flâneur

Mithesh Gawande

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on the atlas — 38

highlights — 100

  • Marriage isn’t the honeymoon in Thailand—it’s day four of vacation #56 that you take together. Marriage is not celebrating the closing of the deal on the first house—it’s having dinner in that house for the 4,386th time. And it’s certainly not Valentine’s Day. Marriage is Forgettable Wednesday. Together.
    How to Pick Your Life Partner - Part 2 — Wait But Why
  • If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to happen. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed. The saddest windows close when other people die. Their lives are short too. After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did. The…
    Life is Short
  • From what I have seen, people who are likely to have excessive faith in Huberman and other neuro-gurus, are not famous for their cold logic. They are usually life-long seekers of advice on how to be, how to be happy. Inside them was a reasonless sorrow, to which they attached reasons and villains but the sorrow itself never went. Most of their lives they were consumers of the wellness industry. Once it only meant reading J Krishnamurthy. Then came the “right way” to breathe, and stretching exercises that cannot be called stretching but some deep spiritual stuff. Every five years or so, there w…
    'Neuroscientists' Don’t Know the Mind at all - bymanujoseph.com
  • Marketing works best when it doesn’t feel like marketing.
    That is Marketing - David Perell
  • Marketing is wasting money so customers know you care. In nature, what matters most is not the content of a message but the extent of its trustworthiness. Many flowers produce a smell, but bumblebees prefer smells which are produced by plants which are capable of producing nectar. Thank you notes warm the soul more than text messages. Too much efficiency can ruin an experience. Door-mans are redundant in the age of sliding doors. That’s the point. The inefficiency of a doorman makes us feel prestigious. Likewise, we send wedding invitations on gilt-edged cars, not by email; in swirly fonts, no…
    That is Marketing - David Perell
  • “If you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you’re an antisocial, friendless idiot. If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you’re a fucking philosopher.” Nike shoes are overpriced pieces of cotton and Eva Foam. Throw LeBron James on a billboard and all of a sudden, you’ll run faster, lift heavier, and jump higher. Buying a diamond necklace from a street salesman, even if the stones are real, isn’t as satisfying as walking into Tiffany’s, walking up to a suit-clad salesman, asking for a necklace, and paying a premium for the one in the center of the ch…
    That is Marketing - David Perell
  • Difficulty is paradoxical. The hardest things often become the easiest once we’re fully committed to them. What’s difficult is the commitment, not the action; the word, not the deed.
    Do the Real Thing - Scott H Young
  • We’re trained to think that something is better than nothing. This is true, but only if it’s a real something. Fake somethings not only fail to create progress, they numb you to the possibility of real striving. Fill your days with enough fake activity, and you get into the situation where you fail to make meaningful progress on any of your goals, but still feel exhausted at the end of the day. Doing nothing, in contrast, is restorative. It fosters the urge to do something, rather than draining it away.
    Do the Real Thing - Scott H Young
  • Fake activity is great for making yourself feel better, but lousy for actual results.
    Do the Real Thing - Scott H Young
  • Avoid competition. Stop copying what everybody else is doing. If you work at a for-profit company, work on problems that would not otherwise be solved.
    50 Ideas That Changed My Life - David Perell
  • The reason we ask people what they do is so that we can make judgements about who they are. Even if we don't do it consciously, we are sorting and ranking them in the social hierarchy, sadly. We derive so much of our self worth from what we 'do'. There's this line from the show 'Mad Men' that I think about often. A character suddenly fired from his job says to his boss — "If I don't go into that office every day, who am I?" When I first watched the show, I was in college. I did not understand the gravity of that line. Now 3 years into my professional life, I understand. It is scary, I genuinel…
    So what do you do? | Varun
  • But I eventually learned that the funny thing about self-improvement for the sake of self-improvement is that it doesn’t inherently mean anything. It’s just a glorified hobby. It’s something to keep you occupied and to enthusiastically discuss with other people who have the same hobby. It took me a long time to accept the fact that just because something can be improved in my life, does not mean that it should be improved in my life. The improvement is not the problem, it’s the WHY that’s motivating the improvement that matters. When one compulsively looks to improve oneself, without any great…
    Do We Ever Feel Like We Have Enough?
