A work-in-progress for me: shifting my response to someone describing a situation from suggesting or projecting emotions onto them (“that must have been great/difficult/…") to just being curious (“how was that?” or “how did you feel about that?").
Posts in: Life
Time Management for Mortals
Here are my very rough notes from Sam Harris | #289 - Time Management for Mortals, followed by a summary generated by GPT-4. Introduction It’s common to feel like there’s always something about our life that isn’t quite right, like we’re always trying to fix something about it It points to a fundamental issue: understanding our finitude (finiteness of existence) of around 4000 weeks, we will all be dead any minute Our choices therefore matter, as with finite time every time we choose to spend a portion of time on one thing, we’re choosing not to spend it on a million other things instead However, this also means that with so many options of things to do (articles to read, career ambitions, places to visit, people to see/date, etc.
Appreciating vulnerability
(This post was originally written a few weeks ago and later adapted for a blog.) After attending a conference last weekend and seeing a friend’s post on Instagram yesterday, I was thinking about how much I’ve missed several people who I’ve had the joy of meeting or getting to know better in recent months. It feels like I’m finally internalizing what it means to truly love a friend, just appreciating their presence in a more complete sense, being there for them without any consideration of reciprocity, seeing myself reflected in their eyes and learning what matters to me in the process.
Unshackling culture
I recently found this quote by George Orwell, which I had previously seen in another context without proper attribution. Given his participation in the Spanish Civil War, this is perhaps less surprising: The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. – George Orwell I would generally agree, and think that one of the most impressionable evils that can be inflicted on a population is denying their telling of their own story.
The Evolution of Trust
I found out about this through an acquaintance today, and I would highly recommend checking it out (if it’s still accessible here): The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case It’s a rather playful interactive demonstration of building and undermining trust featuring “players” that employ simple strategies. For example, in a simple game in which two players both equally gain if they cooperate, but a cheater wins a higher reward if they fail to cooperate while their partner cooperates, which player’s strategy wins out?
Book: Submission
This is a review of Submission (originally Soumission in French), written by Michel Houellebecq and translated by Lorin Stein. I originally wrote this review on May 2, 2020 immediately after reading the book, when it was posted to Goodreads. First of all, I think this book was surprisingly captivating, almost always readable despite a bit of slow going through some of the passages filled with names in French literature I was unfamiliar with.
Lost in translation
I sometimes feel like Santiago in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, or at least a version of him that hasn’t quite made it to the ending and perhaps never does. That would be the main character (whose name I had to look up), for those who have also forgotten nearly everything about the book. The only bit I did remember was the general story arc of the character traveling around the world and eventually finding what he is looking for where he started, so apologies if I misremember anything beyond that.
(Foolish) optimism
It doesn’t seem easy for some Americans in these times, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum, to remain confident about the country’s future. At least, not compared to those in the last few generations based on what was always indicated to me growing up. Here are a few very brief and incomplete notes that I came up with while writing to a friend in defense of my optimism regarding the future of the US, slightly adapted.
Quick reflection
I got a little behind on the last few posts, so here’s my chance to catch up. I hope that if I average one post per day the effects of this 100 day experiment will largely be retained. I thought I would at least take this chance to log my experience so far now that it’s been a week of consistent posts (and a few days of less-than-consistent ones). I wasn’t really sure what to expect at the outset, and I likely wouldn’t given that the few people I found online who had tried something similar all seemed to start from different places and varied in their experiences as well.
Nature walk
I joined my flatmates for a quick walk in the woods today upon one’s invitation, having sequestered myself in the apartment for days without direct sunlight and only the breeze afforded by my window. I would like to think this situation was only the result of conscious self-quarantining to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, but a part of me knows that I have also adapted, growing comfortable with my life admidst the walls.