I recently discovered apps for gathering people together with public events. It’s nice to easily schedule informal things and have them connect you with family, friends, and strangers. It doesn’t have to be just annual birthday parties.

Make every lemon crisis an opportunity for new lemonade.

The reality is we’re all likely average and should lower our expectations for ourselves and others. Give ourselves some grace when we can’t control everything.

What we can control is continual learning and taking what works into our life. Perhaps it’s the best way to cope. And with that, we still have hope.

That flexibility helps you and your relationships grow too.

Exploring how to hand-make cavatelli pasta with your kids with semolina flour that you’ve never used before is an enlightening experience.

Something I can never reproduce is the how often the first time I make things, they often go particularly well. There’s something about the wonder and newness of something you haven’t done before that brings excitement to the product itself. It’s like when people say they taste the love put into it. You can taste the enthusiasm!

It can be a lot of work to gather quality, foreign ingredients and make things yourself, but it’s an experience no one can take away or replace either.

There is a cost though.

Leverage certainly does provide more power with the same amount of strength. What we often forget is the distance it also brings.

Archimedes said that if you gave him a lever and he’ll move the Earth. Even if he could, he’d be very far away.

Technology has probably been this siren call for us. We love all the creature comforts it provides us being able to do anything we want around the world and communicate with anyone anywhere.

That distance is unnatural though. Our experiences of the wonders of the world are only stimulated a small part of our senses. A lot more people are disconnected from where their food comes from or how it’s made. We are more, anxious, burnt out, and lonely than before despite our advances. We don’t have the understanding of those near us like our neighbors.

Heal with wisdom, peace, and love for each other. Hug each other or it’ll be a bitter lesson.

Maybe in more ways than one.

Spring gives fresh hope to the world with new things that can grow.

To make room, we clean out the house, and maybe even our bodies to make room for healthy things we really need and want.

Giving away old things is like letting go of things you once loved so that others can enjoy them too.

Even sifting through old books I haven’t read yet, I skim them to assess whether they’re still worth reading versus given away. They are like time capsules to an older, curious me.

I wonder how we can shed habits and emotions in a similar way. Peeling away to the core. Finding our innermost imperfections, holding them, repairing them for our wiser selves in the modern age.

From the pure joy of kids laughing to the depression escalated from small disagreements.

There probably is no meaning to life, but life gives us meaning. We have the choice to live and be present with whatever we’re going through. Nothing can take that free will away, even concentration camps.

The hardest thing to be resilient against is gradual erosion of trust and reliability. It’s very difficult to get that confidence back. Both parties need to want to work actively at rebuilding without getting too burned out and stressed in the process.

It’s interesting when one chooses stoicism and the other denies that viability.

All we can do is keep connecting with people to gain understanding and validate with empathy.

Much like a chess match you may feel you’re losing, you haven’t lost yet. You can keep trying to make the best of the situation and see if things change.

Unlike games, you don’t get start over. The fast may often be hardest before you break it. But the benefits of the resilience pay for itself.

Researching and exploring intermittent fasting (again), protein powder, undenatured type II collagen, creatine, fish oil, and psyllium husk.

It’s been good to not eat until noon and only through dinner. Good black coffee or matcha in morning every other day is a ritual and a treat.

Psyllium husk as soluble fiber before lunch, plus some fish oil.

Protein drink as snack mid-afternoon or after workout at night.

Creatine and collagen with carbs at dinner.

Indulge yourself for special occasions like Pi Day, anniversaries, and hysterically happy kids.

From home repair, to coffee, or learning, you need to keep that curiosity and experimentation for yourself. It’s beyond satisfaction too, it’s about skin in the game, and accountability.

This game, where you get mini rewards along the way as you figure out what kind of coffee beans there are and their differences, different local coffee roasters, and all the exact ratios and temperatures to brew them at. Tasting a coffee over time as it cools and noticing the subtle chocolatey notes and smooth body. Or when you roughly follow a french toast recipe, but realize why they said to use stale bread, rather than fresh bread. You’re always learning.

I’ve been liking AI learning modes, that exercise the socratic method. Questioning what I’m questioning and what I may already know. Making me fill in the blanks. It’s more a partnership than pure consumption.

Like the old coins you’ve worked hard to collect as a kid, there’s something special about the hard work you put into thinking, “is this coin special or old in some way?”

Reading long-form on your own, rather than summaries is still important. You form your own opinions and perspectives as you go, slowly, rather than all at once.

It’s something movies seem to often lack compared to books. There’s a more multi-sensory, immersive experience, but there’s less room for your own imagination. People are left to wonder about subplots and plot holes, rather than how things were presented.

Assessing people on this is particularly difficult given how quick advances are changing the capabilities of an individual. Not everyone may adopt new technologies, and some may not be able to do anything when those services are down.

Writing this is the same. Maybe it’s not the most well-formed, but it’s mine. Maybe I’ll get better, maybe not, but it’s still mine.

It has a strong foundation, with high tolerances, and yet can allow extensions only limited by your creativity.

Law is a piece of this for society.

When times are tough, it is something there that is stable.

