Aha! Consistency. {Expletive} books. Being offended. The mother of all skills. Creating reality. Better living through writing.
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change.
And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
– Peter Drucker
1. That moment of “aha,” is where real learning happens.
Why Your Brain Thrives on Uncertainty – Tom Green – (Wit & Wisdom)
We hate uncertainty. We would so love things to be stable and predictable, and unchanging. And yet…
Let’s break down what uncertainty does to your brain:
- Dopamine spikes higher with uncertainty than with certainty. It’s the reason why we love cliff-hanger shows like Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc.
- Memory formation gets enhanced (ever notice how you remember those cliff-hanger shows better?)
- Learning accelerates (because your brain hates not knowing things)
Uncertainty implies change, and change (for better or worse) implies learning. At least if you’re paying attention.
Do this: Pay attention. Embrace uncertainty.
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2. Consistency is everything.
The Best Advice From Your Father – Shail Bloom – (Curiosity Chronicle)
I know I’ve beaten this drum before, but it really is that critical. I’d even say it’s life changing.
You can never bet against a person who just keeps showing up.
We see it again and again and again: the most successful people are those that keep showing up without fail. Even those “overnight success” stories you hear often have a very simply origin story as well: consistency over a much longer period of time.
The full list has other insights, but this is the one that continues to speak to me.
Do this: Show up.
3. Books don’t have a comment section
Why You Should Read a Goddamn Book, According to Science – Elyse Wild – (Vulgar Advice)
Yes, this newsletter lives up to its name: it includes a “sprinkle of cursing,” according to one review.
Empathy is a powerful fucking trait that promotes critical thought by allowing you access to perspectives outside of your own. It also helps you form meaningful connections with people and the world around you. Reading fiction in which you are transported into a story has been shown to increase empathy. That’s pretty fucking cool — you don’t want to be a sociopath, do you?
There are more reasons listed, but this one speaks to me. It does seem like empathy and book reading are both on the decline, and I wonder sometimes if there’s an actual correlation, not a spurious one.
Do this: Have some empathy. Read a book.
4. We live in the Age of Offense
The Strength You Gain by Not Taking Offense – Arthur C. Brooks – (The Atlantic)
One of my favorite concepts is that offense is never given, it is only taken. Try as hard as they might, no one can offend you unless you choose to take offense. And boy, oh, boy are we choosing these days.
I’m not saying that many of the things we choose to take offense at aren’t offense worthy. That’s not really the point. Besides, those things are out of our control. We might want someone to be less offensive, but chances of that actually happening are near zero.
For most people, being too easily offended is worse for one’s own quality of life than being obnoxiously rude. So instead of spending your efforts trying to stamp out what you find offensive, you should work on being less offended in the first place.
In other words, you can make better choices. I’m not saying never be offended, I’m saying choose your battles. I know, it’s not always easy — those people, those things, those situations, can be so offensive — but it is something you can do to improve your quality of life in the here and now.
Do this: Work to become less easily offended.
5. Nobody teaches us the most important skill of all.
Why learning how to learn is the skill behind all skills – Anne-Laure Le Cunff – (Ness labs)
We keep saying that education, particularly higher education, is all about learning how to learn, but it keeps falling back to “learning how to pass a test”. Rather than learning the skills to understand and make use of things we don’t know, or things that don’t even exist yet, we focus on rote memorization and “teaching to the test.”
This gap matters because skills become obsolete faster than ever. The technology you learned last year might already be outdated. The strategy that worked yesterday might fail tomorrow. What remains constant is your ability to experiment, reflect, and iterate.
I think some of the people most frightened by change are those who never really embraced the importance of being able to constantly update and refine their skill sets. They’re stuck with what they know with no path forward.
In a world where knowledge changes faster than we can master it, your most valuable skill isn’t what you know—it’s how you learn.
Do this: Learn how to learn.
6. “We choose the conversations — the stories — that we want to live in”
Thinking About Directions – David Gerrold – (Patreon/blog)
Put another way, you choose your reality by choosing where you spend your energy and where you direct your thoughts. As one commenter put it, “you are what you eat”.
This works both ways.
What anyone acknowledges, what anyone speaks with the intention of having others notice it — that person is creating a moment of reality for everyone who notices. Acknowledgment, spoken or written or however it’s communicated, creates a subjective reality.
Of course pay attention to where you spend your energy, but also also realize your words and actions are almost certainly setting the tone for someone else’s reality.
Do this: Pay attention to the “moments of reality” you’re creating.
7. “An essay is a cleaned up train of thought”
Good Writing – Paul Graham – (Blog)
I know I push writing (and its counterpart, reading) a lot. It’s an important skill that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
Graham starts with an interesting correlation: good writing is more likely to be correct. The effort that goes into writing something well has the side effect of also continuing to refine the ideas contained within for the better.
More interesting to me is the corollary:
But while we can’t safely conclude that beautiful writing is true, it’s usually safe to conclude the converse: something that seems clumsily written will usually have gotten the ideas wrong too.
That perception, more than anything else, seems like great motivation to write well.
Random links
- How To Tell If You’re Dead – The line between life and death has never been clear—and modern technology blurs it further (possible paywall)
- The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel – Bad enough, but consider the future (mis)use of the tech.
- The Inner Compass – a new book releasing next month from one of my favorite thinkers, Lawrence Yeo. “… it’s on cultivating the courage to trust yourself. In a world that makes you doubt your intuition at every turn, this book will help you build conviction in who you truly are.”
What I’m reading now
- Mistborn: The Well of Ascension – Brandon Sanderson
- Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World – Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- The Science of Storytelling – Will Storr (audio)
- We Did That? – Sophie Stirling (audio)
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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