📪 Hello again, your Sunday existential crisis is here.
There are 2 things I am trying, one is to make you existentialist. The other one is to make you stoic and impressionist. So we will become, I hope, existential stoical impressionists boys and girls.
As always, I will make sure that there is not a second wasted here. Before we continue, I am adding and deleting some parts of my post structure, so if you ever want to share your thoughts and/or suggestions for me please leave a comment, shoot me an email, or a DM on LinkedIn.
✨ Some Facts
Since it is the issue 13, I searched some myths and facts about the number thirteen and did not come up with interesting findings. I do not know what is the big fuss about it.
Zeus was the thirteenth and the most powerful god.
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th.
One explanation for the fear of the number 13 stems from the Bible. According to beliefs, if 13 people share a meal at a table together, one of the diners will die within a year.
🐦2 Tweet Thread:
Some life nuggets from Ankur Warikoo: Take more breaks.
When you desire a big purchase, do not buy it right away. Give yourself 30 days and ask yourself if you still it just as much as you did earlier.
Teach people When you teach something, your own understanding of what you are teaching gets better.
Trying to climb up the career ladders ? Austin got you covered.
Create A Specific Plan With Management Every quarter, I'd ask my manager 3 questions:
What skill gaps do I need to fill to get this promo?
What results do you need to see as evidence?
What projects can I join / start to get those results?
📘 1 Book:
ALMANACK OF NAVAL RAVIKANT:
For those of you who might not know Naval, let’s just say he is an angel investor and an important guy around San Francisco tech space. Of course there is more to the story of his life and if you are interested head over to the first section of the book or the video below. We will be busy with what useful ideas he has for us in the book.
It is not how hard you work, it is to know what is important to you and the world
It’s not really about hard work. You can work in a restaurant eighty hours a week, and you’re not going to get rich. Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.
You got to keep trying to find what is the one thing that fuels your aliveness
If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on.
Do not go after money or status. Seek wealth. Try to produce some assets that make you money while you are sleeping. Do not give away your time in exchange for money.
Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
One recipe for getting wealth: create something society craves.
You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.
Building things and selling things will make you unstoppable, wherever you are in what situation you are in.
Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
You have to read different books, watch different films, get different education and push un-pushed limits. You have to be specific with the skills you have. Otherwise, you can easily be replaced.
Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.
Do something on the new media. You will find one thing that suits your interests.
If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.
Whatever you do, make it your most important thing. Go at it. Try to be the best at it.
Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.
The most important art in the world : Learning how to learn
The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn.
Step your way up by applying first principles thinking. First learn what makes this subject stand, then go over to the leaves at the edge.
If you go to the library and there’s a book you cannot understand, you have to dig down and say, “What is the foundation required for me to learn this?” Foundations are super important.
You are walking to death every day, use the seconds wisely.
When you’re dating, the instant you know this relationship is not going to be the one that leads to marriage, you should probably move on. When you’re studying something, like a geography or history class, and you realize you are never going to use the information, drop the class. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of your brain energy. I hate wasting time. I’m very famous for being rude at parties, events, dinners, where the moment I figure out it’s a waste of my time, I leave immediately. Value your time. It is all you have. It’s more important than your money. It’s more important than your friends. It is more important than anything. Your time is all you have. Do not waste your time.
Create a personal business. Opportunities are endless.
If you don’t own a piece of a business, you don’t have a path towards financial freedom. Without ownership, when you’re sleeping, you’re not earning. When you’re retired, you’re not earning. When you’re on vacation, you’re not earning. And you can’t earn nonlinearly. Earn with your mind, not your time.
Forget rich versus poor, white-collar versus blue. It’s now leveraged versus un-leveraged
The final form of leverage is brand new—the most democratic form. It is: “products with no marginal cost of replication.” This includes books, media, movies, and code. Code is probably the most powerful form of permissionless leverage. All you need is a computer—you don’t need anyone’s permission. Coding, writing books, recording podcasts, tweeting, YouTubing—these kinds of things are permissionless. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do them, and that’s why they are very egalitarian. They’re great equalizers of leverage
Seeking for happiness ? Look for your habits, habits make your day. Habit are who you will become.
