Notations On Our World (Special Friday Edition): Once Upon A.I. – Inspired by Yuval Noah Harari

#OutsiderVibes (Special Mid-Week Edition): Cee-Roo - Nowhere to Run (feat. The Quarantines)

On Our "Virtual Route 66" This Week: #RandomThoughts

 We present the following #RandomThoughts as a new week dawns:

On Our "Virtual Route 66" This Week: #RandomThoughts courtesy Ryan Haliday

 

The Things You Think Matter...Don't​

I dropped out of college.

When this happened it was a big deal—to my parents anyway. Then it was a big deal when people met me because they were constantly surprised by it. You didn’t finish college?! But for all the warnings and then surprise, there has been literally zero times where my lack of a degree has come up in the course of any business deal or project.

So I am always surprised by the lengths people will go to get their degree. I read a fascinating book a couple years ago about the Varsity Blues scandal and the parents who bribed their kids into various colleges—many of which were not even that hard to get into. The parents were so convinced that college mattered that they were willing to do just about anything to make sure their kids got in…even in one case where one of the girls had millions of YouTube followers and didn’t want to go to college. Or another where the daughter wanted to be an actress and the mother was an actress, but she still tried to cheat on her daughter’s SAT’s to get into Juilliard (even though Julliard doesn’t require SATs!)

It reminds me of a line from Peter Thiel who pointed out that we can get so good at trying to win that we don’t stop and ask if we’re playing the right game.

Here’s something I thought mattered a lot: The New York Times Bestseller list. When my first book came out I worked very hard to sell a lot of copies so I could say I was an NYT bestseller. I missed it (for somewhat suspicious reasons) and hit the WSJ list instead. As it turns out, this had absolutely no impact on the sales of the book or my ability to have a writing career. What mattered was whether the book continued to sell well over time and whether I continued to have interesting things to say.

Literally no one ever bought the book because it hit one list…and certainly no one didn’t buy it because it wasn’t on the other.

But I found it quite funny in the years since that when people would introduce me for talks they would call me “a New York Times Bestselling author” because they just assumed, and it sounded like something important. So in one sense the term did matter and mean something…yet the fact they couldn’t tell or care about the difference was a reminder to me that it didn’t really matter at all.

I would write more than a half dozen other books before I did become “a New York Times Bestselling author” in fact and let me tell you, nothing changed. And when I did debut on the list for my book Stillness is the Key, it was at the #1 spot. But nobody threw me a parade. My speaking fee and my royalties did not go up. The publisher sent me a cool plaque but it wasn’t that cool…my wife asked that I keep it at the office instead of the house.

Still, whenever I talk to first-time authors and ask them what they hope to do with their book, hitting the list is almost always at the top of their list. I realize it’s easy for me to say that it doesn’t matter, since I have the plaque in my office, but it’s true. I wouldn’t trade my sales numbers for more weeks on the list. I wouldn’t trade having written books I’m proud of to spend more time there either. Writing a book that I’m proud of, saying what I have to say, growing as a writer in doing it, making something that reaches people, that makes a difference in their lives? That’s way more important.

But this is what we do—we put way too little time and energy into the things that do matter (e.g. being a decent person) and way too much time and energy into the things we think matter…but don’t (e.g. getting into a decent college).

Sometimes our kids can help us realize this (as the Varsity Blues kids often tried in vain to do). We did an email about David Letterman for DailyDad.com recently (sign up!). After becoming the longest-serving late night talk show host in the history of American television (33 seasons), the king of late night decided to walk away. He went and told his young son Harry, “I’m quitting, I’m retiring. I won’t be at work every day. My life is changing; our lives will change.” Who knows what Letterman expected his son to say, but certainly he expected more than, “Will I still be able to watch the Cartoon Network?” Letterman replied, “I think so. Let me check.”

We spent our energy—our lives—slaving away, chasing things that don’t matter. Worse, we tell ourselves we’re doing it for some specific reason—for our careers, for our kids…but it’s all based on nothing! They don’t care! Not like we think they do.

Why do we do this? One, I guess it’s because we don’t know, we don’t listen. We only realize the things are worthless once we get them…even though plenty of people had already returned to the cave and told us we were chasing shadows.

But I think the biggest reason is actually the biggest thing we chase that doesn’t matter. We chase achievements and money and status because we’re trying to create a legacy. Because we want people to remember us, for our stuff to last.

You want to talk about what really doesn’t matter? Other people’s opinions of you when you’re dead! As Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations, “people who are excited by posthumous fame forget that people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn.” And suppose all those people you want to remember you were immortal, Marcus says, “what good would it do you?” You’ll still be dead!

A couple of years ago, I worked on an album that won a Grammy. I got to go on stage and accept it with a group of producers who all had to share one statue together. So a few months later, I had my own commemorative with a little reminder: “When you die, this will go in the trash alongside all your other ‘accomplishments.’”

None of that external stuff matters.

