26: Notes To Self

Yo, it’s Luke!

I just got a part-time gig as a curator for Matter. I’m basically curating great internet links for them. Pretty sweet! Even cooler is the product we’re building. Stay tuned in the next few weeks. If you like this newsletter, you’ll love what we’re building.

That said, here is your weekly dose of 5 noteworthy ideas & things I learned about last week. Click on each link to dive further on that topic.

1. Does This Friendship Make Sense (Wait But Why)

This graph just makes sense. As simple as that.

2. What The Humans Like Is Responsiveness (Sasha Chapin)

You know that one friend who everyone likes? Well, this essay beautifully describes how that person is able to gain that reputation.

Spoiler: it’s by being very responsive.

In other words, they do it by actually listening to you and showing you that they are listening. They turn they’re whole person towards you. The moment after you speak, they reply in a way that makes it clear they listened to you with every ounce of themselves.

And it can’t be fake. Unless you genuinely love people and are comfortable in your own skin, it’s a hard trick to pull off.

I think responsiveness is even more than a social charm. It’s a core human need. Maybe even required for happiness.

People are happy enough rich, and people are happy enough poor. But it’s hard to imagine anyone happy without a feeling that their actions have some impact, however small.

Whether your a prisoner knowing you can tick off a guard or a 9-5 worker who’s remembered by your barista, life is good if it squishes nicely when you poke it.

And if it doesn’t?

Well, you burn out. You start to feel “broken steering” — you feel, for a long period of time, that your efforts to exert control don’t do anything.

That outcome sucks. You don’t want that. And I don’t want that. So, let’s be responsive to our friends, our families, and our coworkers.

Be invested in the moment. And be where our toes are.

3. Crazy Facts About Neutron Stars (Wait But Why)

When a large star dies by exploding in a supernova, a gravitational collapse can take place and result in a neutron star. It’s a crazy phenomena. Like craaaaazy. Read for yourself:

• A teaspoon of it has the same mass as 900 Great Pyramids of Giza.

• The density of a neutron star is the same as compressing a Boeing 747 airplane into a small grain of sand.

• There are some that spin as fast as 642 times per second. That means that a dot on the star’s “equator” moves a greater distance than the Earth’s circumference every second.

• Neutron stars are hot. The inside of a neutron star is between 10^11 and 10^12 Kelvin—over 1,000 times hotter than the core of the sun

4. Krishnamurti On Meditation (Think On These Things)

“Try sitting very quietly without fidgeting, without moving your hands or even your toes, and just watch your mind. It is great fun. If you try it as fun, as an amusing thing, you will find that the mind begins to settle down without any effort on your part to control it. There is then no censor, no judge, no evaluator; and when the mind is thus very quiet of itself, spontaneously still, you will discover what it is to be gay. Do you know what gaiety is? It is just to laugh, to take delight in anything or nothing, to know the joy of living, smiling, looking straight into the face of another without any sense of fear.”

Observing my mind without judgement was a turning point for my internal dialogue & general experience of life. I started to relish in the little moments a lot more.

5. Voila Concert Performance

This one smacked me right into my feels. Nothing like a wholesome underdog story & beautiful music.

Thanks for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday! If you liked this edition, send it over to a friend who would like it too 🤝 

Cheers,

Luke

PS: Have a topic you think I’d like learning about? Send it to me here.

PPS: Got questions you want me to answer? I made an anonymous form for that.

PPPS: you can find more rabbit holes here & my writing here.