Sunday Scoop #25
#Wittgenstein #Creative Morning #Morgan Library #Fort Green Orchestra
Sunday Scoop is a weekly dose of creative inspiration, cultural discoveries, and personal reflections that are shaping my creative journey 💚
👋 Hiya!
Summer heat is grilling the city. After weeks of rain, the heatwave feels like stepping into an oven. Reminder to protect your scalp! (I’ve gone down a rabbit hole about how scalp health is directly tied to wrinkle formation.) Also, caveat: this week’s scoop is longer than usual. Blame the healthy dopamine — it was a full, expansive kind of week.
1️⃣ Wittgenstein's war notebooks and why learning languages expands our worlds
2️⃣ Finding my creative tribe at CreativeMornings (plus Morgan Library magic)
3️⃣ Reimagining classical concerts for a new generation — Fort Greene Orchestra
✨ Quote That Stuck :
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein <Private Notebooks>
I found this book by accident at McNally Jackson while browsing staff recommendations. As someone who gets lost in early 1900s history, I couldn't resist keywords like "WWI," "war journal," and "philosophical.”
Wittgenstein, one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI. His private notebooks from 1914-1916 contain both philosophical entries and deeply personal notes. Only three of six notebooks survived the war.
During the pandemic, scholar and translator Marjorie Perloff realized these notebooks had never been fully published in English—especially the coded, private sections. She included helpful commentary that provides historical context and insight into Wittgenstein's thinking and life. His entries are short and sometimes opaque. But the tension between inner life and outer chaos — war, death, sexuality, logic — makes the reading strangely intimate.
This quote, which later grounded his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, lingered with me. Maybe because I’ve always felt pulled toward languages. I’ve studied Japanese, Spanish, and now French — badly, inconsistently, but with curiosity. I keep coming back to them because of how they expand my perspective. Learning a new language isn't just about words—it's about absorbing different ways of thinking, understanding cultural nuances, and glimpsing how other people navigate daily life.
Reflecting on Korean language (my native), it has incredibly expressive vocabularies for nuanced feelings and everyday experiences compared to English. Take 시원하다—you can use it for the good pain and relief from a massage, or that refreshing, satisfying feeling when you finish a hot stew and it clears and soothes something inside you. Then there's 눈치. It’s the ability to quickly and accurately read a room, to pick up on unspoken cues. It is culturally fundamental in Korea, considered essential skill for navigating relationships.
I wouldn't have appreciated these without learning English. Each new language keeps my mind open to different ways of seeing the world, different ways of accessing information and perspective. So I'd encourage anyone interested in languages not to give up. We don't need mastery—we're expanding our worlds through the act of learning itself. This is something AI can't replace.
👀 What Caught My Eyes: Morgan Library & Creative Morning
I’m doing a little “rejection challenges” lately. This week’s challenge was to push myself to go to in-person events and talk to at least one stranger. I made it to two CreativeMornings events: a Make Time club, and the NYC chapter’s speaker event at Morgan Library.
The NYC chapter event was my first, and it felt special. Early Friday morning (8:30am), I was initially overwhelmed by the crowd, but once we got seated, I chatted with the person next to me and felt immediately welcome.
The speaker was Liza Donnelly, a writer and cartoonist for The New Yorker. Her talk centered on how creativity grows from consistent experimentation, engagement with the world, and having the guts to challenge both personal and social limits.
What touched me most was the opening chat—how CreativeMornings founder Tina Roth-Eisenberg radiates warmth and love to the community, and how the audience replicates that energy by connecting and supporting each other. The community is now global (70+ chapters) with amazing free programs like virtual field trips and local clubs. After many attempts to find my tribe, I feel like I've finally found a place where I can build genuine connections, not just network. Big gratitude to CreativeMornings.
Quick note about the Morgan Library: I've lived in NYC for 12 years but finally visited this week for the event. It started as J.P. Morgan's personal library in the early 1900s, and his son turned it into a public institution. The collection is extraordinary—illuminated manuscripts, original literary and historical manuscripts, rare books, music scores, drawings. It's paradise for people like me who love collecting books and documents.
The library itself is stunning: velvet-covered walls, ceiling art, and triple-tiered bookcases that make you feel like you're in a movie. There's currently a Jane Austen exhibit showcasing her literary achievements through artifacts, manuscripts, letters, and drawings. Her cursive handwriting was beautiful, but I could barely read 😂 I learned she wasn't well-paid for her novels alive—there's a receipt she kept that shows the challenges women writers faced then.
Anyway, both experiences reminded me why showing up—physically, genuinely—still matters!
📍 Field Trip: Fort Green Orchestra Season Finale
I discovered this lovely local orchestra in Brooklyn while searching for Tchaikovsky symphony concerts. Founded by
, an Israeli conductor and violinist, they're redefining classical concerts—making them more accessible, intimate, and immersive.The concerts take place in a beautiful Brooklyn cathedral, with affordable tickets and shorter runtimes (just one symphony), making it easier for newcomers to feel engaged rather than overwhelmed. I overheard the people behind me, surprised at how many younger folks were there, genuinely excited about classical music. I love these kinds of initiatives that large institutions can't easily replicate. It's creative problem-solving in action.
The season finale featured Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. I usually let my thoughts flow during classical concerts, and there's always a moment that touches something emotional. Symphony No. 5 is quite dramatic and it took me on a complete emotional journey. The first two movements are dark and brooding, while the finale is uplifting and energetic. There's a repetitive melody in the second movement that brought tears to my eyes. Each movement seemed to invite different thoughts to surface.
If you haven't listened to his symphonies, please try this recording, and in person if you can. I'm definitely joining Fort Green Orchestra’s next season for Beethoven symphonies 🎻
✨ Until Next Sunday...
Hope you made it through til the end! I warned you this would be a long one 😉
Inspired by CreativeMornings' mission and energy, I applied to host a reading club through their local club program in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. If you're nearby, love reading, collecting quotes, or just want to connect over books, please come by!
📆 Sharedlines Collective Reading Club | July 8 | 8:15am - 9:30am
If this Sunday Scoop resonated with you, the best compliment would be to share it with one person who might enjoy this or restack it for others to discover 💚