ReadGlobe · morning brief · archive
Wednesday 21 October
1 · The text
How do I love thee
The last three sonnets, ending on the one everybody half-remembers and nobody reads whole.
2 min · Elizabeth Barrett Browning · Sonnets from the Portuguese · 1850 · public domain
I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall To hear my music in its louder parts Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s Or temple’s occupation, beyond call. But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot To harken what I said between my tears, . . . Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot My soul’s full meaning into future years, That they should lend it utterance, and salute Love that endures, from life that disappears!
XLII
My future will not copy fair my past— I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried By natural ills, received the comfort fast, While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled. I seek no copy now of life’s first half: Leave here the pages with long musing curled, And write me new my future’s epigraph, New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!
XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
2 · One idea · Strategy & decision-making
The OODA loop
An Air Force instructor offered every pilot the same bet.
John Boyd would start a mock dogfight in the losing position, with the other pilot on his tail, and promised to win in under forty seconds. Pilots called him Forty Second Boyd. Later he turned what he had learned into a loop: observe, orient, decide, act, and round again.
Picture two people arguing in a meeting. The one who takes in the new fact and answers first usually decides where the argument goes.
You do not need a faster plane if your decisions come faster.
In one line. The OODA loop is a decision cycle — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — repeated continuously. In a contest, whoever runs the loop faster and orients more accurately gets “inside” the rival’s cycle and disrupts their ability to respond.
Worked example
Fighter pilot John Boyd, who devised it, argued a pilot who cycles Observe→Orient→Decide→Act faster forces the opponent to keep reacting to outdated information — “getting inside their OODA loop” — and wins despite a slower aircraft.
How to use it, and where it fails3 · One number
People without enough food, world
200512.0%
20248.2%
1.5 times lower than in 2005.
Progress here has stalled more than once; a falling line is not a law.
Source: Our World in Data, world estimates, read 2026-09-24.