Brain Food – No. 572 – April 14, 2024
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Welcome to Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in life and work. (Read the archives).
FS
“Problems arise when we start compromising our own standards, those we have set for ourselves, in order to earn the admiration of others. Problems come when we choose to focus on what others think and see versus reality.”
Insights
1.
“The way people solve problems is first by having an enormous amount of commonsense knowledge, like maybe 50 million little anecdotes or entries, and then having some unknown system for finding among those 50 million old stories the 5 or 10 that seem most relevant to the situation. This is reasoning by analogy.”
— Marvin Minsky
2.
“What matters isn’t being applauded when you arrive—for that is common—but being missed when you leave.”
— Baltasar Gracián
3.
“Thinking is all about the ability to look at complex situations and strip away things that don’t count—the ability to filter out situations and find what’s at their core.”
— Paraphrasing Douglas Hofstadter
Tiny Thoughts
1.
What every human being wants and needs:
1. To be part of something larger than themselves
2. To be paid attention to
3. To be listened to
4. To be respected
5. To be loved
6. To matter
2.
The beginner plays within the boundaries.
The competent explore the boundaries.
The master knows when to ignore them.
3.
I like to avoid dealing with people where I feel like I need a contract.
(Share Tiny Thought one, two, or three, on X).
TKP Podcast
Jerry Colonna was a high-flying New York venture capitalist in the early 1990s, but his life wasn’t as glamorous as most made it out to be. He was anxious, overweight, unhealthy, and unfulfilled. After suffering a panic attack on the streets of Manhattan, everything changed.
“It’s not too late to wake up, to realize [that] for the pursuit of love, safety, and belonging, we shape ourselves, we shape-shift ourselves, kind of like a Marvel superhero, to fit the expectations of others. The forces at work are insidious and relentless and ubiquitous. One can make the argument that the real purpose of life boils down to discovering who you really are and living into that. And then you inject a little bit of kindness into that and then we have a fully actualized person.“
— If you’re interested in resistance, anxiety, self-esteem, or motivation, listen to the entire episode (Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript) or dive right into the part above here.
Thanks for reading,
— Shane
P.S. Clever engineering.