I have this friend-turned-stranger I haven’t spoken to in a long time. But it still doesn’t feel real. Their voice lives in my internal dialogue. You know how some people stay so alive in you that the idea you haven’t spoken to them feels absurd? Only recently did it occur to me that I’d been hallucinating their presence. Didn’t know because I remember our conversations so vividly, my brain had started treating them as current. Until it plateaued. Memory turned cold and I recently accepted I had lost this person.

“School” is not a scam but it’s not why people succeed. As someone who did really well academically and works with a lot of outliers, I can tell you this: character is the real compound interest. Not “academic excellence”. I’ll explain a bit:

https://twitter.com/joe_brendan_/status/1938650945845375421

Success people I know, have these core traits in common: (a) agency - they don’t wait to be taught, they pursue core interests even if off-syllabus, (b) metacognitive humility - they can step outside their own thinking for the big picture, and (c) a strong bias toward action.

A strong sign that someone has a more incisive intellect than you do, is in their ability to generate ideas or ask great questions you couldn’t have come up with. A really good question is a partial discovery. Any (smart) person can understand or criticize after the fact. Retrospective clarity isn’t on the same scale of value as original vision or ideation. People sometimes overestimate their ability to understand articulated ideas. While that is not easy for everyone, it’s not the same as thinking originally.

There is no way to know your prayers work. You prayed, something happened, and you concluded that the prayer caused it. A million causes were at play, you simply chose one. You basically retrofitted causality to meaning. But this doesn’t mean skeptics have the upper hand either.

https://twitter.com/allezamani/status/1931991116251123772

I sometimes fall into the trap of imagining that skepticism holds the upper hand because it demands evidence. But in reality, both belief and disbelief operate on interpretations of uncertainty. The difference lies in where you locate meaning, not in who possesses “truth.”

To be a Christian, truly, is to sincerely desire not to fall short, not merely knowing that you may unavoidably fall. And if that desire is absent—if you are not unwilling to sin—then your religion is theater. Very simply, this is why I’m not a fundamentalist Christian. I am not unwilling. I not only accept that I will fall short, I believe, quite soberly, that the complexity of human life makes orthodox “sinfulness” not just probable, but also necessary. Certain actions and contradictions cannot be resolved by rule, only by presence.

I think you can love someone fairly unconditionally. You can love someone even if you’re not with them or expecting anything in return. But within a relationship, it becomes conditional. A relationship has its own life. It breathes. It makes demands. It has its rules. I know people define love as a choice or impose other virtues unto it but I don’t think love is complicated. I don’t think it’s more than deep affection and endearment for someone that inspires (but is not automatically equal to) respect, loyalty, compassion and care. Simple.

Here’s one story that shaped me in many ways. Throughout school, I was always first in class. It came naturally to me. I understood quite easily, could memorize with ease, and could read between the lines before most people around me could finish a sentence. It was normal in my household. Like me, my elder sister was first in her class too from kindergarten till university. It never felt like an accomplishment. There were no congratulatory dinners in my house and most times, nobody asked what we got after the term ended.

They say you can’t trust the loyalty of a poor man. But, ironically, the loyalty of a poor man is the loyalty you can easily trust. Wealth creates the illusion of genuineness and freedom, but it makes people fragile—they have too much to lose. We assume that wealth enables loyalty or makes loyalty more genuine. That is only partially true. Wealth & success also begins to eliminate the very set of circumstances that would put their loyalty to test. And without those tests, what does loyalty even mean?

A 2021 study showed that exposure to superior intelligence activates our threat detection system in the brain. The amygdala lights up when we encounter someone visibly smarter than us and it’s the same response we have to physical threats. It upsets us. It’s not just a figure of speech when people say that intelligence hurts the ego. It literally triggers pain responses which make us sensitive. If people feel less intelligent around you, they either avoid you unconsciously, cheapen you to feel better or try to prove you wrong.

On critical thinking—

here is how I think it looks practically: first, take a statement and imagine a world where it’s true and a world where it’s false. Then, honestly work to find the essential differences between each of those two worlds and the real world. Our personalities and prejudices automatically help us choose one, so there’s no trouble there. The hard part is imaging a world where the opposite is also valid or true. Then, finding where the difference maker lies - what is closest to the objective? What is truer than true?

People would be better off dating their close friends. There’s usually a vibrant connection. But no, they’d rather go the end of the earth looking for a stranger to whom they can pretend conveniently, and a few months down the line, they swear they met their best friend. That’s not to say all great friends are attractive or that they make for great romantic partners. But of course, we see cases of friends with repressed affection everyday. We colloquially call it “see finish” which is often just the unfashionable substitute for great chemistry.

Our problems are culturally sanctioned and then religious reinforced. These men know that if they walk into your fancy offices and churches, you’ll still treat them like gods. Some will even bow. Power resides where people believe it resides.

https://twitter.com/thecableng/status/1795900833491526004

Unfortunately, it’s easy to control a country with poor and unenlightened people. Because poor people just want to live. There’s no cause or movement worthier. Poverty immediately makes you dangerous, even without your consent. Every threat to your survival, you cave in.

Those around us worth appreciating—

Family. The ones who make your humanity feel less heavy.

Love is love. Commitment is commitment. Commitment is a quality. Love is a sensation. We don’t need to conflate both terms. Unfortunately, marriage is a self-imposed obligation. You don’t need a “different” kind of love in marriage. You just need more qualities—commitment, etc.

https://twitter.com/solomon_buchi/status/1794093082297704515

Love does not commit. It makes you willing to be with someone but it’s not a substitute for the skills you need for that. You may have the talent for football—that’s like love. But it’s not a substitute for the discipline needed for professional football—that’s a learned quality.

That’s the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Men who have actually been in long term relationships know that vulnerability is a slippery concept. It seems intellectually sound to recommend it (after all, why can’t we all just be human) but it’s never that simple.

https://twitter.com/hozzy15/status/1791793703117541476

The more you experience people, the more you notice the disconnect between what they say and how they’d react. It is an intelligent proposition to promote equality, for instance, but when you see the reaction of humans in certain situations, you’ll know that equality is a farce.

I’m not what you’d call a religious man. Or even a traditional man. And this means I don’t have many deal breakers. My busy wife, for instance, doesn’t have to worry about doubling as our chef. But I have 3 dealbreakers. None of these will I negotiate. To be clear, as far as relationships go, there’s hardly a desire that cannot be compromised. For some people, this means without if the reason is not rational, it’s foolish to not compromise. But not me. My deal breakers don’t have to make sense to you—they are my deal breakers.

To the younger guys out there: work hard; think carefully before making career decisions and seek guidance; pick your friends wisely; love yourself and have a good sense of who you are before you find love in people; read often; make/save money. If you don’t work hard, you’ll suffer in ways you can’t imagine. Hard work teaches you how evaluate what is worth your time and risks, your reward and your resources. Nobody is coming to save you. The earlier you prepare for serious, continuous work, the better man you’ll be.

Death reinforces my admiration for a very specific kind of people. I admire people who are able to act as though the fate of the universe depended on what they did, while simultaneously laughing at themselves for even thinking that whatever they do, makes any difference. Basically, I admire people who have the complexity of mind to simply contribute their quota to the world and seeing it beyond themselves. Being grounded enough to navigate the absurdism of life AND embody the implication, is for me, the highest expression of intelligence.

On interviews. First——

Get them engaged and make them like you. Your entire strategy should be built on how to make this happen. Sharing some tips based on cool comments I’ve received from interviewers. First is simple: throw back every question to the interviewer, unless it’s obviously exclusive to you. The thinking here is that you don’t generate conversational interest by absorbing full speaking responsibility, you do so by sharing.

It all comes down to one question: if everything you wanted to happen took a different turn, if the future is nothing like you wanted it to be, could you still be happy? If it turns out you don’t find the love you so strongly think you deserve, would you still want to live?

My friend, it's been a truly difficult year for you, I know. I think about you often. It saddens me that you somehow lost yourself, with all the rejections and failures that came your way. I wish you’d bounce back. But I understand. There are some things in life that cause us to lose ourselves. But the way you’ve been so lost lately, is unimaginably painful. I saw a picture of you the other day; your pupils have fallen flat, severely cross—eyed. As if to say you no longer trust happiness.