2 weeks is the timeframe of indefinition. When you have no clue, you say 2 weeks. It’s the ⁷⁄₁₀. Reasonable, polite and empty.

The irresistible pull of books with maps:

• The Lord of the Rings
• Game of Thrones
• The Name of the Wind
• Dune
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The quality of attention determines the quality of experience.

It does not really matter WHAT you do, but the QUALITY OF ATTENTION while you do it.

When you eat, when you stand, when you move, when you write, when you listen, when you read.

Defensive features (those that prevent that you have a problem or minimize the impact of a problem) make the system more adaptable.

Idea from My Techno-Optimism by Vitalik Buterin

Suppose we have an AI whose only goal is to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off. Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans.

— Nick Bostrom

New discoveries create new insights and open new possibilities. These new possibilities reset the vision of what good looks like. Adoption takes a certain period but, if that insight proves indisputable, eventually becomes canon. That canon gets ultimately coded in behavior, in beliefs and in law.

Agriculture, for instance, altered the view from “we hunt and gather when we need it” to the idea that: “with some planning and labour we can settle and thrive”. That apparently simple change introduced a massive shift in morals: in order to benefit from a greater good, we need to act by planning and not by necessity. That meant that our discipline, our will to endure labour that is not necessary in the moment but beneficial for the future and the group became a core value.

Two ideas are penetrating the collective unconscious of our times. One, that sustainability in how we achieve results is even more important than such results. That we can no longer race in competition while disregarding the consequences in the long term.

Second, that the complexity of all phenomena in the world makes it impossible to model it as a linear Newtonian equation. The we face complex adaptive systems and such systems thrive on flexibility and adaptation.

The musician has three instruments: the hands, the head, and the heart, and each has its own discipline.

So, the musician has three disciplines: the disciplines of the hands, the head and the heart.

Ultimately, these are one discipline: discipline.

—Robert Fripp, the Guitar Circle

Ryan Holiday writes that courage is “the willingness to put your ass on the line.”
Discipline is “the ability to keep your ass in line.”

“Discipline is simply a love for your big self.” Suzan-Lori Parks

“Discipline is remembering what you want.”

It’s not about finding a needle in a haystack… it’s that I have found too many needles!

A problem of our time, as Oliver Burkeman argues.

The solution, treat everything as a stream, not as a bucket. Things come your way and go. You take what you feel like in the moment.

Not a TODO backlog, a TODO stream.
Not a book backlog, a book stream that came your way.

Under two conditions one can strive to achieve something while remaining joyful:

1. Playing
2. Committed to a purpose

Under these two mindsets one relaxes the emotions and tightens the actions.

It’s a matter of the heart. In those two mindsets the heart overrides the mind and the emotions.

Annotated reading might be the most powerful form of reflection.
Focus on some small fragment.
Annotate thoughts one after the other letting the mind develop connected ideas.

Remember that ultimately we make things happen through our actions, way beyond our understanding or intention.

—Nick Cave

// action, not intention, not decision

My kid just played a game of Valorant with another player called:

Travis Scrotto

Best name ever.

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

–Olivia Bulter, Parable of the Talents

Some books are relevant mostly for the images they conjure, not for the stories or messages they deliver. Alice in Wonderland or the Divine Comedy.

Werner Herzog movies touch on the same nerve. David Lynch too. Hayao Miyazaki.

These are the images of dreams, of the unconscious. If they touch some of our collective unconscious themes, they resonate widely and become collective imagery.

Treasure the artists that work in this space.

The Oracle of Delphi told King Croesus that if he crossed the Halys River, he would destroy a large kingdom. He did, and was slammed. Only then he realized that the kingdom the Oracle was referring to was his own.

When you are attached to something you feel the need to interpret it. In an effort to make sense of it, you reduce it. Our mind gets in the way, filtering reality to make it legible.

Only when we detach we can see something in full. Ironically, only when we don’t care we can truly grasp something.

