Response “Everything is at its acme; especially in the art of making one’s way in the world. There is more required nowadays to make a single wise man than formerly to make Seven Sages, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person than was required with a whole people in former times.” … Read more
Seeing The Cracks At first sight, things appear perfect. When you first meet someone – you don’t see who they are. You only see future possibilities. Your first impression is determined by their superficial characteristics. But knowing someone’s intentions is much more important. When you spend enough time with them, you notice their frustrating habits … Read more
The Age of the Machine You can be living in the worst area in a city, but with a laptop and an internet connection, you can go anywhere. The day will come when the geographic space we occupy will have no bearing at all on what sights, smells, and experiences we can enjoy. There is … Read more
The world reveals itself as tools, not as objects. We don’t waste time processing the boring details of everything we see. We only care about the usefulness of things. Many of us don’t think about the complexity of our cars or laptops until they break down. Only then are we forced to understand what’s going … Read more
Grand Models Our mental models are the real space we occupy. We can live in the exact same geographical location but are separated apart by endless oceans when it comes to how we perceive the world. To be able to function properly, we need to update our mental models regularly by responding to unexpected changes. … Read more
“I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself.” – Michel De Montaigne Self-Determination Theory When something is intrinsically motivating, you don’t care about the external reward. If you intrinsically enjoy playing music, you will do so even if you are not paid to and there is no … Read more
What Stops You From Doing What Matters Most? Incomplete Advice There’s a book about entrepreneurship called “Millionaire Fastlane”. Mind the corny title, it’s actually a good book packed with a lot of insights about what’s required to become successful and sobering realizations about how society is set up, and how most people aren’t … Read more
The most painful death is the ego death. It requires you to take stock of who you are and what you believe in and make a conscious effort to destroy the fundamental constructs of your mental models about the world. But what is the ego? Unlike the Freudian definition – which situated the ego as … Read more
Character to Personality “We are social creatures” – true, but what happens when we care too much about what people think? In her book Quiet, Susan Cain describes how the US moved from being a character culture to a personality culture. Qualities such as honor, hard work, and loyalty were common ideals, but eventually were … Read more
‘He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee” – Nietzsche An archetypal truth is like a law of nature in that it describes a pattern that eternally repeats. It is hardly wise to classify … Read more