Only right now matters. The life you’re living—that’s the only monument that counts. Who you are in this moment, how you treat people, how you treat yourself—that is what you think doesn’t matter…but does. That is the real legacy.

And it’s passing you by as you read this.

On Our "Virtual Route 66" This Week: #RandomThoughts For the Week

We present the following for our Community's Enjoyment:

 

On Our "Virtual Route 66" As a New Quarter Dawns...

 

Welcome to a new Quarter here at the Daily Outsider.

We present the following #RandomThoughts for consideration.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:

Marcus, as he got older, had to learn how to be “full of love” as he would say. He had to see the good in people. He could not let his heart grow hard, as we’ve said, instead, he had to learn to strengthen it like the muscle that it was—so he could use it. That’s what leaders do. They have to care–practically, personally, professionally.

What about you? How are you strengthening that muscle—particularly in these difficult times? Has command or power made you cynical? Or are you working on becoming more conscientious and caring? Not because you have to, but because you know that to be great, to reach your potential as a parent, a partner, a creator, a friend, a human being…

— The Heart is a Muscle (Listen)

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YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

In one of the most watched videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube Channel this week, Ryan Holiday shares some Stoic strategies that will make you happier, such as:

“I once heard the billionaire Peter Thiel say that you want to look for pleasures that don’t have diminishing returns…Sunsets, sunrises, playing with my kids—these are things I never get tired of. But chasing the newest thing, buying a new car, buying something fancy—these get old really quickly. So the Stoics would say to try to find pleasure and happiness in the simple things.”

Watch the full video: How Stoicism Can Make You Happier​

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PODCAST TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK:

On the Daily Stoic podcast this week, Ryan Holiday talks to Steve Magness about his new book Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness, the misconceptions about military commanders and strict parents, how to cultivate and retain talent, and training the mental muscle required to get through difficulty in life,

“It’s absolutely a muscle, it’s a mental muscle. The research backs this up: if we train that discipline, that self-control, that ability to sit with difficulty and navigate through it, it helps in other aspects of life. So in my life, I cultivate that mental muscle through physical practice. When I was growing up, I was a competitive runner. I don’t push it as much any more, but at least once a week, I do something that pushes the bounds of my physical ability, that forces me to sit with that situation where part of my mind screaming to slow down or rationalizing why I should give up.”

Listen to the full interview: Steve Magness On Doing Hard Things and Why We Get Resilience Wrong​

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WHAT RYAN HOLIDAY IS READING:

“The stakes are high but I wouldn’t have it any other way. In the kitchen, jittery and pumped up just before the curtains rise, I’m in my element. I am the son of a caterer, and ever-expanding parties are my birthright. I remember my mother’s outward calm when a client would call to say the party just doubled in size, moments before she loaded chafing trays of mesquite chicken wings and jollof rice into her van. Catering is like low-grade war games: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. So I prepare for nearly every eventuality. I’m so organized my systems have systems. A successful kitchen runs on plastic quart containers and paper towels, strips of tape and Sharpies. On the doors of my fridges are taped elaborate spreadsheets breaking down each dish into its component parts and assigning each element to a team member. Now I just have to trust the system.“

— Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi

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YOUR STOIC WEEKEND REMINDER:

Only the educated are free

Why do you read this email? Why do you read books?

Because you are learning how to live. Because you want to be freer, fear less, and achieve a state of peace. Education—reading and meditating on the wisdom of great minds—is not to be done for its own sake. It has a purpose. As Epictetus said,

“What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.”

Remember that imperative on the days you start to feel distracted, when watching television or having a snack seems like a better use of your time than reading or studying philosophy. Knowledge—self-knowledge in particular—is freedom.

(For another reason to read and study, watch this video!)

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THIS WEEK'S BEST SOCIAL MEDIA POST:

Notations On Our World (Special Edition): On This #July4th.....

 

It is July 4th--Where America Celebrates Independence Day.

As we hope all enjoy our special #OutsiderVibes selection in our Perspective & Visions Properties, we present this courtesy of the Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

July 3, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 4

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

For all the fact that the congressmen got around the sticky little problem of Black and Indigenous slavery by defining “men” as “white men,” and for all that it never crossed their minds that women might also have rights, the Declaration of Independence was an astonishingly radical document. In a world that had been dominated by a small class of rich men for so long that most people simply accepted that they should be forever tied to their status at birth, a group of upstart legislators on the edges of a continent declared that no man was born better than any other.

America was founded on the radical idea that all men are created equal.

What the founders declared self-evident was not so clear eighty-seven years later, when southern white men went to war to reshape America into a nation in which African Americans, Indigenous Americans, Chinese, and Irish were locked into a lower status than whites. In that era, equality had become a “proposition,” rather than “self-evident.”

“Four score and seven years ago,” Abraham Lincoln reminded Americans, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1863, Lincoln explained, the Civil War was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

It did, of course. The Confederate rebellion failed. The United States endured, and Americans began to expand the idea that all men are created equal to include Black men, men of color, and eventually to include women.

But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Words to live by in 2022.