Sixth Day Six | 2.22.2025
It's been almost a year since I put one of these out! Time flies when you're...doing stuff.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sent one of these. Nearly a year! To be honest, I’ve been somewhat quiet reading the news and too busy with work things to read something, synthesize my thoughts and then share it.
Again, here are six things that I found interesting here lately, including one funny bit. Some things on how we’re better off than we think, why we should try new things and why we should like, read history and stuff.
New subscriber? Here’s what the Sixth Day Six is.
We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It | The New Atlantis
The main point is that even those considered poor today enjoy a standard of living comparable to royalty in the past, thanks to advancements in technology, medicine, and access to goods. It highlights the dramatic improvements in nutrition, lifespan, and comfort that most people now experience—unprecedented prosperity often taken for granted. This doesn’t diminish the need to fight poverty but shows how much living standards have risen.
[Thomas] Jefferson lived in a world of horse-drawn carriages, blazing fireplaces, and yellow fever. But what most separates our day from his is not our automobiles, airplanes, and high-rise apartments — it is that today vast systems provide abundant food, water, energy, and health to most people, including everyone at the rehearsal dinner. In Jefferson’s time, not even the president of the United States had what we have. But few of us are aware of that, or of what it means.
Click here to read the full article.
The Benefit of Doing Things You’re Bad At | The Atlantic
I really enjoy a lot of what Arthur Brooks has to say and his piece here really resonated with me. The past year or so I’ve been trying out things that I think are fun but I’m not particularly good at, including rec soccer and CrossFit. The journey of progressing to get better has had some great carryover for me in other areas.
The embrace-failure principle can even be applied to happiness itself. None of us wants to be unhappy. But inviting sources of unhappiness into life can be extremely beneficial. Resolve not to be afraid of fear, anger, or sadness. They are normal and natural parts of life, after all. Dealing with them openly, though uncomfortable, will improve your skills at doing so. And if you let them, they will help you savor the joys of life all the more.
Click here to read the full article.
Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions | The Onion
It’s The Onion, so obviously satire. But also satire has a way of pinpointing truth better than clearly speaking. Found this article from the past week funny for no particular reason whatsoever.
“It’s actually pretty simple: We just have to ask ourselves if people doing the same thing in the past caused something bad to happen,” Collins continued. “Did the thing we’re thinking of doing make people upset? Did it start a war? If it did, then we might want to think about not doing it.”
Click here to read the full article.
Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Thinking | Farnam Street
I work in marketing and technology, which has what is arguably an unhealthy relationship with risk management and has lived by a “move fast and break things” mantra for the most part. I’ve also helped completely transform the tech stacks at two large companies. Not by moving fast and breaking things. By making change with the “Chesterton’s Fence” mindset at the forefront. This whole article is great.
Many of the problems we face in life occur when we intervene with systems without an awareness of what the consequences could be. While we are well-intentioned, it’s easy to do more harm than good. If a fence exists, there is likely a reason for it.
Click here to read the full article.
Losing Our Religion | Russell Moore
I’ve spent a lot of my book reading time studying the relationship between religion and politics - everyone’s favorite Thanksgiving dinner table discussions. Russell Moore is one of those people in the past decade who, in my view, never really changed. I’ve followed him for a long time and he’s been steady, whether you agree with him or not. This article (written in 2021) points to a big reason he believes a lot of people have left the church. From my own personal observations, I tend to agree with him.
We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches…
…And what if people don’t leave the church because they disapprove of Jesus, but because they’ve read the Bible and have come to the conclusion that the church itself would disapprove of Jesus? That’s a crisis.
Click here to read the full post
Josh Johnson talks about mice
His thoughts here resonated too much with me. Little things keep you humble.
What Am I Reading?
I just started reading The Alchemist this morning—literally just a few pages in. A friend recommended it to me a while ago, and it's been sitting on my Kindle waiting for its turn. I finally decided to dive in today. It's still too early to have an opinion, but I'm excited to see what all the praise is about.
The wisdom of The Onion should not be underestimated.