Here are the best of the things I have shared/read/seen/saved throughout the year. Another year has come to an end, congratulations on surviving this one. Memento Mori, always.
🦉 Quotes of the Year
The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning.
― Albert Camus
At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what
we have done. — Thomas A Kempis
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'.
― Beverly Clark (Shall We Dance)
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
— Lao Tzu
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.
— Boethius
Genetics, childhood… Doesn’t matter. We’re helpless to our experience. Difference between you and me could be a single moment, one little thing gone wrong.”
— Counterpart (Series)
How do you know what you’re going to do until you do it? The answer is, you don’t. It’s a stupid question.
—J.D. Salinger
If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?
—Joe Namath
There is no rhyme or reason to this life. It’s days like today scattered among the rest.
— Marcus, John Wick
🎅 Nuggets of the Year
🧠 Best thing I have learned
The first one
Anarcho-Capitalism:
The term was coined and developed first by Austrian School economist and libertarian Murray Rothbard in the mid-20th century,
In a nutshell, Anarcho-Capitalism is a system in which the government is abolished entirely and replaced by free market and private companies at every level.
“Anarcho-capitalism rejects the state, believing that state entities steal from its people through taxation and expropriation, use physical force, use their coercive powers to benefit some businesses and individuals at the expense of others, create monopolies, and restrict trade.”
The other name for it is “free market anarchism”, since it advocates the provision of all goods and services, including law enforcement, courts, and national defense, by private companies and competitors in a free market.
It is like the blend of capitalism and socialism : it uses markets and property rights while abolishing the state and its coercive and abusive power on people.
Here is a brief introduction to the ideas:
Try this article if you want to embark on a deeper journey.
The second one
Dopamine:
📚 Best Book Summary
From the web:
Atomic Habits:
From me :
We Need To Talk:
The Great Mental Models:
📽️ Best Films/Docs
These are the films/docs/theaters that I have watched or re-watched in 2022. Not an exhaustive one, but enough to cherish the memories and lessons.
📹 12 Best Videos:
📝 17 Best Articles/Posts:
I am sure you have seen this, but I have to share this in case anyone missed it. Kevin Kelly writes another good set of rules. 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known
Don’t keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
Rather than steering your life to avoid surprises, aim directly for them.
This article is a summary of a book called Nonviolent Communication. This is the kind of a summary that really leaves no need to read all the book. But again I really believe you need to read the book, trust me :)
Observe objectively without evaluating, there are untold stories
Make requests, not demands. Do not say “you should” say “do you mind trying to
Observe first, understand the feelings, separate the needs and then use the request
Ask before offering advice / reassurance, no one needs your smart advice as much as you think they do
The next article is an important finding that I used and explored in my book “Happy Anyways” .
Our hypothesis is that happiness precedes and leads to career success – not the other way around. In psychological science, ‘happiness’ relates to ‘subjective wellbeing’ and ‘positive emotions’ (we use the terms interchangeably). Those with greater wellbeing tend to be more satisfied with their lives, and also to experience more positive emotions and fewer negative ones. Research suggests that it’s these positive emotions – such as excitement, joy, and serenity – that promote success in the workplace.
Here you will find SCHOPENHAUER's (it is capital letters intentionally, hell of a spelling) 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.
33 things Ryan Holiday stole from the people smarter than him:
Steve Kamb told me that the best and most polite excuse is just to say you have a rule. “I have a rule that I don’t decide on the phone.” “I have a rule that I don’t accept gifts.” “I have a rule that I don’t speak for free anymore.” “I have a rule that I am home for bath time with the kids every night.” People respect rules, and they accept that it’s not you rejecting the [offer, request, demand, opportunity] but that the rule allows you no choice.
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them—work, family, health, friends and spirit … and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls—family, health, friends and spirit—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.”
Ryan Holiday, the master of storytelling strikes again.
“The writers Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) were at a glamorous party outside New York City. Standing in the palatial second home of the billionaire host, Vonnegut began to needle his friend. “Joe,” he said, “how does it feel that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel has earned in its entire history?”
+ “I’ve got something he can never have,” Heller replied.
- “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
In our lives, should we strive for creating something that will last forever, or maybe for 100 years or so after we die. This author suggests it is a futile attempt and I believe this stems from the fact that we have larger ego than the Earth itself. We want to mean something. I am more on the Woody Allen side here: “Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I would rather live on in my apartment.”
“At some point in life, we come to realize that we exist in a context. If you are a scientist, you might make a small but useful contribution in your subfield, a subfield that is impossible to explain to anybody else. If you write short stories for literary magazines and exist in that ecosystem, you may not really exist to people outside of it. And — for most of us — our lives form part of the circumference of that context. We live a little while and then we go into the ground. Our children, if we have them, remember us, their children remember us a little less, their children even less, and so on until we are part of a school genealogy project.
Human works mean nothing outside a human frame of reference. None of them can stand up to the sun blowing up and all life dying, because nothing can mean anything then; “meaning,” as such, will not exist. And part of that frame of reference is death and transience.”
I love lists, here is 100 simple truth:
Consuming information won't make you smart, applying it will.
Not wanting something is as good as having it.
Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue.
You were born in one day, you will die in one day, you can change in one day.
Stop trading time for money, start trading value for money.
If you have time to consume, you have time to create.
No one owes you anything.
If you’re reading this, you have everything you need to start.
Are you a leader? I have something special for you too, 35 questions to keep in mind:
How well do I know my team members? How well do they know each other?
What resource recommendation can I send someone this month?
In the last six months, has each member of the team grown in noticeable ways?
When was the last time I asked for feedback?
I have told you I love lists:
“Knowledge is reality — to improve your reality, upgrade your knowledge.”
“Your language defines your reality: question what you think is the only truth. “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein"
“Conquer yourself rather than the world.” — Rene Descartes
“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience” — John Locke
Who does not want to succeed in the career ladders? This article might help you out.
Remember : Last time always happens now.
(…) imagine that this is the last time, even when it’s probably not. A few times a day, whatever you’re doing, you assume you’re doing that thing for the last time. There will be a last time you sip coffee, like you’re doing now. What if this sip was it? There will be a last time you walk into the office and say hi to Sally. If this was it, you might be a little more genuine, a little more present. The point isn’t to make life into a series of desperate goodbyes. You can go ahead and do the thing more or less normally. You might find, though, that when you frame it as a potential last time, you pay more attention to it, and you appreciate it for what it is in a way you normally don’t. It turns out that ordinary days are full of experiences you expect will keep happening forever, and of course none of them will.
How to Be an Existentialist — 33 Short Rules for Life is a good sum-up of some quotes that belong to existentialist thinkers. I am sharing it in the hope that maybe it will awaken in you a desire to read more existentialist sources.
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
“Leap of faith — yes, but only after reflection”
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”
25 Pieces Of Marriage Advice From Couples Who’ve Been Together 25+ Years
50 Ways to Live on Your Own Terms by Benjamin Hardy:
Fast from all food and caloric beverages 24 hours once per week.
Stop consuming the news or reading the newspaper.
A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” — Tim Ferriss
"As Thomas Monson has said, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” That would truly be a failure.
Consume 30 grams of protein within the first 30 minutes of waking up.
Stop obsessing about the outcome
Stop Venting! It Doesn’t Work is a superb article on how to control your anger, deal with pain and strengthen your mental endurance.
There are lots of other things you can do when overwhelmed by negative emotion. Try “square breathing,” four breaths in and four breaths out, in order to take your body out of fight-or-flight mode. If that doesn’t work, there’s another schoolteacher trick: Cross your arms in front of you like steps five and six of the macarena; make fists, pretending one holds a bouquet and the other a candle; breathe in the roses; and blow out the flame. Psychologists call techniques like this “psychological distancing,” and studies show that they’re an effective way to defuse upsetting emotions like anger.
Here is another magnificent resource on how to fight back against anger.
“The cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.”
― Seneca, On AngerThe tail end is a superb article I go back to every once in a month. Memento Mori. Remember death. Just this many squares. If you are over 30, third of it is gone already.
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
📜 Best Poem
AT PEACE
Very near my sunset, I bless you, Life
because you never gave me neither unfilled hope
nor unfair work, nor undeserved sorrow.
Because I see at the end of my rough way
that I was the architect of my own destiny
and if I extracted the sweetness or the bitterness of things
it was because I put the sweetness or the bitterness in them
when I planted rose bushes I always harvested roses
Certainly, winter is going to follow my youth
But you didn’t tell me that May was eternal
I found without a doubt long my nights of pain
But you didn’t promise me only good nights
And in exchange I had some peaceful ones
I loved, I was loved, the sun caressed my face
Life, you owe me nothing, Life, we are at peace!
AMADO NERVO
🦋 Best Instagram Account:
Join 50k+ smart people on Refind and get 7 new links every day that make you smarter, tailored to your interests, curated from 10k+ sources.
Sample is a newsletter recommendation tool that gives you one great newsletter advice every day. My go-to tool for new quality editions that worth my time.
🎨 Painting of the Year:
I was amazed by the quality and the size of this painting by Monet when I visited it in Paris this November.
There was a term in Spanish that I learnt this year: Duende. It is kind of the overwhelming feeling when you come across with a piece of art that moves you inside. It is that feeling that there are beauty in this world beyond words.
Duende or tener duende (“having duende”) can be loosely translated as having soul, a heightened state of emotion, expression, and heart. The artistic and especially musical term was derived from the duende, a fairy or goblin-like creature in Spanish and Latin American mythology. El duende is the spirit of evocation. It comes from inside as a physical/emotional response to music. It is what gives you chills, makes you smile or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive. Folk music in general, especially flamenco, tends to embody an authenticity that comes from a people whose culture is enriched by diaspora and hardship, the human condition of joys and sorrows. - Source
Here is the full collection for you to explore:
📰 Best Newsletter Recommendation:
🔀 Best Playlists:
Check out the playlist of people. The songs were picked for the question “If you can only listen to 10 songs till the end of the time, which 10 would it be?
Add your 10 here (link expires in 7 days.)
Second best playlist of the year comes to the rescue when I need to feel focused, elavated, and at my best.