1. employment. I only ever had 1 serious job, and it was with a great boss who I admire, who sought me out bc he liked my blog. made good $$, learned a ton, he was like a therapist-coach who paid *me*, great relationships with ex-colleagues
2. twitter. how tf do I have 25,000 twitter followers from around the world? I'm just some random nerd from singapore. I don't have any qualifications. I never went to college. where I am is a function of the merit of my thoughts, my A+ reply game, & my sensitivity to opportunity
3. investments. I don't invest much, but when I buy things, they go up in value. so far i've bought tesla, shopify (on day 1), amazon, bitcoin (a bunch of years ago). it's not *retirement* money, but it's certainly "hmm I don't need a job anytime soon that's nice" money
there are things I suck terribly at. I suck at handling calendars, schedules, "balancing the books" type budgeting. I suck at remembering things. I have a chaotic ADHD mind that refuses to do anything I put down on a todo list. but I've designed my life *around* these things
I've basically always had this approach: problems are solvable. practice solving problems and you'll get better at them. if you can't solve the big problems you can break them down into littler problems and solve those, or solve the ones *around* it
when you do this long enough, well enough, you start to discover something strange: not everyone wants to solve their problems. 😂 lots of people don't believe problems are solvable. or they're afraid of what happens after they solve their problem. many tiers and layers to this
recently there was that thing where the guy was like "you can't have swiped me on purpose, I'm 5'8..." & it was clear to lots of people that he was living in a personal reality distortion bubble
what's less obvious is that we are *all* to varying degrees living in such bubbles
I can't find it now but one of the most powerful tweets I've seen was a woman who tweeted sth like "I don't have emotionally immature men in my life, because being emotionally mature is the bare baseline for interacting with me" – idk how true it is, but it's a powerful spell IMO
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in order to get to the top of a (metaphorical) mountain,
1. a part of you must want to
1a, 1b, 1c, 1d. mountaineering training, bla bla, conditioning, fuel, the stuff people focus on
2. the part of you that *doesn't* want to, mustn't sabotage the part of you that wants to
most of the time when I have conversations with people who are trying to achieve something, or say they are, I find that both 1 and 2 are insufficiently discussed. they aren't made sufficiently precise, emphatic, clear
it's often a lot of rambling about logistics and planning
the part of you that doesn't want to do it is typically trying to keep you safe.
i'll say it: there's a part of me that doesn't want to publish any more ebooks or content bc it feels nice and safe for me to just hang out here, guy who has released 1 book that people kinda like
the generic art museum aesthetic is one of the worst aesthetics I can think of.
it’s bizzare to me how many people have agreed collectively that yes, this is how art is to be appreciated: atomized & isolated, abducted from their homes & displayed like dismembered body parts
It varies tremendously depending on what you‘re really trying to do. If it’s to appreciate a certain kind of art, I’d prefer a more organic, lived-in scenario with actual artists hanging around and working. Contrast the classroom vs how real learning happens
the National Gallery of Singapore is pretty cool – it does have some of the same white cube aesthetic, but it's also the former Supreme Court and you can feel the weight of the history in that
for a good 22+ years, I never really had anybody I admired or respected in my life who would teach me how to become the person I wanted to be
for people who don't understand how/why I tweet the way I do, this is a big part of it
"it's so arrogant of you to talk like what you say matters"
I can see how it might look that way, but I made a promise to a lonely child that I would publicly share what I know – and keeping that promise matters more to me than what strangers think of me
it’s interesting to consider the role of gender in the character archetypes of Terry and Rosa. Terry is the big, tall muscular behemoth of a man who’s a total softie. Rosa is a murderous flower. Imagine gender-swapping the characters- it would be less compelling, too flat
A guy walking around the office with huge knives and axes with a grumpy-vengeful disposition becomes much more of a worrisome risk I think. I don’t think guys get to do this. You have to soften the edge somehow, the way Dr. House does at least. You can’t use as much venom IMO
for a period of time when I was in the military, I was assigned to be a storeman, ie responsible for a bunch of equipment. My boss was a “civilian” - who was really a semi-retired non-commissioned officer- iirc he was the first regimental sergeant major of singapore’s commandos
which is to say, he had a legendary status. a way to contextualize it: he would have been the RSM - the discipline master, the king of drill sargeant as - when the chief commando (a brigadier general) was a mere recruit. So everyone was afraid of this guy
My job was to keep stuff neat and in order, fill out a logbook, bunch of little things like that - I understudied the previous guy who was finishing his service.
At the end of the month, the Legend barks at me: Visa!! Where is your t-loan file??