SD#69: Isolation, creative process, and success
August 20, 2023
Welcome to the 69 edition of Seven Dawns, a weekly newsletter by me, Tomas Ausra, with a focus on getting better every day. A very warm welcome to the new subscribers who joined since last week. I’m glad you’re here.
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Hi friends,
Isn’t it weird that we place imaginary constraints within our heads that limit what we do? I’m not talking about things that break the law or harm others in some way. But simple things have been done that way for ages and we accept it. While those processes are important for a set number of professions (a surgeon, a lawyer), for the majority of us there is no predefined path to action. We have actors who become presidents, while others are working tirelessly through the parliament. Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
🔎 Our seven ideas this week:
1. The people who invented AI are full-time catastrophists. But they’re hyping the wrong catastrophe. There’s less concern about SkyNet declaring war on the species or being turned into a paperclip than an epidemic that causes more death, disease, and disability than Covid-19: loneliness The U.S. faces an epidemic of isolation. Loneliness among young adults has been increasing since 1976. (The increase has been steeper among those with lower incomes.) Teen depression would be at similar levels, given its trajectory, with or without the pandemic. Put another way, Covid didn’t inspire social distancing … social media did. A more honest moniker for the sector is “asocial” media. Studies find that when people reduce or eliminate social media from their lives, their self-esteem and sense of connection often improve. AI-driven assistants present a similar risk. A reliable indicator of how much a new tech product will drive us apart is the intensity of the founder’s promise to bring us together. Facebook’s mission statement has become less recognizable than an ’80s pop star’s face, but the Zuck and Sheryl promised (repeatedly) they would “connect people.” They then built algorithms that send images of nooses and razor blades to 14-year-old girls experiencing suicidal ideation. Tinder aims to spark relationships but increasingly results in sadness and anxiety. AI assistants are the ultimate helicopter parent, bulldozing obstacles and the risk inherent in establishing new relationships. We are breeding a generation of asocial people who don’t know what it means to be rejected, forget a name, miss a flight, and find unexpected joy. AI, and mobile technology, have strip-mined a key component of what it means to be human, what it means to be a mammal. Happiness is a function of your willingness to take an uncomfortable risk and have something wonderful … really wonderful … happen in person. Technology offers productivity and prosperity. However, joy is in the agency of others. The most important skills are forged, not taught. 👉 No Mercy / No Malice |
2. You can’t reach the brain through the ears We spend our lives learning hard things the hard way: what it feels like to fall in love, how to forgive, what to say when a four-year-old asks where babies come from, when to leave a party, how to scramble eggs, when to let a friendship go, what to do when the person sitting next to you on the bus bursts into tears, how to parallel park under pressure, and so on. But it isn’t easy. You warn them that holding a grudge will only weigh them down; they refuse to let it go. You explain how to parallel park; they end up jammed into a spot at a 45-degree angle with a line of cars honking behind them. Unfortunately, when we want to transmit wisdom, words are often all we have. How else can you convince someone that, for example, it’s better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all? An interpretive dance? A sculpture made out of chewing gum? A breakup-themed escape room? If you’re sitting there with a broken heart, what are you going to believe: a string of phonemes, or the ache in your chest? 👉 Experimental History |
3. Most everyday people construct guardrails from ingesting imaginary rules that we ingest and start believing in over time, and those guardrails keep us smaller than we have the potential to be. Ultra-successful people do not live by imaginary rules that govern the majority of people Time to do some unlearning. Five breakers to imaginary rules: 1) Permission is not required. People are often…waiting. Waiting for their opportunity. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting to feel ready. As a result, the average person will spend years of their life waiting, biding their time, and holding onto ideas, dreams, or aspirations. But waiting is often a form of looking for “permission”, to get the nod from someone. However, the truth is that the people who rise to the top do not look for permission to move. They do their homework, see their angle, and move. 2) Common process is not essential. We are taught that there is a “way of doing things” that must be respected. For those who make it to great heights, this is tossed out the door. 3) Speed over caution. Big players are not reckless, but they are not cautious. Parse this out for yourself and what that means. Caution will have you nipping at the edges of your ambition when you should be pushing harder or taking the risk. 4) Social approval is not important. Very important people are not wasting their time on things that do not meet a certain standard. Social validation does not meet that standard unless popularity is required for what they do for a living. 5) Expectation is not calibrated. Small players calibrate their ambition and expectations. You can hear it when they speak. Reduced ambitions, parameters on their earnings, etc. They use qualifiers and minimisers, and they seem to set their own (and your) expectation very small. They build their small containers for what they feel they can do. Big players – and often *future* big players – do not play small and actively dislike when others try to force them to be limited or play smaller. They often find it offensive and unacceptable. 👉 Ultra Successful |
