Inspiration

Taoism

This video is great (video source).

• A normal worker, going about his day.
• Stumbles upon small opportunities to improve the life of another.
  • Small plant on the side of the road.
  • Grumpy street food vendor struggling with their cart.
  • Hungry dog wagging its tail, paw on your leg.
  • A woman and her daughter begging for education money.
  • The old lady next door who could use some fresh bananas.
  • A tired healthcare worker standing on the bus next to your seat.
• With a smile and a joke, he helps every time.
• Small acts of kindness, repeated over and over.
• Add up to a life of joy.
• I cry every time I watch this commercial.

Thumos

The spirited fire in the soul, source of courage, hunger, and glory.

Carl Sagan

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

• Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Richard Feynman

“A poet once said, ‘The whole universe is in a glass of [beer].’ We will probably never know in what sense he said that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look in glass of beer closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe’s age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the beer? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in beer is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of beer without discovering the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of beer, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let us give one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

• Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (NOTE: Feynman originally says “wine”, but I replaced that with “beer”)

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass

• “All flourishing is mutual.”
• “In some Native languages the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us.’”
• “The acknowledgment of our mutual interdependence with the world is a necessary step toward reciprocity.”
• The foundation for good living is gratitude and appreciation for all of the gifts that nature has given us – fresh air to breathe, solid ground to support us, fresh water from the rains and rivers to hydrate us, all of the beautiful wild plants, the food plants that nourish us, the medicine plants that heal us, the tiny creatures (bugs, bacteria) which help us live, the fish that clean the waters and provide us with meat, the amphibians and reptiles that wander the earth, the birds in the sky that share their beautiful music, the mammals that surround us and give us their meat, the sun in the sky giving us warmth, the moon and stars overhead, the wisdom keepers which pass down this knowledge.

Wendell Berry

The Unsettling of America

• “Love someone who does not deserve it.”
• “The earth is what we all have in common.”

Jesus

Sermon on the Mount

• “Epiousion” is a Koine Greek word meaning something like “bread for today and tomorrow.” The Sermon on the Mount is widely regarded as a distillation of Jesus’ teachings, and I find this word particularly interesting. The point is to request our epiousion from God and nothing more, to request a life of poverty basically, and be happy with that, and then all good things will stem from it.

John Steinbeck

East of Eden

• “Timshel” means you may. You don’t have to be good, but you may be good.

Victor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning.

• All that matters is how we respond to our circumstances.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations

Paulo Coehlo

The Alchemist.

• “Maktoub” means it is written, but even though the path is written, it’s still our choice to go down it.

Sylvester Stallone

Rocky Balboa.

“Watching you grow up was a privliege. Then the time come for you to take on the world and be your own man, and you did, but somewhere along the line, you changed.

You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame. Like a big shadow.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place. And I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you permanently there if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!

Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that, and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!

I’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son, you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life.

-Rocky, Rocky Balboa

Frank Herbert

Dune.

• “Lift is not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

Nick Saban

The Process.

• How you do one thing is how you do everything.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Something to Protect.

• Rationality/thinking is not the end-goal. They are tools to help you protect what you love. If you want to get to the Moon, science is way more useful than astrology for getting there, but science/rationality doesn’t give you the desire to get there. Wisdom is all about getting what you desire efficiently (because we don’t have forever).

Miyamoto Musashi

The Book of Five Rings, 1645. A gold mine of wisdom.

• “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is; and you must bend to its power or live a lie.”
• “The way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.”
• “The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him.”
• “If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” “You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain.”
• “Do not waste time idling or thinking after you have set your goals.”
• “There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

Alan Watts

• “You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.”

Coach Eric Taylor

Friday Night Lights.

• “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

How to Sit, and How to Love.

• Loving presence is the best gift you can give to someone.
• “Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light.”
• “Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.”

Brene Brown

Talks a lot about shame and wholehearted living as the antidote to shame. I love her advice.

• “Daring greatly means being vulnerable.”

Andrew Huberman

• Dopamine is the most important neurochemical to regulate.
• Dopamine is the chemical that drives pursuit, it is literally the life giving spark in all animals.
• Dopamine doesn’t make us feel pleasure, it makes us pursue things. When we get pleasure without pursuit, aka heroin, drugs, porn-fueled masturbation, etc., it messes up our dopamine system. Dopamine gets jacked up in anticipation of easy pleasures, then crashes afterwards, preventing us from pursuing other things.
• It leads to depression. The body doesn’t experience the pain of pursuit, so it starts to raise the dopamine baseline until we only get pleasure from these specific activities.
• “Addiction is a gradual narrowing of the things that bring us pleasure.”
• A fulfilled life is probably the opposite, where we can find pleasure from doing any action or pursuing any goal, rather than just a narrowly-defined set of goals, e.g. smoke weed and eat french fries.