  • One is forced to conclude that maybe it isn’t so easy to do nothing—and this suggests a solution to the puzzle. Imagine how your life would look if you discovered that you would never again travel. If you aren’t planning a major life change, the prospect looms, terrifyingly, as “More and more of this, and then I die.” Travel splits this expanse of time into the chunk that happens before the trip, and the chunk that happens after it, obscuring from view the certainty of annihilation. And it does so in the cleverest possible way: by giving you a foretaste of it. You don’t like to think about the…
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • Pessoa said that he knew only one “real traveller with soul”: an office boy who obsessively collected brochures, tore maps out of newspapers, and memorized train schedules between far-flung destinations. The boy could recount sailing routes around the world, but he had never left Lisbon. Chesterton also approved of such stationary travellers. He wrote that there was “something touching and even tragic” about “the thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicida…
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • The tourist is a deferential character. He outsources the vindication of his experiences to the ethnologist, to postcards, to conventional wisdom about what you are or are not supposed to do in a place. This deference, this “openness to experience,” is exactly what renders the tourist incapable of experience. Emerson confessed, “I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated.” He speaks for every tourist who has stood before a monument, or a painting, or a falcon, and demanded herself to feel something. Emerson and Percy he…
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • Tourism is marked by its locomotive character. “I went to France.” O.K., but what did you do there? “I went to the Louvre.” O.K., but what did you do there? “I went to see the ‘Mona Lisa.’ ” That is, before quickly moving on: apparently, many people spend just fifteen seconds looking at the “Mona Lisa.” It’s locomotion all the way down.
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • “Tourism” is what we call travelling when other people are doing it.
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • Only extreme poverty of the imagination justifies having to move around to feel.
    The Case Against Travel | The New Yorker
  • One of the great cons of our age has to be men pretending to have the same politics as women. The bond between men and women was the first foreboding that friendships are doomed by opinions. Spouses accuse each other in very personal ways, but often they are only reacting to fundamental differences in how most men and women think. What a marriage should teach us but we never remember is that people are better than the things they say; people are better than their opinions. A friend is better than his mere ideology. People who like us have got something right about the world. How does it matter…
    The Future of Friendships in the Age of Opinions - bymanujoseph.com
  • “Don’t be so humble—you’re not that great.”
    The Logic Behind Status Signaling
  • “If a book lists 'Ph.D.' after the author’s name, be wary. The author needs those letters to signal his importance. It usually means the author is not used to interacting with peers, is appealing to the gullible, or is making questionable claims. Stephen Hawking does not use those three letters.”
    The Logic Behind Status Signaling
  • “The nouveau riche flaunt their wealth, but the old rich scorn such gauche displays. Minor officials prove their status with petty displays of authority, while the truly powerful show their strength through gestures of magnanimity. People of average education show off the studied regularity of their script, but the well educated often scribble illegibly. Mediocre students answer a teacher’s easy questions, but the best students are embarrassed to prove their knowledge of trivial points. Acquaintances show their good intentions by politely ignoring one’s flaws, while close friends show intimacy…
    The Logic Behind Status Signaling
  • “If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de Medici, we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characters in our women a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.”
    The Logic Behind Status Signaling
  • Multi-tasking stems from the desire to overcome the finiteness of time. And that is why it is rooted in the awareness of mortality: our greatest fear of all.
    Multi-Tasking and Our Greatest Fear
  • This, of course, is what multi-tasking is. It’s the belief that attention can be distributed across many spaces without a corresponding loss in quality.
    Multi-Tasking and Our Greatest Fear
  • Of course, no one knows for sure, but I think that we wouldn’t. The way we use time is almost always future-focused, evidenced by the fact that our calendars are only of use looking forward. (The notable exception to this is our chronicling of history, but then again, would we feel the need to record history if we thought that we were immortal?) The division of time is driven by our desire to control it, which is due to our awareness that it’s limited. This constraint is what makes time such a valuable resource, and humans have the general tendency to measure whatever we deem as precious.
    Multi-Tasking and Our Greatest Fear
  • the adage of “use your time wisely” is often coded language for “make yourself useful.”
    Multi-Tasking and Our Greatest Fear
  • Everything we have belongs to others; time alone is ours.
    The Time Trap of Productivity
  • The more you view your time through the lens of productivity, the less you can see it through any other lens.
    The Time Trap of Productivity
  • productivity is a set of systems or rituals that protect us from future regret.
    The Time Trap of Productivity
  • But the easiest way to keep this in perspective is to remember that there will be a final time my dad reminds me to put that jacket on. There will be a day when it’s slightly chilly outside, and I’ll look at that jacket, wishing upon the heavens that he could be there to put it on me one more time. What was once an annoying thing I brushed off will be the one thing I’d give anything for, but nothing I offer will be able to bring that moment back. Understanding the finality of everything brings a clarity that only a wiser version of myself can see. If I know that one day I’ll long for the very …
    The Finality of Everything
  • Most things in life, however, don’t end because life itself ends. They end because circumstances change: people grow older, learn more about themselves, shift their view of the world, and adapt accordingly.
    The Finality of Everything
  • This is the paradox of our existence: we are aware of our finiteness, but view life through the lens of the infinite.
    The Finality of Everything
  • You should trade being short-term low-status for being long-term high-status, which most people seem unwilling to do. A common way this happens is by eventually being right about an important but deeply non-consensus bet. But there are lots of other ways–the key observation is that as long as you are right, being misunderstood by most people is a strength not a weakness. You and a small group of rebels get the space to solve an important problem that might otherwise not get solved.
