Observations on People, the World, and Everything Else
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Amor fati
13 min read
The article directly references 'Amor fati' as one of its observations. This Stoic and Nietzschean concept of embracing fate provides rich philosophical context that most readers would benefit from exploring in depth.
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Alexander Grothendieck
1 min read
The article mentions Grothendieck alongside Newton and Fischer as examples of great minds who 'burned out.' Grothendieck's fascinating story—revolutionizing mathematics then abandoning academia for reclusive mysticism—perfectly illustrates the article's point about genius being narrow and context-dependent.
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Social status
15 min read
The article emphasizes that 'status transactions are happening everywhere, all the time' and that missing this means missing 'half of what's happening in a given conversation.' The social science research on status dynamics, signaling, and hierarchy would deepen understanding of this observation.
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Friends,
There is a certain category of article that I find difficult to name, but which I always enjoy reading. We might call it a collection of musings, a set of opinions, a list of miscellaneous observations. Alex Guzey calls his version “Lifehacks,” Laura Deming refers to hers as “mental models,” and Nat Friedman prefaces his as “some things I believe.”
Each offers a numbered list of thoughts. Some are simple, others deceptively profound. Part of what is enjoyable about these lists is that the things I find simple, you are likely to find profound, and vice versa. Equally, those that I enthusiastically endorse, you may consider absurd.
Whatever one’s take on the individual insights, as a whole, they represent efficient distillations of someone’s mind. Read them and you feel as if you know the person a little better; as if you have gotten a tour of their inner landscape. More importantly, you start to see your own mind reflected.
Today, I’m sharing my version. It is a collection of observations that are true to me. I would be surprised if, in ten years’ time, I don’t disagree with myself, but for the moment, it is an authentic distillation of my mind. My hope is that it sparks some interesting reflections for you and perhaps introduces some new lenses through which you view your work, goals, and interactions.
If you have one truly good idea in your life, that is more than enough.
To improve your mind, read fiction. We spend the vast majority of our professional lives in pure knowledge-gathering mode; there are different, deeper truths hidden in stories.
“Never quit” is terrible advice. Try lots of things, quit lots of things. Your time is not infinite. Sometimes you have to give up an old dream for a better one to emerge.
It’s more impactful to know your most talented contemporaries than your heroes. Meeting a hero is unlikely to change the course of your life. But if you meet the most talented minds of your generation early, you can spend the next fifty years collaborating with them as they scale.
Status transactions are happening everywhere, all the time. If
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