On Living Well: Selected Threads
On Personal Psychology, Energy Management, and the Good Life
- The concept of "introversion" impeded my development
- On how I decided it was not "fake" to smile at people
- Even if you're "not that special" on the world stage, you can be quite special on the local/scene level
- On expanding the self-concept to include joy
- A happy and interesting life is possible
- The secret to happiness is liking things and finding things to like
- Guilt is an energy leak
- Exercise as proof to oneself that change is possible
- "Time-machining" to the present
- Developing intuition about things made with care
- Don't bargain about rest and work
- There is still time for it to be a "good day"
- Do not give credence to thoughts about your life when you wake up feeling weird
- "Curiosity" and "gratitude" as clichés
- Psy-op yourself into enjoying your life
- Don't substitute the living of your life for the watching of other people's
- The person you see in the mirror is you at your most tense and analytical
- RBF is a treatable condition
- "What do I really want here?"
- Don't stave off curiosity to save energy; curiosity generates energy
- You'll know what you should be doing if you stop scrolling
- Rewiring Intrinsic Motivation by Forgoing External Validation
- You will see lots of advice online that is not for you
- You can "hallucinate" about yourself while introspecting
- People who recover from mental illness understand the power the mind has over reality
- "Living up to your potential" is just a matter of living one's individual day well
- "It will feel better to have done it."
- Modern man can neither deeply focus nor intensely relax
- Your experience of your attention is your experience of your life
On Learning
- Learning a new skill reminds you that things are knowable
- Notes from John Holt's How Children Fail
- Learning a new sport to heal neuroticism
- Being an "adult beginner" is a cringe gauntlet
- Everything I ever learned I learned one afternoon at a time
- Anything can be everything
- "Pretend to be a professional tennis player"
- The first step towards learning something is believing that it is learnable
- Putting off learning because it will make you feel stupid
Professional Life, Teaching, Mentorship
- If you want to change the world, tell people when you see potential in them
- Frame coaching as "reminding"
On Creativity
- Inspiration as an intentionally cultivated state
- 20th century acting manuals as advice for living
- The payoff of cultivating taste
- Having something memorized allows you to use it in creative thinking
- It's not "writing," it's "writing stuff down"
- Looking up other people's reaction to something before processing your own is anti-creative
Specific Lifestyle Recommendations
- If you want something in your life, you have to be willing to do it imperfectly but frequently
- Making good habits casual and haphazard
- Success is less about "locking in" than using random time chunks well
- A proposal for a media fast: "Reality Day"
- The virtuous procrastination cycle
- Toggle between housework and calisthenics
- Consider reading great literature early in the day
- How to get the value of 100 books out of one book
- Huge Leatherbound books are a superior UX
- Develop a casual interest in classical music
- On going bowling
- My guide to making smoothies
On Aging
- Clinging to youth is cringe. Be an energetic middle-aged person
- Every year of my thirties has been "fuller" than any year of my twenties
- You'd Be Surprised What Comes Back Around
- On "full-circle" experiences with art
On Relationships and Marriage
- Look for a "good museum date" partner
- You have to be interesting to find an interesting partner
- First dates should be a 90 minute conversation or a 4-7 hour conversation
- The goal of any first date is to see if you can go Before Sunrise mode
- You should start a links channel with your partner and spam it
- You need to have leisurely conversations with your partner