53: Notes To Self

Yo, it’s Luke!

I’ve been taking Spanish classes with Italki — it’s great. You can get a 1:1 tutor in almost any language for $5-10/hr.

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. Beautiful Chaos

I feel like ideas would be endless working out of here.

2. Up Only

Live. Love. Bitcoin.

3. High Skilled Immigration Chart

This is the number of high skilled workers that want to work here. There is a cap at 85k slots that will be filled.

Per capita, talented immigrants are at the helm of innovation way more often. So why not 5x their visas?

We are actively shooting our future selves in the foot.

4. Embrace Radical Self-Awareness (Luke’s Thoughts)

Consistently examine your thoughts, emotions, and actions without judgment or attachment, aiming to understand the deep-seated conditioning and patterns of the mind.

There is no flourishing without clarity.

5. 50 Things I Know (Sasha Chapin)

This was a great piece by one of my favorite writers. Here’s some quotes that stuck out (I know there’s a lot, but I bet at least one will resonate deeply with you!):

• It’s common to resist positive emotions, as well as negative ones. Ask yourself, next time you’re doing something enjoyable: are you really surrendering to the full enjoyment available here? The answer will often be no. Perhaps this has something to do with how displays of rapturous delight are often discouraged in adolescence.

• Being silly is a gift. You un-taboo silliness for everyone around you.

• ⭐ Most people overrate the difficulty of hard conversations, and underrate how good it is to have them. Conflict avoidance slowly rots your whole life, and many people are about eight awkward discussions from a much-improved existence.

• Travel is valuable because most knowledge can’t be written down. The most crucial info about a society is how it feels to be there.

• Environmental influence is the most effective form of behavioral control. Accordingly, if you want radical change, radically change your environment.

• ⭐ People with real confidence are fluid with status. They allow themselves to be the butt of a joke, or accept criticism, but also avoid false modesty, and inhabit the spotlight when it falls on them.

• If you tell someone “we should keep in touch,” you will not keep in touch. Instead say, “I’m going to schedule a phone call with you in two months to catch up, I’ll send you the invite — if we need to adjust when we get closer to the date, that’s fine.”

• ⭐ There are two modes of experience: appreciative, and evaluative. Concrete example: let’s say you’re listening to a piece of music. Are you sinking into it, awash in emotions? You’re in the appreciative mode. Are you the mixing engineer, listening to the snare hits to make sure they’re consistent? You’re in the evaluative mode. Much of sanity, and happiness, consists of finding the right mode for the right moment. The appreciative mode is terrible for debugging your business plan. But the evaluative mode is terrible for having a first date. A lot of capable, intelligent people suffer because they do not have the ability to switch out of the evaluative mode, or even notice that they’re in it.

• You can’t suppress pain and anger without also deadening yourself generally.

• ⭐ If you have a serious dispute with someone, it will go nowhere unless you clearly name the underlying emotion that you’re struggling with.

• Freedom is earned by confronting things that embarrass and trigger you, over and over again, until you are cringe-proof in your desired environment.

• Silence is an underused conversational tactic. It makes people more interesting and builds intimacy.

• ⭐ Almost nobody hears too many sincere compliments. Compliment them to their face. Practice naming pleasant feelings you have about people, as soon as they bubble up, in the moment.

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