philosophers or social scientists, Beauty may be a function of the era which the subject under appraisal, is judged. This normative argument limits Beauty to time. If that’s the case, why do certain subjects appeal to us across generations? Old architectures, old literature, old paintings, old musical compositions etc., hint at something within us that makes us revere them. Modern society seems to struggle to conceptually understand Beauty since everything is reduced to functionality, quick fixes, aided by capitalist dynamics.

It's the reason this Twitter thread is deeply enjoyable. It explains Beauty in a simple and engaging way. I’m reminded of one of my favourite documentaries and books by Sir Roger Scruton. The documentary Why Beauty Matters articulates the meaningful and transcendental value of Beauty. Possibly the most beautiful documentary on the subject, which follows his book Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged, and Beauty. I had shared my view about Culture Counts here.

4.
Synthesis

This is a school after my own heart. There are often discordant conversations around the current school system. Pundits claim it’s no longer relevant since it traces its legacy to the Industrial Revolution which seems incompatible with today’s realities. On the other hand, my fascination with child development takes me into rabbit holes where I’m either unearthing theories of raising resilient and well-grounded children or stumbling on some cool ideas.

I had discovered that Elon Musk had started a school for his kids at SpaceX. Called Ad Astra, it was an unusual school designed to nurture children’s curiosity and getting them to become builders through collaboration and self-driven challenges. This tends to be the promise of most new age-y schools but not many seem to be true to the value proposition. Ad Astra has scaled into Synthesis enrolling kids between ages 8-14 into a world that foster the childish sense of wonder, teaching to think while having fun.

Watch this charming video of the children explaining the school. Articulate children. (And the school has an evangelist, Ms.Fab, whose newsletters I always look forward to. PS: I’ve harassed my friends with children to subscribe and I sometimes remind them to read new publications.

5.
Hunter

I was just strolling around Product Hunt when I found a chrome extension that helps users to find emails related to a domain. A simple and elegant idea. I installed it and while fiddling with it, I was able to get the emails of some top people. Wawu!

Thanks for reading. Five Things would be a quick curation of fascinating stuff. Hopefully, readers would discover new things. Please remember to share.