The Tara Seshan Canon

What do you share with people looking to understand your worldview?

Brice Marden, Blue Sutra Drawing, 2010

One of my former colleagues is a cool and mysterious individual. When I started working with him, he’d casually drop references to esoteric philosophy papers and little-known fashion brands. At some point, I had to confess I had no idea what he was talking about. That’s when he mentioned his “canon.” “My canon is the most influential set of things that I have read. It explains my most important references and foundational ideas,” he said. They were a mix of large books, philosophical treatises, short essays, and interesting videos. I didn’t read everything (6 philosophy books is a college course, ok) but I did read some of the short essays and watch a couple videos. I loved being introduced to something new while learning more about my colleague. I felt enriched.

I suppose that we’re the average of the 5 people with whom we spend the most time, so why not really try to expand that circle? By reading the “canon” of friends you admire, you can deepen your relationship and even become more like them. I recently received (an abbreviated) canon from a thoughtful and brilliant friend who works in a very different field than me (philanthropy and international development in Africa.) I loved learning about his foundational texts. Maybe, as I grow more familiar with them, some of them might become my texts, too.

I think a wide-ranging set of influences are important. They come together in very surprising ways. My favorite painting by Brice Marden (the same artist who painted today’s header) paints abstract art that was influenced by his reading of Zen koans and calligraphy. He paints the poem in Japanese calligraphy, and slowly takes away lines, abstracts the characters, and uses color in unique ways to create something beyond the initial characters.

So to that end, here’s an abbreviated version of my canon. I reference these essays and ideas all the time. I am intentionally keeping this list to short and more approachable essays (not that I am a high-brow philosopher, I’m more thick-eyebrows girlie.) It feels weirdly vulnerable to share this list. I hope they spark something interesting for you.

Please send me your canons — comment or reply to this email? I’d love to read them, especially if we’re already friends (it’ll deepen our friendship!)

1. Dave Chang’s Theory of Deliciousness: The most important idea I take from this essay is the idea that you can remix and create interesting new ideas by stripping them down to their most basic components and finding substitutes. I love Dave Chang’s idea to strip the dishes down to their most essential flavors in order to “make Bolognese but only using Korean ingredients.” It resulted in something totally new. This is one of the best guides for creativity that you could read.

2. The Inner Ring, CS Lewis: This essay, phrased in a way that only CS Lewis could do, reminds me of what is important while trying to strive and achieve. Don't strive for the wrong things. 

3. Building Princess Saving Applications: A game must teach you new skills only when appropriate, get you to care about a goal, and of course help you have fun. Why are games so good at this when software is so poor at it? This talk teaches you how to build fun software applications.

4. "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" by Ted Chiang: As I wrote in a longer post, I love the idea that character is the moving average of our actions.

5. Secrets by Peter Thiel: Peter Thiel is the canonical modern source on having these types of heterodox beliefs.

6. Podcast: Andre 3000 and Rick Rubin: My favorite moment of this podcast is when Andre talks about his criteria for being proud of past work, while retaining a critical edge. "It should be my best reflection of my taste at the time,” he says.

7. “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace: “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” I think about this all the time.

8. On Worldly Wisdom by Charlie Munger: I like this part in particular, on when technology creates opportunity: 

   The great lesson in microeconomics is to discriminate between when technology is going to help you and when it’s going to kill you. And most people do not get this straight in their heads. But a fellow like Buffett does. For example, when we were in the textile business, which is a terrible commodity business, we were making low-end textiles—which are a real commodity product. And one day, the people came to Warren and said, “They’ve invented a new loom that we think will do twice as much work as our old ones.” And Warren said, “Gee, I hope this doesn’t work because if it does, I’m going to close the mill.” And he meant it. What was he thinking? He was thinking, “It’s a lousy business. We’re earning substandard returns and keeping it open just to be nice to the elderly workers. But we’re not going to put huge amounts of new capital into a lousy business.” And he knew that the huge productivity increases that would come from a better machine introduced into the production of a commodity product would all go to the benefit of the buyers of the textiles. Nothing was going to stick to our ribs as owners. That’s such an obvious concept—that there are all kinds of wonderful new inventions that give you nothing as owners except the opportunity to spend a lot more money in a business that’s still going to be lousy. The money still won’t come to you. All of the advantages from great improvements are going to flow through to the customers. Conversely, if you own the only newspaper in Oshkosh and they were to invent more efficient ways of composing the whole newspaper, then when you got rid of the old technology and got new fancy computers and so forth, all of the savings would come right through to the bottom line.

9. On non-instrumentality: This is a nice illustration of a very important concept: don’t think of relationships as instrumental to your goals. People can tell. I think it seems redundant to anyone outside of tech, but was revolutionary inside tech ('you mean, you can make friends not just to get ahead?")

10. Sarumans versus Radagasts: In the face of founder-mode and lots of billionaires believing that the world rises and sets on them, I believe in the deep magic. I care about the illegible, the weird, the bottoms-up. This is an excellent counter to the Peter Thiel essay on the Straussian Moment.

Now, send me your canons!