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Kon'nichiwa! Welcome to this week's digest. A big THANK YOU to those who shared the newsletter with friends last week, it means so much that this adds to your life enough to give it to others you care about. This week's potpourri of topics includes the infinity of knowledge creation, aromatherapy, lying, designing option packages, and staying lean. Get excited, and enjoy!!

xoxoxo <3
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TOPIC OF INTEREST - AROMATHERAPY

TL;DR
: According to NIH and Mayo Clinic... You're telling me there's a chance. Limited research, potential (heavily caveated) benefits are relief from anxiety and depression, improved quality of life, and improved sleep. The good news is it's super cheap / easy to experiment for yourself, a diffuser + oil is $40 on Amazon Prime.


Note: A few specific studies that caught my attention were this, this, and this.
BEST OF WHAT I CONSUMED THIS WEEK

BOOK
- The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (My full Kindle notes) - For all of the entrepreneurs out there, scratching their heads on what problems to work on. We are just at the beginning of the growth of human knowledge (and always will be!). One of the most optimistic and inspiring (and dense =/) books I've read this year!
  • ...everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.
  • In the unique case of humans, the difference between a hospitable environment and a deathtrap depends on what knowledge they have created.
  • ...the problem has been not that the world is so complex that we cannot understand why it looks as it does, but it is that it is so simple that we cannot yet understand it.
  • The growth of knowledge does not consist of finding ways to justify one’s beliefs. It consists of finding good explanations.
  • ...if unlimited progress really is going to happen, not only are we now at almost the very beginning of it, we always shall be.
  • Optimism (in the sense that I have advocated) is the theory that all failures – all evils – are due to insufficient knowledge.
  • I can think of nothing more boring... than to attain the state of being perfectly secure in one’s beliefs
  • ...we have moderated the destructiveness of democracy through our traditions of virtue, tolerance and liberty. We are utterly dependent on those traditions to keep our monster under control and on our side
  • In reality, the communication of new ideas – even mundane ones like directions – depends on guesswork on the part of both the recipient and the communicator, and is inherently fallible... the default assumption should be that misunderstandings are ubiquitous and that neither intelligence nor the intention to be accurate is any guarantee against them.
  • I have often thought that the nature of science would be better understood if we called theories ‘misconceptions’ from the outset, instead of only after we have discovered their successors.
ARTICLE - You’re thinking about “financial security” the wrong way - A thoughtful re-framing of our needs and fears.
  • One of the benefits of modern society is that covering your basic needs is a pretty low bar. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if push came to shove, many RadReaders’ survival would not be at risk.
  • ...we often confuse financial security and what I’ll call a life well lived.
  • Society’s default mode for a life well lived is often simply reduced to fame, status, and money. But in the Messy Middle you find a lot of the new-age woowoo: meaning, freedom, health, lack of stress, relationships, learning, hobbies, sleep, liking your coworkers, et cetera... when you spend some time poking around the Messy Middle, you realize two things. First, it ain’t that messy. Second, Meaning may emerge.
INFOGRAPHIC - Here’s the cost of getting lean - The best communication I have seen of all of the trade-offs required for achieving different levels of body fat, including diet, exercise, and sleep. It is important that we are honest with ourselves about the trade-offs we are willing to make for the sake of leanness (I am keeping pizza and ice cream, dammit!).

ARTICLE - How to Minimize Fat Gain During the Holidays - Speaking of lean... I am a huge fan of Examine's determined work on nutrition science. TL;DR "Ma... the meatloaf".
  • Since you’re going to splurge on food, focus on overeating on anything rich in protein. Not only does this have the greatest likelihood of minimizing fat gain during overeating itself, but protein’s well-known satiating properties might help reduce overeating to begin with.
BOOK - Lying (My full Kindle notes) - Wonderful, short essay by Sam Harris arguing against lying. I already embrace truth telling from the selfish, 'unburden myself' / 'stay present' frames, summed up by Mark Twain's quote, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Sam's essay updated my perspective on 'white lies', eloquently arguing the damage they cause. To quote a friend, "We need people in our lives who will tell us what's written on the back of our t-shirt." Per Sam, to give the people we love anything less than the truth is "an assault on the autonomy of those we lie to".
  • The intent to communicate honestly is the measure of truthfulness.
  • Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. Knowing that we told the truth in the past leaves us with nothing to keep track of. We can simply be ourselves in every moment.
  • You can be honest and kind, because your purpose in telling the truth is not to offend people. You simply want them to have the information you have and would want to have if you were in their shoes.
  • False encouragement is a kind of theft: It steals time, energy, and motivation that a person could put toward some other purpose... if we are convinced that a friend has taken a wrong turn in life, it is no sign of friendship to simply smile and wave him onward.
  • When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives...
  • By lying, we deny others our view of the world. And our dishonesty not only influences the choices they make, it often determines the choices they can make—in ways we cannot always predict. Every lie is an assault on the autonomy of those we lie to.
  • Research suggests that all forms of lying—including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others—are associated with less satisfying relationships.
RANDOM TOOL - Index Ventures OptionPlan - A simple, beautiful tool for start-up leaders looking to create an effective option plan.
MOST FAVORITE FROM THE PAST

BOOK
- The Power of Anti-Goals - Use the power of inversion thinking to establish boundaries and cut out your least favorite parts of [life / work / relationships / etc.].
  • Too many of our friends, while wealthier and more successful than us, had objectively shittier lives. Calendars packed. On planes all the time. Marriage in shambles. Not enough time with their kids. 4 hours sleep per night.
  • Earlier this year, we decided to figure out how we could make our days consistently more enjoyable.
  • So, instead of thinking through what we wanted our perfect day to look like, we thought about the worst day imaginable and how to avoid it.






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