Thread by @ZoharAtkins

One of my many contrarian takes on Peter Thiel's Zero to One is that it's a work of theology, first, and not a work of business advice. Being a successful business founder is besides the point.

Here, I use Thiel to read the Cain and Abel story:

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/peter-thiel-…

"At a strategic level, Cain and Abel are both condemned, so long as they are competing for divine love on the same axis. One is condemned to death, the other to murder."

"In God’s cryptic admonition to Cain, I hear a call for Cain not to compete, a call to walk away from the tournament for divine affection. It is a test that Cain fails, but one that we can hope, reading his cautionary tale, to pass in our own lives."

"Why do so many prodigies burn out? They can’t take the stress of competition. They don’t want to be Cain or Abel. What is the solution to the conundrum? To transform a desire to beat a competitor into a desire to find beauty in the game itself."

Aesthetics moves us from asking “How can I win?” to “How can I appreciate?”