You are listening to Curiosity Curated Shorts. I am Zong.
Sometimes, we feel caught between the sheer scale of global events flashing across the news feed and the everyday reality of maintaining mental clarity. On one hand, immense forces shape our world – economic shifts, geopolitical tensions – and it's easy to feel dwarfed by their complexity. On the other hand, there's the internal landscape we all inhabit – trying to find focus, managing the inevitable stress, maybe searching for something like meaning or just a bit of calm in the noise.
That intersection is what I want to briefly reflect on today: the connection between those vast external systems and our own internal quest for understanding and stability. How do we even begin to grapple with something as intricate as global trade policy, while also trying to cultivate some inner peace?
This week, as I consumed a few different things: an essay by Stephen Miran on restructuring global trade, a Sam Harris podcast discussing equanimity, an Uncommon Knowledge episode with Thomas Sowell on facts versus rhetoric, and Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, a common thread emerged - how we might begin to approach the challenge of navigating complexity, both external and internal. While these are not answers to the quest for inner peace, perhaps they are useful markers on what I’m realizing will be a much longer journey.
00:23 Episode Intro
02:13 Understanding External System: Rethinking Global Trade
09:00 The Inner Compass – Seeking Stability and Meaning
12:25 Bridging the Macro and Micro
15:32 Outro
Sources:
A User's Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System by Stephen Miran.
#408 - Finding Equanimity in Chaos, Making Sense Podcast with Sam Harris.
Uncommon Knowledge | Thomas Sowell: Facts Against Rhetoric, Capitalism, Culture and Yes, the Tariffs.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Opening Music: L'incanto sospeso by Paolo Buonvino
Closing Music: Who Am I by Dario Lupo
For any feedback, please contact: cur2zong@gmail.com