Jonathan Haidt

The Happiness Hypothesis

• Happiness = Setpoints + Conditions + Voluntary Actions
• Setpoints are the biological basis of human happiness. It refers to our neurochemical setpoints, the resting level of things like dopamine, sertonin, epinephrine, etc in the brain. They are mostly genetic and very hard to change. If these are out of whack and making you unhappy, there are only three scientifically proven interventions to fix them:
  • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: The most highly regarded type of therapy which helps us identify our cognitive biases and distortions (untruths) and correct them to alter our brain chemistry.
  • Medication: precribed by a Psychiatrist, medication designed to specifically alter brain chemicals.
  • Meditation: I’m not joking, meditation is literally one of the most powerful actions we have for improving our mental health, since it returns our bodies to our physiological baselines (read, it relaxes us).
• Conditions refer to the enduring, but not permanent, factors of our life like our jobs, where we live, and the environmental problems we face in day to day life. The research shows that negative conditions can really impact our happiness, but positive conditions don’t affect it much. Think about it like this – the brain would much rather remove some pain from life than add in some new pleasures. Fixing an annoying leaky faucet or moving away from toxic neighbors does a lot more than upgrading to a luxury car for our happiness.
• Actions refer to the activities we choose to do daily. Outside of the conditions of our life like our jobs and homes, we have a lot of choice each day – what to eat, when to sleep, how to take care of ourselves, what exercise and hobbies to do, who to hangout with, and more. The most important voluntary actions for human happiness are not very surprising:
  • Relationships with other people.
  • Flow activities are challenging enought to engage us, but not frustrate us, and interesting enough to keep us involved. You know you’re flowing when you lose track of time. In a way, it’s the active form of meditation

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Came up with the concept of Flow, where a person is totally locked-in, dialed, in-the-zone, and makes us happy as humans.

Dan Millman

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and The Journey of the Peaceful Warrior.

• You are not your thoughts. Your mind lies. It spins stories, fear, ego. But you, the awareness beyond the noise, are something deeper, calmer, truer.
• Be present. “There are no ordinary moments.” Reality is always now. Regret, worry, memory, planning–all illusions. Truth lives in the present.
• Action is the path. Knowing means nothing without doing. Act without hesitation. “A warrior acts; only a fool reacts.”
• Surrender the outcome. “You don’t have to control everything—you just have to do your best.” Train hard, give fully, then let go. The results aren’t yours.
• Discipline and surrender coexist. Train like a monk, move like a fighter, rest like a child. Strength without aggression. Surrender without weakness.
• Service and purpose over ego. Your life is not about proving yourself. It’s about waking up—becoming a force of presence, clarity, and love in action.
• The warrior’s strength is internal. Not control over others. But control over the only battlefield that matters: yourself.
• “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

John Keating

Dead Poets Society.

• “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
• “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
• “The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

Joe Delaney

Youtuber

• It’s not about making the right choice, it’s about making the choice the right one.

Jocko Willink

Extreme Ownership.

• Own everything - No one else is coming. No one else is responsible. Everything in your life – every win, failure, delay, excuse – is on you.
• There are no bad teams, only bad leaders - If the people around you are weak, soft, lazy, confused – you allowed it. You set the tone. You show the standard.
• Discipline equals freedom - You want freedom? Earn it. Discipline in the small things – waking up, training, planning – creates freedom in the big things.
• Check the ego - Ego destroys awareness. When you’re humble, you adapt. Whe you’re arrogant, you die.
• Prioritize and execute - Don’t panic. Don’t freeze. When shit gets chaotic: breathe, pick the most important target, crush it. Repeat.
• Cover and move - Work as a unit, if you’re doing it all alone, you’re not leading. But if you’re not pulling your weight, you’re a liability.

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations.

• “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Derek Sivers

Hell Yes or No.

• Your actions reveal your real values.
• Two responses: 1) stop lying to yourself and admit your real priorities or 2) start doing what you say you want to do to see if it’s really true

Joey Schweizer

Better Ideas on Youtube.

• Inaction Is A Slow Death.

Mike Tyson

professional boxer.

• “I would close my eyes and imagine the fights. I would imagine myself beating them—hurting them. I was never afraid.”
• “Whatever you put out into the universe, it comes back to you. I always used to say: ‘I’m the best ever. I’m the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there’s ever been.’ And eventually… I believed it.”
• “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
• “Discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it.”
• “Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It’s like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can’t control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you.”
• “My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious.”

Teddy Roosevelt

Former USA President

• Asthma and Sensitivity
  • Asthmatics are highly attuned to their environment—room size, air, proximity, smell.
  • The condition instills a deep sense of vulnerability, often leading to early existential awareness.
  • They know they’re different, even defective, yet sometimes the center of intense attention—creating a craving for more.
  • Other ailments are often endured stoically; asthma uniquely undermines stability and identity.
  • Asthma teaches: life is a battle. One must fight or fold.
• Teedie (T.R.) and Asthma
  • Attacks struck Saturdays, pre-church. Linked to being boxed in.
  • Salvation was Papa and outside: adventure, undivided attention, strength, and example.
    • Built confidence
    • Played outdoors
    • Provided companionship
    • Modeled strength
• Developmental Impact
  • Teedie, sensitive and intelligent, was deeply shaped—outlook, personality, self-worth.
  • Parental identification is critical.
    • Teedie chose his father—strength, action.
    • Proust chose his mother—sensitivity, retreat.
      • Result: reclusive, fragile, yet creatively gifted.
      • Some see asthma as a cry for the absent parent.
      • Proust never transcended victimhood.
• Action Philosophy
  • “I am to do everything for myself.” —T.R., age 12
  • “Get action.” —T.R.
  • “Organs are made for action… to work, not merely be.” —Salter
• Summary
  • Asthma creates a fork: helplessness vs. tenacity.
  • Teedie chose to fight—became “extremely tenacious of life.”
  • The goal is to transform the child from passive patient to active participant.