°
When you become wealthy you can claim it as merit or luck. If you become too wealthy you become separate and must attribute it to something: the meritorious lean into hard-nosed grit, while the lucky become progressive altruists.
However, neither will give up wealth to re-test their political ideology.
The lucky realize the odds and mouth platitudes to alleviate guilt, while the meritorious secretly realize their luck but have tied their identity to competence.
°
Ever since the reasoning mind was granted dominance, our war against nature has increasingly mirrored a split from reality.
Since we can predict a narrow point of progress and achieve it, we have lost -in direct proportion- our ability to comprehend and sustain broader symbiotic relationships.
(inspired by Calvin and Hobbes and Bataille)
°
The compulsion to achieve goals is a self-satisfaction loop.
Achievement is tangible agency and verifiable proof that your will is manifesting change in the world. And yet, the infatuation with achievement can replace the reason to achieve.
Once we acquiesce to the “utilitarian treadmill” we create measurable tasks for more manageable, rapid fulfillment, displacing and neglecting the more long-term emotional or relational goals that would make a truly satisfying life.
(Concepts: Goodhart’s law + reverse hedonic treadmill + memento mori)
°
The development of ideas is the history of the world. Arguing is the sharpening stone, scraping ideas across ideas and discarding irritating protruding shards to the floor of history.
The benefit is a hardened, razor-sharp idea, perfect for poking someone or severing them a twain. Perfect for domination.
°
Bosses like to issue vague decrees and demands with little clarity and articulation.
This paradigm allows them to decide later how to react: anger at your failure to intuit the invisible or grudging acceptance when you magically do. A dominance play keeps you reliant on their mood with no fixed rubric for success, which comes at the high cost of repeated check-ins and edits, increasing frustration on both sides.
Yet, bosses are often unable to give up control and shirk the hard work upfront, making them the sloppy architect of their sabotage.
°
When we are young, our potential is abundant. We channel our shiny-eyed, optimistic life energy into opportunities.
Most opportunities foreclose who we are, solidifying how we fit into the world.
Over time we trade fortuity for stability, scheduling manufactured excitements and working hard to rob ourselves of the vitality of the unknown.
°
I watched a kid pick up a stick and hit some things. Then throw it, pick it up, and hit stuff until it broke.
Anything can relieve boredom, but a shinier toy offers more attachment and subsequent loss when it breaks… and it tends to break quicker.
°
If you want attention from a certain audience, put energy into that space. If you want freedom from catering to other people’s acceptance maintain your independence.
The trade-off is for recognition, which is how we tend to measure success, but external validation is a fraught and fickle path.
Today they love you, tomorrow they don’t.
°
If we learned from mistakes, we wouldn’t keep making the same ones repeatedly.
We learn from reflecting on the mistake and making a plan to behave differently. When we fail again, we have gained insight into one more way not to do a thing.
°
A mistake costs you three times, sometimes four.
The first time you do it and mess up, the second time is taking it apart, and the third time is putting it back together properly.
The fourth time is when you need to gather more materials after ruining some.