From The Cult of Done ,

1. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

No matter how smart you are, only the ones who DO can be right.

I want something that you want / have.

1. How far will I go to get it?
2. Why do I want it?

The deeper, ecstatic truths that are revealed once you dive down that level where light does not reach. The light of reason. The courage to go blind, and feel your way through new territory.

When you take the time to sit alone with your thoughts, you can find who you want to be;
not who your parents want you to be,
not who your friends want you to be,
and definitely not who some shyster on Instagram or TikTok wants you to be.

Arnold

The idea of an Illuminator, someone whose mere attention makes you feel respected, appreciated, revered… and that brings the best from you.

From The Essential Skills for Being Human

Choose work you have a natural aptitude for and a deep interest in.
Develop a habit of working on your own projects; it doesn’t matter what they are so long as you find them excitingly ambitious.
Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. These look smooth from a distance, but up close they’re full of gaps.
Notice and explore such gaps, and if you’re lucky one will expand into a whole new field.
Take as much risk as you can afford; if you’re not failing occasionally you’re probably being too conservative.
Seek out the best colleagues.
Develop good taste and learn from the best examples.
Be honest, especially with yourself.
Exercise and eat and sleep well and avoid the more dangerous drugs.
When in doubt, follow your curiosity. It never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.

From Superlinear Returns by Paul Graham

1. Write down what you will do next.
2. Do it.

Repeat

There is nothing more exhausting
than having ideas lurking in your head
and doing nothing about them.

We should teach our kids:

• Cooking
• House-keeping
• Carpentry
• Gardening
• Fixing stuff
• Basic mechanics
• Computer programming / hardware installation

Could we make a library of small projects and let kids check them out? Only one kid can work on a project while it’s checked out.

We need (for each):

• Stations
• Tools
• Consumables
• Instructions

Whole Earth Catalogue has gone digital. Great source of inspiration.

Only 4 tools required:

• Calendar: time bound actions.
• Todo App: other actions.
• Notes App: reference material in the form of text, images.
• File System: other specific reference formats.

Source: Tiago Forte

As the scales fall from your eyes the world rushes into focus, presenting itself with a kind of vibrational eloquence that can, at first, be almost overwhelming.

Everything shimmers,
everything clarifies,
everything wrestles for your attention.

Trees feel super-real,
their roots plunged into the earth,
their branches stretching to the sky,

birds are flesh and blood souls,
fragile with life,

the sky unfolds and rolls,
the ocean crashes,
people fascinate,
books are beautiful,
children are whirling dynamos of chaos,
dogs bark and cats meow,
flowers shout,
your neighbour glows,

and God runs like a helix through all things.

The world awaits you, humming with meaning.

You are alive with potential.

Nick Cave, in response to a drug addict seeking for meaning after an overdose.

Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere.

”Display then those qualities in your own power:
honesty,
dignity,
endurance,
chastity,
contentment,
frugality,
kindness,
freedom,
persistence,
avoiding gossip,
and magnanimity.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.5

Sustainability over Results
Adaptability over Solutions

When we decided to build the Tower of Babel, God did not destroyed it with mighty power, but he confused us with a thousand languages.

The higher up we move the abstraction stack, the less tangible the ideas, the more prone to interpretation and misunderstanding.

What a clever design! Hat tip to God! 🎩

1. Psychological Safety. Team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other.
2. Dependability. Team members deliver on their promises.
3. Structure & Clarity. Team members have clear roles, plans & goals.
4. Meaning. Work is personally important to team members.
5. Impact. Team members think their work matters and creates change.

“When shown an object, or given a food, or shown a face, people’s assessment of it—how much they like it, how valuable it is—is deeply affected by what you tell them about it.” Paul Bloom.

The context, the speaker, the setting… all this meta-attributes have a determinant impact on our assessment of something.

Many comments from Marcus Aurelius have not such intrinsic value, but the fact that a Roman emperor is the author charges them with weight.