Sometimes, people may feel it changes too slowly, but that’s a feature and not a bug.

Adapting to a world where technology compounds at an accelerating pace makes providing a strong structure tough.

Ideally, the law can at least help those most in need, in the worst of times.

The rest can be positive optionality for the masses.

Whether it’s AI agents for our children, placing safe guardrails so they can safely explore and possibly surprise you.

This control must be not too strong or too loose. You want to have a strong foundation like your own domain, hosting all your writing, and also be able to distribute it widely in the latest fashionable products.

It allows you to choose the ethics and morality you agree with while still benefiting from technological advancement.

You can’t really get angry when things don’t go as you would like. Failure is really learning.

When assessing others and crafting questions that may push their limits, you can also push your own. In surprising you, you may also surprise and promote yourself.

I’ve noticed this in a lot of Asian culture. The pride in mastery and instruction in K-pop to Japanese sword techniques and strategy.

It’s interesting that even in the modern day, proximity to these cultures leads to more similar character. I’m excited to leave the four seasons behind and enjoy warmer weather and more craftsmanship.

Lots of growth in delegating to agents, AI or otherwise, but good to have always done something yourself to know the nuances and difficulties. It keeps us sharp to go back to basics and doing things ourselves once in a while. Not sure what’s the right ratio. Must keep experimenting.

Experiments should have good hypotheses that you’ve got an educated prediction on. These help shape the specifications and outcomes you want to test for. They provide a safety net as you continually change.

From cooking to sports, you’ll want a recipe you’ve worked on and refined, but also testing small changes to it. Often times, these nuances are crucial for higher performance.

Even as just a consumer, you can order your favorite dim sum, and try out new dishes to expand your palate. The 1/e (37%) balance of breadth vs depth or explore vs exploit is applicable to so many parts of life.

In teaching the kids, you want them to master basic life skills like reading and writing. By working on colors, then, letters and phonics with games like “I spy,” you can quiz them for fun with easy things they know 2/3s of the time and new, harder things 1/3 of time.

It’s been great to see the kids grow as they naturally have new experiences with family members. From sliding down the snow on their butts, to their feet, to watching olympians at the highest level.

Growing is more fun when it’s like the entrepreneurial hustle. You keep discovering new things that people want and you help them get it. Money is just an easy way to keep score.

When you play games like Puzzle Fighter, no one really cares about the points you get. The fun is in the process, the back and forth, and only finally the victory.

Much like probabilistic games like poker, sometimes you can do the right thing and still lose. There’s always that chance. You need to be consistent and resilient despite these so you can survive and thrive longer term.

Been maintaining mental and physical fitness with explorations of research-backed supplements like creatine, protein, caffeine, and L-theanine. The latter two lately through the ceremony, or at least my minimalist version, of matcha.

It’s been interesting while listening to Musashi’s Book of the Five Rings, thinking about strategy in the large and in the small, much like software abstractions. The evolution of tea ceremonies from fancy rooms to show off to guests, to the simplicity and focus of the tea itself along with minimal decorations.

Embracing the asymmetry, the broken renewed is much like life’s creative destruction. Things don’t always go to plan, but you can make the best of it by using that wall to push against to another direction.

In constructing some derby cars with my son recently, I dove into the minimal physics elements, but saw in practice that there were lots of ways to win a race.

This view of many, if not all sides, allows us to think and feel like others. That connection may be all we have as AI advances. We may be the modern day Dr. Frankenstein creating something beyond our control. Or perhaps, like in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, we must flow like the river by learning and teaching.

listening to sapiens and the history of humankind thinking about if productivity is

0:15

really a curse it's perhaps our greatest strength and differentiator between us and

0:22

other species or things but it's also led to

0:29

us kind of hurting ourselves where we have more specialization,

0:37

we're almost too hyper focused on one thing,

0:42

all to just kind of grow our population and genes or memes.

0:48

And actually, maybe not even be really that happy or peaceful about it.

0:57

maybe then the learning is to figure out what is enough to do whatever you like and

1:08

you'll kind of find a way,

1:11

but maybe you won't take over society with your thoughts,

1:17

but that's okay.

Not even the perception of corruption, guilty until proven innocent for officials as a deterrent

Paid well as an incentive to get best people and keep corruption away

Small area of governance to have focus

Long term rationality for compounding

May not want two parties to focus on population rather than politics

Breadth of theories and depth of practice for your specific circumstances

You’re going to die in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 years.

What would you do?

Are they different?

It probably doesn’t matter what you predict after 10 or 20 years.

That’s too far in the future to get right.

Too much can change from now until then.

But not everyone uses it the same way.

This creates a bigger and bigger gap between those that create and those that consume.

As creators, consumers, and companies converge, it may be only a few big platforms that provide all the tools cheaply and take all the value.

Existing laws haven't adapted well to this change in everything being "free."

This may be why advertising has been one of the few long-term profitable ways to run a technology business.

Which companies do you think benefit from this the most?

Those that best know the most people?