How does someone build the skill of happiness? You can build good habits. Not drinking alcohol will keep your mood more stable. Not eating sugar will keep your mood more stable. Not going on Facebook, Snapchat, or Twitter will keep your mood more stable
To find the love you are seeking for you have to give it first. Do not forget the give and take rule.
Love is given, not received. To find a worthy mate, be worthy of a worthy mate.
No need and meaning to be afraid of after life. Yesterday was an emptiness, tomorrow will be exactly that.
I think after this life, it’s very much like before you were born. Remember that? It’s going to be just like that.
Perfect description for the modern state: we trying not to be seduced, deceived, broken
The modern struggle: Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising… Up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponizing abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games, and addictive drugs.
Act fast and consistently, be impatient. However, be patient with the results. Good things will take time.
Impatience with actions, patience with results. Most of our suffering comes from avoidance.
You are condemned to be free and responsible for everything you do or not do.
Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Mentors won’t make you rich. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility.
Try to realize all the good things you have accomplished and all the things you have now, in this very moment.
When we get something, we assume the world owes it to us. If you’re present, you’ll realize how many gifts and how much abundance there is around us at all times. That’s all you really need to do. I’m here now, and I have all these incredible things at my disposal.
There is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so.
Everything is perfect exactly the way it is. It is only in our particular minds we are unhappy or not happy, and things are perfect or imperfect because of what we desire. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you. Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments.
Choose the best books and read them twice, thrice or more.
I don’t want to read everything. I just want to read the 100 greatest books over and over again.
Every day is a new life. You are being reborn. You are getting closer to the ultimate end.
You’re dying and being reborn at every moment. It’s up to you whether to forget or remember that.
Even if you are in a bad place, everything is beautiful because we are doomed at the end. We will be no one and remembered by no one.
“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again.” —Homer, The Iliad
When you feel elevated, act on it immediately. Do not lose your inspiration.
Inspiration is perishable, act on immediately.
There is no meaning to life. Let that sink in.
There is no meaning to life. There is no purpose to life. Osho said, “It’s like writing on water or building houses of sand.” The reality is you’ve been dead for the history of the Universe, 10 billion years or more. You will be dead for the next 70 billion years or so, until the heat death of the Universe. Anything you do will fade. It will disappear, just like the human race will disappear and the planet will disappear. Even the group who colonizes Mars will disappear. No one is going to remember you past a certain number of generations, whether you’re an artist, a poet, a conqueror, a pauper, or anyone else. There’s no meaning. You have to create your own meaning, which is what it boils down to. You have to decide: “Is this a play I’m just watching?” “Is there a self -actualization dance I’m doing?” “Is there a specific thing I desire just for the heck of it?” These are all meanings you make up.
Criticize the process, appreciate the exact person.
If you have a criticism of someone, then don’t criticize the person—criticize the general approach or criticize the class of activities. If you have to praise somebody, then always try and find the person who is the best example of what you’re praising and praise the person, specifically. Then people’s egos and identities, which we all have, don’t work against you. They work for you.
You have to find that something to be obsessively involved. Otherwise, your mark on this world will be weak.
To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally obsessed with something.
Do not crave for the experiences that will make you feel the most present in the moment. You are in the moment. Why not take it fully in ?
We crave experiences that will make us be present, but the cravings themselves take us from the present moment.
You have to change yourself from moment to moment. Expand your horizons, take on the world. Do not stay the same.
There’s a great definition I read: “Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts.” It means enlightenment isn’t something you achieve after thirty years sitting on a mountaintop. It’s something you can achieve moment to moment, and you can be enlightened to a certain percent every single day. Facebook redesigns. Twitter redesigns. Personalities, careers, and teams also need redesigns. There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system.
Do not spend unnecessary time reading the whole book after you understand the point they are trying to make. Focus on concepts.
