What’s this?
Once a fortnight, I write to you about finding out the perfect form of normal things.
We are surrounded by more objects that are mere shadows of the thing that could be better. By figuring out what makes something truly great, we can start to make these tiny little improvements.
For example, once you’ve had cultured butter, eating uncultured butter feels like you’re just watching the shadow of butter being projected onto a wall.
Mostly that looks like:
Explaining the difference between cultured vs uncultured butter
Examining what makes a delicious cookie
Working out what makes a good bank to put your money into
But it also looks like:
Methods that I’ve found useful to discover new things (like looking for what you don’t like, and finding the opposite of that)
Highlighting others who have found a perfect form of something (like pasta)
Sometimes just a conversation about how we are given a sunset for free every evening and they are different every time, and why would we strive to pay for beauty when we get this bloody show most nights?
Basically, this is a project in being unduly considered about the things you surround yourself with. Not in a Goop way, but in a way that makes you a little bit more thoughtful and excited about the things you surround yourself with in your life.
What are you going to get from this?
I’m trying to give you a few small tweaks and tricks to improve your life through the things you surround yourself with. You’ll be the only one in your friend group who knows the true glory of having cultured butter in your fridge, as opposed to those uncultured lumps of yellow fat.
By subscribing, once a week you’ll get some recommendations on specific things (maybe frozen pizza?), or a toolkit on why certain proverbs won’t go away and we keep just repeating them, and why they’re probably useful for us.
You might not necessarily get a product recommendation every week, but you’ll get familiar with creating ideals on everyday things, and strive towards making the little world around you a little better.
Why “Perfect Forms”?
As a 12 year old, I read this a kids intro to philosophy book, and the idea of “Perfect Forms” was introduced to me: the idea that (for example), there is a perfect version of a chair, a cat, a book, or a haircut.
By focusing on what the ideal version of something is, we can start to strive for whatever it is we need to make the world slightly better. And you’re already doing it. Like, when you say that something is too salty, you’re striving towards a better form of that meal by identifying there should be less salt. See?
By identifying what the ideal is for you, the lens through which you view the world becomes clearer: we can be more thoughtful about what we let into our world and how we interact with and ultimately enjoy these things.
