I’m just coming off of my latest obsession – and here is Tyler Cowen’s post on the topic.

(Discussing his sort of retirement from music, written from memory)

I’ve always lived by the principle that if you’ve seen Cincinnati you don’t need to see Cleveland

Meaning that if something is no longer fun, then stop.

From this interview

There are crumbs of everything inside us – all you have to do is be antiquated with yourself and you will know the whole world.

From this column

That was the basic cultural theory of America: that our Anglo-Protestant forebears were so deep-dipped in the Protestant work ethic — and so constantly mindful that they might be called before their Maker at any moment to make an accounting of their lives — that they didn’t need a king bossing them around. They bossed themselves around, like enlightened people do — that’s classical liberalism in a nutshell.

From the Great War on YouTube

Peace is within sight, but not within reach

From Tom Lehrer

Like many contemporary philosophers he enjoyed giving advice to people happier than he was

From the same song by Dan Bern

This song was made by algorithms for you and your peers – please like it – it’s called the future is here

and (somewhere in the song, refering to global warming)

Isn’t it ironic that we’re going to be killed by dinosaurs after all

The desire to teach is much stronger than the desire to learn

I’m not sure where I heard it, and it is probably a bit more apt if you substitute “lecture” instead of “teach”.

From Tyler Cowen’s conversation with Elisa New

COWEN: Why would anyone ever have wanted to be a Puritan?

NEW: That’s a great question. That’s a terrific question and one that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Being a Puritan is a great way to live a psychologically very candid life, [laughs] if what you want is actually not to be repressed at all.

We think of the Puritans as very repressed, but instead, you want to be marinating in and giving a lot of attention to all of your own insecurities and sense of, “I goofed that up. I messed that one up. Oh, that didn’t work out very well.” If you want to cultivate your inner life, it’s really great to be a Puritan.
If you want to live a kind of high-octane life of extremes, you want to feel the exultation of a day like this in New England, where the green of the grass and the blue of the sky announce to you that God’s creation is the most eloquent of all creations. If that’s what you’re after, that kind of intensity, New England Puritanism is a really good religion for you.