4. We have the power to reframe the events of our lives, and to perceive them in a way that empowers us. While circumstances may be outside of our control, our interpretations can be consciously shaped. And nowhere is this more salient than the distinction between pain and suffering What’s fascinating about the awareness of our mortality is the myriad of ways we respond to that knowledge. Some people respond by doing everything in their power to avoid death, viewing it as something that needs to be defeated through technology. Others view death as something liberating, as the starting point to an eternity in heaven where they can be reunited with their loved ones. Others simply accept it and don’t make much of it. The potential responses to the awareness of our mortality are, ironically enough, quite endless. What this means is something profound. When faced with a biological fact, we can choose how we interpret it. The mind has the power to frame the inevitability of entropy in a way that aligns with one’s values and perceptions. When we call someone an optimist, for example, we’re referring to someone that takes the reality of pain and perceives it as an opportunity for something better. The optimist doesn’t deny the existence of pain, but instead sees it as a gateway to growth. 👉 More To That |
5. While it’s undeniable that our past influences our future, we tend to place more rigid limits on ourselves than actually exist If you ever applied for a job, you probably did the little retrospective dance of editing your resume so it followed a consistent narrative. When you get a job interview, you may get asked: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” and you’re supposed to have a coherent vision that’s aligned with your current self. This is the self-consistency fallacy at play: the misguided assumption that “I have always acted in a certain way; therefore, I must continue to act in this way.” It’s an invisible yet powerful force that affects our path whenever we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can’t deny that our previous choices and current beliefs form an important part of our identity, but they should not become an artificial boundary that guides our choices. As John Maynard Keynes puts it: “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” You are a dynamic being capable of change and growth. You are a verb, not a noun. When exploring potential paths forward, you can ask yourself the following questions to let go of preconceived expectations and allow yourself to expand your horizons beyond who you have been so far. Are there opportunities that I have dismissed because they don’t fit my existing trajectory? What new paths might I be able to explore if I were not bound by my past choices? What would my ideal career look like if I could start from a blank slate? 👉 Ness Labs |
6. The creative process is a delicate dance between the creative and the inner critic In Hilde Østby’s lovely book on creativity, she writes that children begin to develop their inner critic around the age of six. That it’s here, where a child creates their standard for what a good drawing is and then evaluates their work regardless of what their parents say about it. Before the age of six, children will show pictures they have drawn to anyone and everyone who will pay them mind, without considering the response they might get. But, eventually, they become concerned with feedback and experience self-doubt. Contrary to common belief, possessing an inner critic is a good thing. The French novelist, polemicist and physician Louis-Ferdinand Céline has a fabulous line on the correlation between great art and self-doubt… “The beginning of genius is being scared shitless.” Writers and artists who don’t doubt their work are either delusional or lying through their teeth. However, while an inner critic is necessary for us to develop taste and create art that exceeds it, we must learn to turn it off during the creative process. 👉 Honey Copy |
7. Success always comes with liabilities An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it. The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked: “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.” The banker, looking a bit puzzled, says “But, if you catch more fish, then you could sell them and earn enough to buy a bigger boat. And with that bigger boat you could catch even more fish and then hire a crew. Eventually, you could buy a few boats and have many fishermen working for you catching more fish than you ever dreamed of. And if you keep doing this, you could eventually sell your business for millions and retire rich.” The fisherman asks, “And then what?” To which the investment banker replied “Then you can sleep late. Fish a little. Play with your kids. Take a siesta with your wife. And every night you could go into the village, have some wine, and play guitar with your friends.” There are a lot of people who talk about the story of the Mexican fisherman as they scramble to do more, more, more. But, some of us actually get the lesson—success always comes with liabilities. Choose yours wisely. 👉 Of Dollars and Data |
👨🏫 Quote of the week:
“It is easier to hold your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold them 98% of the time.”
Clayton Christensen
🎁 Fun things to click on:
A Twitter thread of true facts that blow your mind. NASA’s Webb Telescope captures a star right before a supernova. Exhausting dialogue and conversational shortcuts.
Thanks for reading! If you have any learnings you’d like to share with me, or disagree with any of the ones above then do drop me a message.
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Speak soon,
Tom