    The Strength of Being Misunderstood - Sam Altman
  • The transformation of India from a farcical ‘secular’ republic in theory into a melodramatic Hindu nation in practice hides a weird quality of BJP politics. Hindus do not have real grievances anymore. The BJP has created a nation where the majority behaves like a wounded minority. That is hard to sustain. The cultural war is over and the Hindus have won. There are no open wounds anymore. Already, issues like this-mosque-was -a-temple-once, or that-artefact-is-an-idol do not gather political momentum. When there is this political entropy, and every party is somewhat Hindu in its politics, and t…
    What Would Destroy the BJP (in the Future) - bymanujoseph.com
  • To write is to wade, alone, into the vast, murky ocean of thought and idea. It is equal parts treading water and drowning, a haphazard stumbling toward insight and inspiration. It is plumbing into the depths of your soul, groping around to grab hold of something true and real and unique and you. It is casting and reeling, changing the tackle and hoping that the Big One doesn’t just nibble at your hook, but firmly latches on. And that you can successfully reel it in. To write is to scrawl dejectedly at a lonely desk on a cold winter’s night. To review once again an accumulation of quotes, notes…
    Why I Write - by Tom White - White Noise
  • Don’t confuse ‘doing a thing because I like it’ with ‘doing a thing because I want to be seen as the sort of person who does such things’
    100 Tips for a Better Life - LessWrong
  • This way of expressing ideas can sometimes be perceived as rude because, in contrast to most other people, you are not searching for consensus but for the truth. However, it is not a form of arrogance to express the most extreme consequences of your ideas; it is a form of intellectual honesty. In this way, your ideas are widely open to criticism, and you are therefore more likely to learn something. You are also more likely to look stupid, but that is a price you must be willing to pay.
    The Purpose of Writing - by Sven Schnieders - Unfashionable
  • It feels as if we are way closer to a compromise or to finding a common ground. But in reality, were are just further away from finding the truth because our disagreement is not as clear and obvious as it could be, which leads to worse criticism.
    The Purpose of Writing - by Sven Schnieders - Unfashionable
  • If you care about being less wrong tomorrow than you are today, you have to take this extreme attitude towards criticism. It will show in your writings and in the way you express your ideas. If you want to be perceived as smart and right, you will articulate your ideas in a moderate way so that others agree with it. (This is one of the main problems I have with contemporary intellectuals who always seem to take the middle ground.) If you are searching for truth, you will articulate the most extreme and radical consequences of your ideas, precisely because others will disagree with them and tel…
    The Purpose of Writing - by Sven Schnieders - Unfashionable
  • Don't write to criticize others; write to be criticized by others.
    The Purpose of Writing - by Sven Schnieders - Unfashionable
  • Ilove the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam. Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional. We’ve all chosen to turn our backs on the nine-to-five, on ever having a Friday or Saturday night off, on ever having a normal relationship with a non-c…
    “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” by Anthony Bourdain | The New Yorker
  • Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes.
    “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” by Anthony Bourdain | The New Yorker
  • I suspect a lot of people aren't sure what's the top idea in their mind at any given time. I'm often mistaken about it. I tend to think it's the idea I'd want to be the top one, rather than the one that is. But it's easy to figure this out: just take a shower. What topic do your thoughts keep returning to? If it's not what you want to be thinking about, you may want to change something.
    The Top Idea in Your Mind
  • If you want to be a Guru, you have to get away from Twitter and remain in Celebristan. The closer you come to the masses, the lesser your appeal and you end up doing things that break the mimetic wall between you and your followers. Peter Thiel, not a guru, but a student of mimesis, knows this. That is why he is off Twitter.
    Twitter gurus | Manas J. Saloi
  • Meaningful relationships are formed through commitment, not through freedom. You don’t need to search the entire country’s bars and restaurants for your perfect pals. Just pick some people, science says. Commit to them. They might not be NBA players or millionaires. But they’ll be yours. And that will be the best thing of all. On my last day in Bozeman, I wandered through the town’s graveyard. I read the dates on the headstones: Grandparents born in the 19th century, parents born in the early 20th, children and grandchildren born in the 21st. The names changed through the years, Reginald and H…
    📩 Letter #36: On friendship - Letters From Home & Away
  • In life, you have two options: (1) you can dispassionately accept the universe for what it is, or (2) you can put your dent in it. But you can’t do both.
    Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell
  • We lack courage, not genius. We’re swimming in money, but starving for ambition.
    Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell
  • he’ll stagger along the soul-crushing stepping stones of life: work hard in middle school so you can do well in high school; work hard in high school so you can do well in college; work hard in college so you can get a respected job; and get a respected job so one day, towards the end of your career, you can finally do what you want to do. All the while you “build skills” and “accumulate options,” as if the next corner will provide the happiness you’ve been seeking all along.
    Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell
  • My college jobs department steered us towards high-status jobs instead of high-impact ones. Students, professors, and advisors cared more about perception than reality. It felt as if the goal of life wasn’t to improve the world, but to win awards and build an impressive resume. Instead, my smartest friends were pushed towards a handful of fields: law, management consulting, and investment banking. Other options were peripheral and besides the point.
    Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell