“Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of a world’ — the collapse of an old philosophy of life.” ― Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols

Stories about investing, tech, and you

Ideas to help you make sense of the world

The best finance blog you've never heard of. 10/10 stories, 5/10 art. Check it out 👇🏼

Why keep it to 30

A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept - slope_vs_starting.md

A simple exercise

Read the full transcript of the speech "How to Guarantee a Life of Misery" by Charlie Munger.

Algorithms distort the world. They can trap us in local maxima, and restrict the kind of random serendipity that makes our personalities liquid. On Tuesday, I had lunch with a friend who invests in artificial intelligence startups. To my surprise, he doesn’t use any algorithms in his personal life. No Spotify Discover Weekly. No Netflix

The kindest thing you can do is get straight to the point. Make it clear what you want, what's next, and what you recommend.

A resource dedicated to establishing the field of formalised subjective effect documentation.

The integration of technique and intuition is a delicate process… but vital in the pursuit of excellence

Your entire worldview changes when you realize you can *create luck*.

Today marks two years of not drinking. A few things I noticed: – our society revolves around drinking – not enough bars and restaurants offer non-alcoholic beers or mocktails – be…

Many people seem to think the 'good' state of being, the 'ground' state, is a relaxed state, a state with lots of rest and very little action. Because they think the ground state is the relaxed state, they act like maintaining any other state requires effort, requires suffering. This is

Family relationships are often unconsciously recreated at work

They apply to jobs, relationships, art projects and everything in between: The top right is the rare one–a car that goes fast but doesn’t feel like it’s on the edge. The hot rod i…

信息的高保真

A reader recently pointed me toward an intriguing letter, reproduced a few weeks ago in the always-impressive Areopagus newsletter, that was originally sent from Pliny the Younger to his friend Minicius Fundanus around 100 AD. Among other topics, the letter touches on the difficulty of completing meaningful work in a distracted world. As Pliny writes:

Numerous studies have shown that people may decide if someone is trustworthy or not in less than 1 second of looking at them. Here are small things you can do to ensure you appear trustworthy to others.

Marcus Aurelius thought a lot about thinking. “Our life is dyed by the color of our thoughts,” he wrote. So naturally, he tried to be thoughtful about what he thought and how he thought. “Get used to winnowing your thoughts,” he said, “so that when someone asked you what you were thinking, you could answer straightforwardly.” This is a good test for us today as we run around busy and preoccupied by our thoughts. If someone asked us, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are you thinking about?”—would we have a good answer? One of the things I am doing at the beginning of this year is meditating on a handful of ideas—most from the Stoics—that will hopefully make me better. Things that will hopefully dye my life a good color. Here are some of them… [1] Doing less, better. One of the challenges of the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge was to pick a mantra. I picked, “do less,” an idea that comes from Marcus Aurelius. “If you seek tranquility,” he said, “do less.” And then he follows the note to himself with some clarification. Not nothing, less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction,” he writes, “to do less, better.” [2] Being fast now and later. I had Olympic mountain biker Kate Courtney on the podcast while I was working on Discipline is Destiny and she told me a piece of advice she had gotten from her coach when she was pushing herself too hard in practice. “Do you want to be fast now,” they asked, “or later?” Meaning, do you want to win this workout or win the race? [3] Being a good steward of Stoicism. Next to my desk, I have a notecard tapped to the wall that says, “Am I being a good steward of Stoicism?” Writing books is a business. My bookstore, The Painted Porch, is a business. Daily Stoic is a business. But I always try to ask myself not if I am making good business decisions, but if I am being a good steward of Stoicism, of the philosophy that’s given so much to me. Am I being honest and ethical and fair and reasonable and moderate—I try to think about all those things. [4] Not always having an opinion. It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. You don’t have to turn this into something, he reminds himself. You don’t have to let this upset you. You don’t have to think something about everything. [5] One small win per day is a lot. One of the best pieces of advice from Seneca was actually pretty simple. “Each day,” he told Lucilius, you should, “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well.” One gain per day. That’s it. [6] Paying my taxes. Not just from the government. Seneca wrote to Lucilius, “All the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which, my dear Lucilius, you should never hope for exemption or seek escape.” Annoying people are a tax on being outside your house. Delays are a tax on travel. Haters are a tax on having a YouTube channel. There’s a tax on money too–and the more successful I have been, the more I’ve had to pay. There’s a tax on everything in life. You can whine. Or you can pay them gladly. [7] The garbage time. There’s no such thing as ‘quality’ time. Time is time. In fact, as Jerry Seinfeld said, garbage time—eating cereal together late at night, laying around on the couch — is actually the best time. Forget chasing HUGE experiences. It can all be wonderful, if you so choose. [8] Having a crowded table. It’s helpful to sit and really think about what success looks like. When you flash way forward into the future, what is it? You’re not going to think about how much money you made, how great a business you built, how many books or albums or companies you sold…if you’re alone, if your kids won’t answer your call, if your friends won’t have anything to do with you. Success, at the end of your life, is a crowded table—family and friends that want to be around you. [9] The mundane is beautiful. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius marvels at “nature’s inadvertence.” A baker, he writes, makes the dough, kneads it and then puts it in the oven. Then Nature takes over. “The way loaves of bread split open,” Marcus writes, “the ridges are just byproducts of the baking, and yet pleasing, somehow: they rouse our appetite without our knowing why.” It’s a beautiful observation about such a banal part of daily life, something only a poet could see. It’s also just a beautiful way to move through life. Notice the soft paw prints on the dusty trunk of a car. Marvel at the steam wafting from the vents on a New York City morning, the sound of a pen gliding across a notecard, and the floor filled with a child’s toys, arranged in the chaos of exhausted enjoyment. Find the beauty in the mundane. [10] Patience. Seneca wrote, “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” And Robert Greene said, “practice patience. Wait a day before taking action on the pressing problem.” And Joyce Carol Oates had a simple rule, “I almost never publish immediately.” Every first draft is placed in a drawer where it sits, sometimes for a year or more. When three of my all-time favorite thinkers converge, I know I’ve found an important thing to think about. [11] Alive time of dead time? Speaking of Robert, a few years ago, Robert gave me a piece of advice I think about just about every day. At a time when I was stuck in a job I wanted out of, Robert told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, [...]

We all care way too much what other people think of us. Here's why.

“Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separate, it is a cerebral process and the door to essential understanding remains closed.”

C.G. Jung Speaking : Interviews and Encounters Question 3. In what respect, if any, does the treatment of neurosis in the second half of life—that means after thirty—differ from that in the …

A ghost grid is a guide for organising thoughts, information and sketches, that doesn't compete with content. Content itself can also be the ghost grid to highlight changes and help draw comparisons — as when you might sketch options for extending a house or designing a garden. A grid is useful for structure and creation but needs to fade back from content or disappear when no longer needed. Like freeing data from its data prison, a ghost grid emphasises content and information without non-data-ink taking attention. I learned the term ghost grid from Edward Tufte's Seeing with Fresh Eyes: Meaning, Space, Data, Truth. I rarely buy other notebooks for work than a dot grid, preferably in a funky colour. Some of my favourites: Leuchtterm dot grid hardcover, Moleskine dot grid softcover, Moo soft cover dotted journals