—¿Tienes algún problema?
—Yo no.
—¿Insinúas que yo sí?
—Yo no he dicho eso, parece que a esa conclusión has llegado tú solito.

I arrived at the rural hotel in Pedraza at night.
I saw his car on the outside, a gray MINI, French license plate.
When I entered the little cozy restaurant, just a few tables at the warmth of the fireplace, I saw him there.
He was on his own, reading, white hair, tasting the food while he seemed absorbed in the book.
Traveling alone. What was he doing in foreign land, on his own?

I have a MINI because of him.

1. Calculate travel time (at peak hour).
2. Double that time.
3. Set alarm.
4. Start preparing to leave at the sound of alarm.
5. No killing time until you are on destination.

A punctual person is late max once a month.

Source: Van Neistat

Here’s how to type quotes manually:

	Mac	Windows
Open single quote: ‘	Option-]	Alt-0-1-4-5
Close single quote: ’	Shift-Option-]	Alt-0-1-4-6
Open double quote: “	Option-[	Alt-0-1-4-7
Close double quote: ”	Shift-Option-[	Alt-0-1-4-8

Source: Daring Fireball

1. Start with a question.
2. With a factoid that shocks.
3. With a story

(in reverse order of engagement)

Source: Conor Neil, How to Start a Speech

1. Skin Cells: 2-4 weeks
2. Red Blood Cells: 120 days
3. White Blood Cells: from 1 day to over 1 year
4. Liver Cells: 200-300 days
5. Intestinal Cells: 4-5 days
6. Neurons: A lifetime
7. Fat Cells: 8 years
8. Bone Cells: 10 years
9. Cardiac Muscle Cells: A lifetime
10. Lung Cells: from 8 days to 1 year

The half-life of pleasure and pain.
What remains eternally is in balance.
What is in balance does not move.
What does not move is invisible.
Perceiving the invisible is the duty.
The rest is texture.

These 2 product presentations are worth checking:

• 37 Signal’s ONCE
• New Patreon

Both of the present the problem statement in a very resonant way, then propose interesting takes to address it.

• Paper
• Cosmetics
• Cutlery

They seem to have mastered the art of these.

1. Set Aside Time:

• Schedule a specific time slot dedicated to your review.

2. Prepare Your Space:

• Clear a quiet, comfortable workspace free of distractions.

3. Collect:

• Gather all notes, tasks, and pending items accumulated during the week.

4. Review Your Calendar:

• Look over your appointments and meetings from the past week.
• Reflect on what went well and what could be improved.

5. Review Your Tasks:

• Go through your task list.
• Check off completed tasks and review pending ones.

6. Prioritize:

• Identify the most important tasks to be accomplished in the upcoming week.

7. Reflect:

• Consider your overall progress towards your goals.
• Acknowledge successes and areas needing improvement.

8. Plan for Next Week:

• Set goals and outline tasks for the upcoming week.
• Schedule important tasks and appointments.

9. Organize:

• Clear your physical and digital workspace.
• Prepare resources and materials needed for next week.

10. Relax:

• Conclude your review with a positive and motivational thought or activity.
• Celebrate your accomplishments, however small they may be.

Check out Goblin Tools, write a task, AI will break it down into micro actions, each one actionable and easy. What a great idea!

• Discuss facts.
• Share stories.
• Ask technical questions.
• Ask for examples.

Source: Some tactics for writing in public

We want to interpret reality. But interpretation diminishes reality.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Bringing the idea to the micro level makes it approachable, actionable… creates positive energy and motivation.

1. Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb. 
2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.
3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted. 
5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out.

From Musk’s biography by Walter Isaacson

There is something about abundance that slows us down , dulls us.

Privation heightens the spirit and pushes us to another level of agility, sharpness and awareness.

It is under those conditions that new opportunities can be explored.