The number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you leave more books unfinished. Focus on new concepts with predictive power. Generally, I’ll skim. I’ll fast forward. I’ll try and find a part to catch my attention. Most books have one point to make. (Obviously, this is nonfiction. I’m not talking about fiction.) They have one point to make, they make it, and then they give you example after example after example after example, and they apply it to explain everything in the world.
If you are thinking too much about a decision, the answer is probably : no
If I’m faced with a difficult choice, such as: Should I marry this person? Should I take this job? Should I buy this house? Should I move to this city? Should I go into business with this person? If you cannot decide, the answer is no. And the reason is, modern society is full of options. There are tons and tons of options.
You got some Stoic quotes I have shared lately on your mind. This quote on happiness will look familiar to you. Do not add to your desires, remove them.
To me, happiness is not about positive thoughts. It’s not about negative thoughts. It’s about the absence of desire, especially the absence of desire for external things. The fewer desires I can have, the more I can accept the current state of things, the less my mind is moving, because the mind really exists in motion toward the future or the past. The more present I am, the happier and more content I will be. If I latch onto a feeling, if I say, “Oh, I’m happy now,” and I want to stay happy, then I’m going to drop out of that happiness. Now, suddenly, the mind is moving. It’s trying to attach to something. It’s trying to create a permanent situation out of a temporary situation. Happiness to me is mainly not suffering, not desiring, not thinking too much about the future or the past, really embracing the present moment and the reality of what is, and the way it is.
And, my final word for you :
What if this life is the paradise we were promised, and we’re just squandering it?
📝 2 Articles:
Here you will find SCHOPENHAUER's 38 stratagems, or 38 ways to win an argument.
Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
If your opponent presses you with a counter proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction. Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent's idea.
If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.
Here is a good article about the effect of curiosity on your happiness.
Curiosity, the novel or awe-inspiring experiences that nourish your being may pave the way toward a more happy, meaningful and fulfilling life.
And in people both young and old, research has found that high and consistent levels of curiosity correlate with mental well-being and life satisfaction. Curious people also seem protected from depression.
That said, there’s some evidence that the relationship between curiosity and happiness is bidirectional, meaning one fuels the other. A 2019 study in the Journal of Personality found that on days when people experience positive emotions like happiness, they also tend to display more curiosity than on days when they aren’t happy. These sorts of findings have led some researchers to hypothesize that positive emotions may exist in part to help encourage curiosity and the fruitful exploration it encourages.
🎨 1 Painting:
I do not know about you but I have some interest in Japanese paintings.
Most probably you have recognized The Great Wave off Kanagawa, it is one of those paintings you saw somewhere for sure. It depicts huge waves threatening the coast of the prefecture of Kanagawa.
You want more Japanese paintings, head over here.
📺 1 Video:
I think there are a lot of strong lessons you will learn from this video or at least you will reinforce some of your beliefs.
📽️ 1 SERIES / FILM or DOCUMENTARY:
Now it is time for a documentary, good news is it is available on Netflix.
THE LAST DANCE.
The key to success is failure. I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. — MICHAEL JORDAN
📜 2 Quotes:
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
— LAO TZU
The one thing more than anything else, is learning to pay attention.
—ROBERT IRWIN
📼 1 Playlist:
Close your eyes and wonder “how could they produce this kind of magic?”
Song of the week:
Now the only thing,
That I know.
The only thing
That i think i'd know
When the hurt is over
Lord, maybe love will flow.
📱 1 Useful App/Website/Tool
This section is a new addition to the newsletter. I will be sharing a superb resource for you to try, it can be an app, a website or a tool.
Second suggestion ? Of course it is Pocket. It is the app where you can build your second brain. Save suggestions and quality content from everywhere in whatever format you desire, video, article, film, audio. Go over them once you have time. Highlight them, archive them and see similar resources. It is kind of a intellectual blackhole you might want to be lost in.
Here is the link. Thank me later.
✔️ Read the issues you might have missed:
Until next time,
Forward, always.
Ratip.