9.7, Taste > Noise
Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
— Marcus Aurelius
The Fourth of July is always loud, literally and metaphorically. Fireworks. Playlists. Group chats. BBQs and burgers. But afterwards, I noticed something.
Spending time with family and friends this past week, sharing food, watching the kids play, having actual conversations without a screen between us, brought me back to what matters. I wasn’t online much. And I didn’t miss it.
Instead of scrolling, I was watching my daughter savor her first taste of strawberry ice cream (she calls it “pink”). Listening to a friend’s story about their dog’s crazy shenanigans. Sitting on the beach, doing absolutely nothing.
It clarified something for me. It affirmed my commitment to live an intentional life.
And it made me think of an article I read a few weeks ago that’s since gone viral: “Taste Is the New Intelligence.”
It argues that taste (real, grounded, intentional taste) is no longer about aesthetics or luxury or social class. It’s about attention. Selection. Depth.
In a world where everything is available, what you choose to include in your intellectual, visual, and emotional diet says more about your mind than your résumé ever could. Taste becomes a kind of intelligence, a proxy for perception and discernment. What you pay attention to matters, now more than ever.
Taste isn’t just what you wear, read, or pin to a moodboard. It’s what you linger on.
What you let shape the texture of your thoughts. What you choose, consciously or not, to return to.
What we admire, what we reach for, what we allow to shape our days, these things aren’t incidental. They’re expressive. They’re revealing.
In this busy, noisy, algorithmic world, what you pay attention to becomes the foundation of who you are. What you choose to surround yourself with, visually, intellectually, spiritually, isn’t just decoration. It becomes a declaration of intent.
And that brings me back to Marcus Aurelius.
The most powerful man in the world, sitting alone in a war tent nearly 2,000 years ago, writing to himself:
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
Same old problem. Same solution:
Pay attention to what you let into your mind.
The Roman Stoics understood this: that taste, properly understood, is not frivolous, it’s formative. It’s not just personal preference. It’s a philosophy.
You must learn to understand what you want; what you desire, not what others tell you to want.
And then you must, to borrow Marcus’s words, “concentrate like a Roman” on the things you have decided are important.
So what does that look like for us, practically?
Here are three small, intentional shifts to try this week:
1. Audit your inputs.
Scroll through your feeds, saved posts, open tabs, book lists, playlists, or podcasts. Do they reflect who you want to become? If not, delete. Unfollow. Mute. Make space for better inputs.
2. Follow someone with unusually good taste (like me :0).
Not necessarily the most popular or polished, but someone whose worldview feels nuanced, contrarian, rich, or precise. Let their perspective influence your own.
3. Let your taste lead you.
Swap one block of default consumption (a TV episode, a scroll session) for something that stretches you: a novel, a documentary, an hour alone with your thoughts and a journal.
Because if your soul is being dyed by the color of your thoughts, then what you give your attention to, and who you spend your time with, isn’t incidental. It’s the foundation for everything.
Anyways, on with the links
The Links
…hoarding knowledge is no longer impressive. What matters now is what you do with it. How you filter it. How you recognize signal in the noise….
When anyone can make anything, and everyone is shouting into the void, the question isn’t "what should I make?" but "what should I ignore?"
This is where taste becomes essential. Because curation isn’t just about art or objects—it’s about inputs. What you read. What you follow. What you trust.
Algorithms respond to what you consume, so your inputs shape your outputs. If you watch drama, it feeds you chaos. If you seek signal, it feeds you depth. The algorithm isn’t biased—it’s obedient.
That’s why taste is a responsibility. It’s not just about what you like. It’s about what you *allow in.*
Taste is how you protect your mental environment….
Because taste isn’t just what you consume. It’s what you amplify. It’s what you normalize. It’s what you signal to others is worth attention.
You are what you pay attention to.
Still on the subject of taste, here’s what the New York Times has deemed the 100 best movies of the 21st century. I would have put Arrival as my #1 choice. It’s a movie I keep coming back to. And here’s its reader-submitted list of 100 in response.
Listen: Chaka Khan Tiny Desk Concert
Tip: Review Google results about you (your address, email, phone number!, etc.) and ask for those to be deleted. It’s a Sisyphean task, but we can at least make it a bit harder for the scammers and overlords.
Hollywood's Destruction of the Mind: Hedy Lamarr's Strange Inheritance
Hollywood had little patience for a thinking starlet. The studio system thrived on pliable beauty, and Lamarr learned quickly to play the part. She wore Adrian gowns like armor, posed in stills that emphasized angles over expression, and followed the choreography of glamour down to the tilt of her chin. But off-screen, she created an inventor's bench in her Beverly Hills home….
During the Second World War, she co-invented a frequency-hopping guidance system with Antheil, aiming to prevent Axis forces from jamming Allied torpedoes….
The Navy dismissed it. Officially, the system was ‘too bulky.’ Unofficially, as Antheil later believed, the words ‘player piano’ were enough to render it laughable to military brass. What they missed was a compact vision of non-interference that would, decades later, become the foundation for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology.
Summer Sounds: Week 2 - The Ladies of the Groove
This week, we turn up the volume on the women who made us move. The legends and the overlooked geniuses. Loleatta Holloway’s shimmer. Chaka’s fire. These are the women who gave us rhythm, romance, and reasons to dance in the kitchen.
In Quotes…
Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man— on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can— if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered , irritable. You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.”
―Marcus Aurelius, Meditations