Hi Everyone,
Hope you are truly well.
And also, hope the water is good…
This is Water
David Foster Wallace | 23 mins
The first time I listened to this speech, some years ago, I was in a micro-bus commuting to work. I remember it because I nearly cried and I would have allowed myself to cry had I not been in a moving cubicle with ~20 other people.
The strange part is that it wasn’t some sad sentimentality that had me on the verge of tears. No. That wasn’t it. Instead it was something that was reaching deep within me, almost touching my essence, my core. Or rather, I felt I was unusually, unnaturally close to that essence.
And over the years I have re-listened to it plenty of times. It has never failed to evoke that sense of deep, yet light state of awareness.
However, in a way, it has always been a speech I listen to feel, not to intellectualize and necessarily understand. I let DFW’s intricate prose, his calm, methodical, earnest, sincere, voice wash over me and pull me into a void, a pause from my own thinking.
This time I tried approaching it in a more analytical manner: reading the transcript, searching around for others’ analysis, summaries, thoughts, takeaways, lessons.
Frankly, I didn’t manage to get far from where I had started. The essay/speech just seems to say what it means. It’s there. Plain to read, listen to. Yet,… it feels elusive at the same time. That there are things hidden in plain sight.
Please do listen to it (if you haven’t) and let me know what jumps at you, what you feel or not feel :)
(Note: You could read the transcript or the book but I’d recommend listening).
Below I’ll just put in some of my highlights (ones from this latest expedition):
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?"
…
The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.
These obvious, important realities are right in front of us, inside us, all around us. Anywhere and everywhere. If only we look at them, if only we think of them.
And that is what learning “how to think” is supposed to be about. It is what education is supposed to impart on us.
I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.
Learning how to think is about knowing and acknowledging that we run a lot on unconscious, default settings.
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.
We lose ourselves in ourselves:
it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotised by the constant monologue inside your own head
That is what we must avoid, our default settings. We must exercise our freedom of choice.
learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
…
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
(Aside: This seems to link with Existentialism. Existence precedes essence. We are “condemned to be free” and thus must construct our own meaning).
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
This I find to be a fascinating idea. And also of course, as a question to ponder: what do I worship?
The question is uncomfortable in that I feel like I don’t particularly worship anything. But the key part is probably: “in the day-to-day trenches”. Because as I think more about my actions, thoughts, and ideas in the day-to-day, I find that they do suggest some things I worship. Things that I offer and devote my precious time and energy to. And the crucial part—as DFW suggests—is that they are unconscious. It’s precisely that they are hidden in the quotidian.
Coming back to freedom, DFW suggests our idea of freedom might also be skewed:
Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
Finally, DFW ends with repeating the note for awareness of what is invisible to us but is all around us.
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
Naval Ravikant on The Tim Ferriss Show
2 hours | Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss
As pretty much always the case with Naval, this is a delightful listen covering a broad range of topics with plenty of nuggets to chew on.
Some that stood out for me:
The foundation of Science is doubt. “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”. As such it needs to be falsifiable.
(Perhaps an unpopular opinion): Social Science is not actual science as it leans towards consensus rather than truth. Similar for Psychology.
Jargon has its use (as an effective, compressed form of communication between experts) but it can mask ignorance.
”I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something” ~ Richard FeynmanOptimize for Freedom and Independence. The purpose of Wealth is Freedom.
To improve and grow, focus on getting more iterations rather than just hours.
Play the long game. One "hack" is to find things that you feel is play but feels work to others. It can make the long-term feel effortless to you.
It may seem necessary to derive motivation from your anxiety or rather for the two to co-occur. But if you can separate your motivation from the anxiety, you can be so much more effective.
Best thing Naval has found to tackle Anxiety is Meditation, in a general “Self-Awareness” sense. “An unexamined life is not worth living” ~Socrates.
Cryptocurrency is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. Internet created Digital Abundance but with Crypto it is also creating Digital Scarcity.
In relationships and social interactions, find people that don’t take work to be around (being oneself is enough), who are kind and not always leaning towards conflict, and are self-aware rather than people running on auto-pilot.
Death is a final full-stop not just for you but the world as you know it too i.e for you, it might as well have ended. So allow yourself to be happy, to not take on unnecessary suffering.
Abstract: The Art of Design - Netflix
This is such an amazing Docu-Series! I have only watched three episodes (Christoph Niemann, Tinker Hatfield, Paula Scher episodes) but am sure to continue on.
I don’t have any particular learnings as yet but it is just simply awesome watching these creative minds at work, how they function and/or how they don’t.
Plus, the Production values are through the roof. The content, the music, the art, the direction. Everything.
Malaria
Edson Oda | 5 mins | Short Movie
Such an interesting and great way to tell a story!
💻 Technology
The Clean Architecture in Python
Brandon Rhodes | 50 mins
This fabulous talk combines together some key ideas into a coherent whole, primarily building off of Uncle Bob Martin’s Clean Architecture.
The main idea is to have the Procedural Glue at the top level calling many (ideally pure) functions underneath.
There are still some parts I am unclear about but overall it will definitely influence how I see code going forward.
Boundaries
Gary Bernhardt | 35 mins
One of the talk Brandon builds off of. Here, Gary argues for aiming to use simple values (as opposed to complex objects) as the boundaries between components and subsystems. Also designing a system with “Imperative shells” that speak with many isolated functional cores having simple Values as the boundaries.
(Aside: wow, those slide designs! Gary has a great article on “How to Prepare a Talk” where these slides make a cameo).
(Aside Aside: His other talks are great too. And for fun, the Wat video is just hilarious).
// Poetry
I Stole a Day
Bob Sawyer | 1 min
I stole a day today.
It was an outright theft.
I just took it and hid it away.
There was no planning,
There was no premeditation
or calculation,
just a simple burst of spontaneous larceny.
…
🎵 Music
Listening to this song is a great feeling.
(Note: Paula Scher designed the album cover. In the “Abstract” episode on her, she has some things to say about it).
Calming Moon River…
// Wholesome + Poignant
Closing Notes
I finished Watership Down this week. Was definitely a wild ride of a book. Who knew a story about rabbits could be so engrossing.
The weather is turning here in Kathmandu. The air is chillier. For now though, the temperature (for me) feels like it’s at the optimal level. Can now sit in the sun for hours on end even in the midday. It’s less hot, more warm.
Anyway, thank you for reading/listening.
Have a great week ahead!
With Love,
Bijay
(P.S: If you like these, please consider sharing it with friends who might like it too).