philosophy

Overheard : On cutting down “stuff”

We’re good as humans to committing to things that are positive. That’s very motivating for us. We’re bad at trying to avoid things that are negative

Cal Newport in conversation with Tim Ferriss

Cal was speaking about how we are good at adding things that seem good to to us (facebook is good because we can communicate on the fly), but bad at avoiding negative things (being on facebook and doom scrolling is a bad thing). He instead suggests, just using technology for things you like (I will have facebook, but only follow and read messages from folks I want to).

Oveheard : Pain

our ability to deal with pain is directly proportional to our ability to see pain elsewhere.

Subroto Bagchi

Overheard : On appreciation

Everyone needs to feel appreciated. It doesn’t matter what they do, it doesn’t matter who they are, that’s a need in everybody.

– Grace McNiel (Hugh Jackman’s mom)

Hugh Jackman mentioned this quote on a podcast with Tim Ferriss. Highly recommend listening to the podcast. Hugh shared a lot more such wisdom in it. My admiration for Hugh went up a couple more notches after listening to it.

Overheard : Return on investment from a book

Quote from “The Rebel Allocator” by Jacob L. Taylor on the return on investment from reading a book

For around ten dollars, you get to have an in-depth conversation with an expert who dedicated years to distilling all the information about a topic. For the cost of a mediocre dinner, you get access to years of another human’s effort. I did the math. If it took the author one year of work, you’re paying them about one penny per hour. How much time does this penny-per-hour investment save you in culling through information? We’re talking lifetimes.