steve jobs

[BR]

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

My first philosophical book and I loved it. This will be a book that I'll be rereading from time to time to draw different insights at different stages of life.

Key Takeaways
- Patience patience patience. Siddhartha was nothing but patient throughout his life. If anything, patience is one of the best traits to have. The ability to sit on your hands and do nothing in life. Something I find hard to do.

- "Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness."
> To me, until realisation hits for the recipient, wisdom can never be fully internalised

- "Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present."
> Like a river, water flows and changes, but the river itself remains. To live in the present, rather than fixating on the past or future.

- Finding > searching.
> When one searches too hard, they become focused on their goal. In so, being unable to find, or let anything enter his mind. One will often become too obsessed and tunnel visioned. However, to find is to be free and open. To be able to strive for your goals without tunnel vision, often times being able to see what is directly in front of you.

- In everyone, there is a hidden Buddha. The world is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. In the robber or gambler, the Buddha is waiting deep inside, waiting to be discovered.
> Sins serve as eventual lessons, for without them one cannot learn to give up resistance and love the world/themselves. There is no light without dark, no happiness without sorrow. One is to teach us the significance of the other.


My biggest takeaway is patience, patience, and patience. Incredibly apt and applicable to me in life rn as well. Highly recommended read.

#book

"if you want to go for a run, go for a run, don't look for company. sooner or later, on your fifth run or your twentieth, likeminded people will find you themselves."

The growth of the anterior midcingulate cortex is linked to activities that challenge us, that we inherently resist. This is where the concept of willpower gains a new, tangible dimension. Most people get a feeling of satisfaction from doing something successfully they don't want to do.

deep thinkers are more lonely

https://youtube.com/shorts/_djQ4MFanCY?si=TU3EUQi27gu1qN2n

very true, just yesterday i found myself whining and complaining too much

to the point i stopped and realised i hated doing that

then i just started doing and i got shit done

also remembered a video that explained how the root of laziness is being lost in life

made a lot of sense too

you have to tackle the root for a permanent fix

the graceful acceptance of your minuscule position in the cosmos is the gateway to calm and harmony

humility

https://youtube.com/shorts/FVB4Ve_3I2E?si=MEkDcWgby9rSAFJf

questions to ask yourself

in a world where it’s never been easier to do nothing, doing something becomes extraordinary

always ask, but never expect

You have one life, don't settle for mediocrity

> the true test of intelligence is if you can get what you want out of life
a) getting what you want
b) wanting the right things
- society is often running on mimetic desire and following paths or chasing goals that aren't theirs. wanting the right things is questioning if something is what YOU truly want, instead of society or friends.

> secretary theorem in life
- to pick the best secretary out of a 100, go through the first 1/3 and use the best as a benchmarket, before settling on equivalent or better in the remaining 2/3 of candidates
- applicable in jobs, cities, dating, and life in general

> 10,000 iterations, not hours to mastery
- iteration is not the same as repetition. iteration involves error correction. do, fix, improve, repeat. 10,000 iterations to mastery.

> we're hardwired to be pessimistic biologically from living in jungles
- however, modern society is no longer linear. it is more forgiving of failure with massively compounding upsides.

> be skeptical about specific things and optimistic in the general
- the number of failures don't matter, because it is just a small bump in the long run. learning experience. as long as you iterate and cut losses quickly. be optimistic that you will eventually find the right match.

> once you've found the right thing, go all in
- explore quickly and iterate until you find the right thing. be willing to move all your chips to the centre of the table and go all in to compound.

> labels like introvert, extrovert, pessimist, optimist, are self-limiting
- humans are dynamic and will be flexible in different scenarios.
- look at problems at hand objectively without self labels from a third party pov.

> motivated reasoning is the worst kind of reasoning
- you will not find truth from motivated reasoning. it causes clouded judgement due to self looping of our identity or labels.

adaptation is intelligence.

full 3h podcast here, will be taking my time to consume it

v excited to digest this

https://youtu.be/KyfUysrNaco?si=eNB1Qr9pYKLM_ldk

don’t attribute malice to incompetence

pretty much sums it up and it has been helpful in remaining stoic / not offended

opportunities