• 2.0 hours personal, fun, hard, creative work/writing

• 0.5 hours meditation/breating/stretching/exercise

• 2.0 hours deep focus work

• 1.5 hours lunch/walk/siesta nap

• 2.0 hours deep focus work

• 2.0 hours prep/eat/clean up dinner

• 0.5 hours shower to diffuse/loosen mind revitalize creativity

• 2.0 hours play/learning/reading/planning ideally without technology

• 8.0 hours sleep/rest

• remaining hours chores, community conversations, transportation, philosophizing

Optional night owl overtime if good cost/benefit.

Rest 2-3 days in week + holidays (technology sabbath, [physical] [team] games)

Deliberate focus building mental models (chunky trunk of principles) to grow leaves of creativity. Mastery learning frees up limited working memory of four chunks for other thoughts or connections. Don’t overlearn things you have already mastered. Otherwise, you’ll only be confirming your own beliefs/methods/existing knowledge rather than exploring new information and possibility learning something new. Collaboration with a team helps spark new ideas and connections which are deeper too. Practice multi-sensory association (memes!) and recall and good habits to stay focused. Plan ahead for avoiding bad habits.

Deliberate rest to remember long-term, especially after many repetitions and struggles. Physical activity helps too. Approach difficult things first then come back to them later for new perspectives after some diffuse processing.

These discoveries seem similar to how babies learn. They are constantly moving all over the place, observing even the tiniest details in a multi-sensory way, focused on them, then something else, then tired, they must rest and process them. They’re obviously learning a lot very quickly between various motor skills, language, and so many things we take for granted. Understand that it’s a normal process not a product. Focus on output and outcomes will come.

Growth versus fixed mindset

A growth mindset is basically having the attitude that failing is acceptable because you can learn from failures going forward. You experiment with new things and may fail once in a while, but what you learn from it compounds and keeps encouraging you to do even more.

Fixed mindsets are the opposite. You restrict yourself from trying new things because you may fail. And because the world keeps changing, with new people learning new things, you essentially get left behind by not adapting.

I first heard about a growth versus fixed mindset while reviewing some algebra lessons on Khan Academy with my girlfriend. Sal Khan, the founder, had an article talking about a growth mindset and why he would only praise his son for effort rather than results because that would encourage a growth mindset. This made a lot of sense to me and I was interested to hear that it is also a superset (and I love supersets!) of grit and some other character traits that I’ve read about from KIPP. Of course I dug a little deeper to learn about growth mindsets and found a TED Talk about it too.

It’s interesting that this attitude in a growth mindset is also related to the Lean software development philosophy of “Think big, act small, fail fast, learn rapidly.” I’ll get to that another day.

References

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U48yVm_6lQ0&list=PL-9r0qXR0Kq1TA2W6SpKLYZTP-_xfbebw

• https://www.huffingtonpost.com/salman-khan/the-learning-myth-why-ill_b_5691681.html

• https://www.kipp.org/our-approach/character

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_software_development

Risky in investments because some larger than expected downside can result in you losing everything or not being able to easily recover.

Loss percentages are asymmetric.

Technology is also a lever. Optimistically, it can make a lot of things more efficient, etc.

But it may grow too fast for people to fully adapt to. We’ve evolutionally adapted to small, slow changes across time.

Although you may not be able to stop productivity, you can at least not participate in it.

There may be some things worth participating on though. Some things are must haves that if we don’t solve by a certain period of time, we’ll never be able to.

Global warming may be one of those problems. It’s one of those things that if we could have successfully completed tomorrow, we’d probably wouldn’t regret.

Related: risk

More incentive to support blockchain and profit with majority ownership than to ruin it for the minority. Especially when proofs are expensive (compute, space, time).

Adaptive compute for a changing world collective. Correct wrongs with delegated consensus. Crypto internet computer blockchain machine learning with all the auditable, anonymous data and compute.

Virtual worlds, with eSports and more. Iterate toward global governance bootstrapping (Yunah) Aligning influence, ownership, and identity/authentication Coordinated effort to slow/reverse adverse climate change

Decentralized, aligned cities/countries/economy (internet unions) Democratization of power/influence

Can’t stop distributed ideas and people, especially the younger future. Nearly anyone can create and participate in tokens or initial coin offerings, not just the accredited wealthy.

History of decentralization from empires, to countries, to cities, to companies, to individuals.

Under-managed geographic countries have most to gain from something potentially managed better than corruption/ignorance.

Fragmentation risk with blockchain overload Multi-currency interoperation (virtual and physical)

Constant or fixed inflation rate of currency may mean that it’s difficult to adjust monetary supply for economic factors. (a la Euro or any large, diverse country with inequity/disparity?)

Store of value is small usecase. Still fiat trust in core developers and risk of bugs or collusion. Open source allows anyone to audit, but also very difficult given technical complexity.

Art has long-term potential as endless runway of human creation when necessities are met. Maybe not much use for money in such a utopia. But existing market is small relative to other factors.

Maximum value something greater than global GDP with additional attributed to added opportunities, efficiency, volume, and postive feedback loop.

It will take time and people will get overexcited and that might be good to accelerate to a better state or, at the very least, to learn what works.