,
14 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Maintaining mental self-reliance can be lonely and gruelling. The world that lies beneath social narratives is so alien that you will, on some days, experience immense pressure to conform and question your own sanity. Here are some readings for those days ⬇️
(Ps. please add your own too)
Starting with a classic: Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb…
Gregory Chaitin (Pioneers Series): "Fashion is evil. And I think that talented people should be against fashion! Should be against the ideas of the majority!"
"What You Can't Say" by @paulg: "What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good." (cont)
"Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed." paulgraham.com/say.html
Zero to One by @peterthiel: “Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.” amazon.ca/Zero-One-Notes…
@KapilGuptaMD: On prescriptions/methods: "Those who seek methods do so in order to appease themselves that they are 'addressing the issue,' while gaining the secret satisfaction of avoiding it altogether." kapilguptamd.com/2018/11/22/a-m…
@naval "A contrarian isn’t one who always objects - that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform."
Steve Jobs: "Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it."
My own take on the crutch of living by prescribed tools and processes: "How to Finally Make Something" medium.com/@scott.stevens…
All games (board games, trading markets) are an opportunity to to make moves against what's expected and be objectively validated in your thinking, helping build your confidence.
Deontology vs. Consequentialism: Most people rationalize their actions deontologically based on socially propagated heuristics rather than from first principles (consequentialism). This is a major reason independent analysis can support contrarian actions mytutor.co.uk/answers/1637/A…
Goodluck! Anyone have more of these?
