Randomness #2

En cada link algunos apartes que guardé de cada contenido. Si quieren leerlo completo es sólo seguir el link.

Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life by Farnam Street (~6 mins)

No se a qué edad se deja uno de preguntar qué hacer con su vida pero esto me revolcó la cabeza al inicio de semana. https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?

… to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.

And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know— is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.

How to Lose Time and Money by Paul Graham (~3 mins)

Siguiendo con el cómo aprovechar el dinero, el tiempo (y la vida) leí este ensayo de Paul Graham. No suelo gastar el dinero frívolamente pero eso del fake work me puso a pensar. https://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html

In most people's minds, spending money on luxuries sets off alarms that making investments doesn't. Luxuries seem self-indulgent. And unless you got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you've already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence leads to trouble. Investing bypasses those alarms. You're not spending the money; you're just moving it from one asset to another. Which is why people trying to sell you expensive things say "it's an investment.

I realized something surprising: the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work. When you spend time having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Alarms start to go off fairly quickly.

With time, as with money, avoiding pleasure is no longer enough to protect you. It probably was enough to protect hunter-gatherers, and perhaps all pre-industrial societies. So nature and nurture combine to make us avoid self-indulgence. But the world has gotten more complicated: the most dangerous traps now are new behaviors that bypass our alarms about self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun.

The Moat of Low Status by Sasha Chapin (~3 mins)

Sobresalir en algo implica ser capaz de sobrellevar el hacer el ridículo por no saber nada. Me hizo pensar en quienes buscan/mos proteger/nos del sentimiento de impotencia que genera el no saber, seguro con buenas intenciones, cuando en realidad solo se está impidiendo el crecer. https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/the-moat-of-low-status-68a

Around anything cool you want to pursue, you will find a Moat of Low Status. Each moat is different, but they are never pleasant to be in. They’re always scummy, cold, and terrifying.

This is not an uplifting story. I’m not telling you to enjoy the Moat of Low Status. There’s no way to enjoy them. There are only a few freaky people who genuinely don’t give a fuck about their level of esteem. If you were one of them, you’d know it already

Once you’re swimming, you will tell yourself, convincingly, in your own words, that you will drown in the Moat, that you should turn back. The far shore will seem impossibly distant

If you turn back, it’ll be okay. You will find yourself in your familiar mud, being a mud person. And you can have a fine life as a mud person. A long, fulfilling life. But many mud people gaze out across the treacherous water with longing in their eyes

Brain in a Vat — Making Philosophy Manifest (~4 mins)

Si este highlight les llama mínimamente la atención vayan y lean el post. https://www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10165776050560611

The entirety of perceptual experience is a neuronal fantasy that remains yoked to the world through a continuous making and remaking of perceptual best guesses, of controlled hallucinations. You could even say that we’re all hallucinating all the time. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, that’s what we call reality.”

Cositas varias

Para no volver esto tan largo algunos links a otras recomendaciones sin tanto contexto:

Rory Sutherland – Moonshots and Marketing (Podcast. ~49 mins) Cómo deberíamos enfocarnos en crear valor, no en los productos per se, sino en la mente del consumidor. (El link permite escuchar en la web, pero seguro lo encuentran en Spotify o donde escuchen sus podcasts)

Olympic Basketball & The Grateful Dead (~3 mins). La típica historia de película gringa que en efecto sucedió. El cómo el equipo de baloncesto de Lituania llegó a los olímpicos gracias a una banda de rock… y ganó medalla de bronce.

How to sound smart (Video. ~6 mins) Corto, divertido y claramente efectivo.

Springboard: The secret history of the first real smartphone (Video. ~30 mins) La historia del primer smart phone de verdad, el cual ya había olvidado pero vale la pena recordar. A veces uno llega antes de tiempo pero no significa que no logre un impacto. Fun fact: Mi última palm pilot aún enciende y funciona.