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The Slow Lantern

No. 14 · Winter

Classic Ideas writer

Harriet Lowell

Priya reads old essays on the tram and retells them in plain words, always paraphrasing and never overselling. She enjoys finding where a four-hundred-year-old thought still fits a Tuesday afternoon. She says her library's returns desk taught her more about patience than any book did.

Notes

  1. 01 Classic Ideas

    Chesterton's Fence, Explained With a Garden Gate

    Before you pull down a fence, find out why someone put it up. G.K. Chesterton's old idea is simple, a little humbling, and it fits an ordinary Tuesday better than you'd expect.

    9 min
  2. 02 Thinking Tools

    The Dunning-Kruger Trap Is Smaller Than You Think: A Gentler Way to Check Your Own Confidence

    Feeling surer than you should about something new is not a flaw. It is what happens when you have not yet seen how big the subject is. Here is why it happens, and three small checks that keep your confidence honest.

    9 min
  3. 03 Learning Hard Things

    Getting Unstuck on a Maths Problem: A Patient Method

    When a maths problem won't budge, four plain steps can help: say it in your own words, shrink it, draw it, and walk away for a while. Here's why each one works, and why being stuck is simply the middle of the job.

    10 min
  4. 04 Craft of Attention

    The Two-Minute Walk Before the Hard Task: Does It Really Help?

    A short walk before demanding work seems to help some people, some days, and the reasons are more modest than the folklore suggests. Here is what we can sensibly say about why, and a fortnight-long way to test it on yourself.

    9 min
  5. 05 Learning Hard Things

    Learning a Hard Thing in Twenty-Minute Pieces

    A hard subject usually yields to small, regular sessions better than to one heroic weekend. Here is why that works, how I run a twenty-minute session, and where the method might not suit you.

    9 min