—¿Qué opinas de las horas, Fer?
—Las odio.
—¿Y los minutos?
—Me aburren.

the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress—a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.48

The most important person in the learning process is the learner. The next most important is the teacher… The teacher does not fill up bottles—it’s much more like gardening. You don’t grow plants by going out with Scotch tape and sticking leaves onto the stems. The plant grows. But the gardener creates as far as she or he can the conditions for growth—in the case of plants, soil, fertilizer, acidity, shade, water, etc.

Gardener’s mindset.

Via Austin Kleon

1. Write things down.
2. Review what you have written.
3. Ensure discoverability of your notes.

“First practice not letting people know who you are—keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced—the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen. . . . That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.8.35b–37

The First Rule of Fight Club…

…the scenius-nurturing factors that Kevin Kelly laid out in his 2008 post: 

• mutual appreciation and friendly competition
• the rapid exchange of tools and techniques
• the network effects of success (cf: “shine theory”)

Via Austin Kleon

Design a system that assumes that you can only count on bursts of 15 min available time.

Maximize your ability to get things done in 15 min.

This is an exciting product and that’s a good presentation.

Talk about “solving problems, building tools and making art”) 😍.

1. Pay yourself first.
2. Limit your work in progress.
3. Resist the allure of meddling priorities.

Via Petter Attia’s channel

It seems to me that confidence is achieved when you are constantly operating on the edge of possibility (our own personal edge, each of us have a different one).

This is counterintuitive because on that edge we are clumsy, we are not fit. How can one grow confidence if we’re operating at that point of failure? Two things…

1. The pattern of failing -> succeeding -> move on and fail again… gives you the mindset that everything’s a matter of time and practice (you develop trust in possibility.)
2. The surface of possibility keeps expanding… when you look back, you’ll be surprised by how far you reached.

How cool is Austin Kleon’s Studio!

Animated Knots. Best resource to learn new knots.

We’re all climbing the mountain. When we reach the top, we can fly. At the top, with magnificent views, a clear sun, fresh air, and the breathtaking possibility of flying, one does not care about the tremendous effort that meant climbing up there; one even forgets about it.

You reached the top of the mountain, but you climbed down. Every time I ask you, you give up on such hard won reward, and the immense possibility of flying, and you come to the bottom of the mountain to answer me.

Why?

Is it out of love and generosity? Is it like when I do the same with my kids? But I never reached the top. I only need to go down a couple of steps. And my love and responsibility for my kids is huge.

Is it out of concern? Do you see something from up the mountain that has you worried and your sentiment is that of avoiding disaster, instead of gifting possibility?

This is the best possible introduction to SCRUM

I miss Silicon Valley more than I thought.

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”

—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 123.3

The balance between contempt and ambition. Projecting ourselves into a better future and/or being grateful for what we have. Are these two mindsets compatible?

Loved watching The Bear (S2) referring to Siddhartha’s quote:

“Listen better.”

Being attentive to the gestures, looks, postures… reading the room.

Attention is the key to anticipation.

• Training to love training, and the growth it unlocks
• The systematic journey toward Unobstructed Self Expression
• Embodying Quality as a way of life
• Cultivating Presence and Mindfulness
• Building physical and mental Resilience
• Most Important Question (MIQ) Training—systematic cultivation of the art of focusing on what matters most
• Developing introspective sensitivity 
• The Creative Hunt and systemization of Feedback Loops to drive the training process
• The 6 Dimensional Introspective Process
• Day Architecture: Identifying and supporting windows of peak creativity and flow
• Proactivity + Internal Orientation vs. Reactivity + External Orientation
• Stress & Recovery
• Subtraction
• Non-local and parallel learning—training to learn the many from the one
• Becoming a Conscious Competitor
• Embracing your funk—developing a nuanced understanding of the entanglement of your brilliance and eccentricity
• Developing your somatic intelligence
• Building Triggers
• Optimizing communication, strategy, and the growth curve within your teams
• Internal and Organizational Frictionlessness

Source: Josh Waitzkin home page