1: Lean into things you hate (or thought you hated)

The theme is that if you feel completely averse to something, get to know it better, that whatever you feel yourself leaning away from, try leaning into. If you hate opera, then go learn more about opera. And if you hate sports, well, then go learn more about sports. It’s usually just learning about something gives you an appreciation for this thing that you used to just dismiss.

So now, it’s my — at the end of the year, last year, I just thought, “God, this has been, I think, maybe the greatest year of my life. I think this is the happiest I have ever been in my whole life.” And I think the reason why was because I had five major things in one year that I used to hate that now I love. I think, “God, this is the greatest joy.”

Derek is somewhat unique in the way he leads with curiosity. As he’s gotten older and wiser, he’s used this tendency to teach himself this lesson: if at first you dismiss something, use that as a cue to lean in and learn more about it. Worst case, you learn that it really isn’t for you. Best case, you found something new to love.

2: Find friends that challenge you

Tim Ferriss: I would actually build on that to say that I look to my close relationships, and I pause and question how I’m thinking about friendships if, in every case, there isn’t something substantial I disagree with each of those friends on.

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Tim Ferriss: I really want friends where the differences of opinion bring us closer, and make our friendships more valuable. Not the other way around.

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Derek Sivers: I thought about that in terms of the thought portfolio in our head. Any given person. So you say it with the friends you have around. But I assume, aren’t you then, by knowing your friends so well when you’re in a certain situation, you’re thinking about what to do. You don’t just have Tim’s thoughts. You also have this friend’s thoughts, and that friend’s thoughts. And it’s like, “How would this friend of mine approach this?”

…

Tim Ferriss: And I think that in your new book, for instance, does a very good job of discussing perspectives, and perspective taking, and how you can read many things differently from different viewpoints. And you want friends who can help you do that, so that you don’t get trapped in your own thought loops. And furthermore, just on a very practical sense, you want to be able to speak truthfully to your friends, and you want them to be able to do the same. And if you do that, and you talk about a really wide breadth of things. If you never have conflict, one or both you is probably being dishonest.

…

Tim Ferriss: And if you’re going to have some friction in the system, which you probably will if you’re really being honest. Then, you’re going to need to be good at conflict resolution, or repair, or talking about hard things. So that’s a very long stream of consciousness that I just let out. But if I look for friends who I can and will disagree with on things.

That’s a bit of a long series of quotes there but it’s just so good. When you disagree with friends and loved ones, you have an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to see the world from another perspective. To surround yourself with people who can teach you in this way, through disagreement, can give you a natural advantage when difficult or challenging or otherwise interesting things happen in your life: “how would so-and-so think about this?” That impulse to look at the world from other perspectives is like a superpower in this world of thought bubbles.

Highly recommend this episode, and every episode of Derek’s on Tim’s show. Their friendship is endearing & philosophical, and their conversations are such a joy to listen to.

When Rev first wanted to deepen her meditation practice, she started going to retreats. A retreat might last five days, a week or longer. Often these retreats are entirely silent, meaning for the whole time you will not talk.

Rev:

“You realize that in this spaces that are set just so and everything is right and it’s all prepared, you still manage to drive yourself nuts. And to hate people and to love people, you do the whole gamut in there in a little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny constructed container. And yet you manage to play out all of the shenanigans, do all the things. You hate people, you love them, you want to have sex with them, you want them to get as far away as possible. You know, the smallest things hurt your feelings, you get upset, you get cold and distant. You do all the things and you realize, well, wait a minute, if all of this is here, even though I’m in a different space, maybe that I have something to do with creating all of this and it’s not everybody else’s fault. I might have to take responsibility for my life.

PJ:

So it’s like the thing that it offers or one of the things it offers is that if it’s like you find out that even if everything were taken away, like the things we think the world is doing to us, when you take away the world, you see that we do them to ourselves.

It reminds me of something Tim Ferriss recently quoted on a podcast episode with Elizabeth Gilbert:

“How are we complicit in creating the conditions we say we don’t want?”

He was quoting Jerry Colonna from another episode. Jerry elaborates:

I like to use the word complicit and not responsible. 90% of the time when I first ask that question, people hear the word “How have I been responsible for the conditions?” Complicitness is important, because it’s relieving the person from the burden of feeling responsible for all the shit in their lives, because that’s not fair to carry that responsibility. But it’s helpful to think of ourselves as somehow being served by the challenges that we’re going through.

The second piece of that is that “I say I don’t want.” And that sort of unpacks that notion even further, which is there’s something oftentimes about the way in which we operate and the way we set up the conditions of our lives to be in unconscious service to us. The psychological term is secondary gain. But there are ways in which we find ourselves repeating patterns in our life. We always date the same type of person. We are always finding ourselves in the same kind of job. We’re always frustrated by the same sorts of situation. And so it’s really useful to sort of start to unpack that. So that’s that question.

Rev’s observation that “when you take away the world, you see that we do them to ourselves” strikes right at the heart of Jerry’s observation that we are complicit in creating the conditions. Our internal narrative, our internal experience becomes externalized in the world around us through our interactions, relationships, and behaviors. It follows that to improve our experience in the world, we might start by improving our internal world.

It was the first time I have (knowingly) encountered Scriabin and I was really quite transported by the sweeping musical ideas. Highly recommend!

These days, many entries are submitted from folks all over the world, enthusiasts and professionals alike. A recent post entitled Nacreous Clouds over Lapland caught my eye and I had to share it here:

Explanation: Vivid and lustrous, wafting iridescent waves of color wash across this skyscape from Kilpisjärvi, Finland. Known as nacreous clouds or mother-of-pearl clouds, they are rare. But their unforgettable appearance was captured looking south at 69 degrees north latitude at sunset on January 24. A type of polar stratospheric cloud, they form when unusually cold temperatures in the usually cloudless lower stratosphere form ice crystals. Still sunlit at altitudes of around 15 to 25 kilometers, the clouds can diffract sunlight even after sunset and just before the dawn.

Enjoy the splendor of our universe!

As an open source maintainer myself, I’m struck by how he incorporated enhancements for companies as they asked for them. In my experience many enhancements companies ask for are difficult to incorporate- they’re either too narrowly focused to be generally useful to the user base, or force the project to take on significant added complexity. It’s impressive how Richard has been able to intelligently incorporate enhancement requests from external stakeholders for so many years.

Some of my favorites include:

• Alan Carr reads a letter to an insurance company describing a sticky situation
• Ian McKellen reads Kurt Vonnegut’s inspirational letter to some students
• Himesh Patel reads a letter to Richard Branson: ‘How can you live like this?’
• Taika Waititi reads a hilarious letter about a speeding ticket
• Olivia Colman reads a letter responding to an unsolicited penis photograph
• Miriam Margolyes reads a letter from a disgruntled care home resident
• Claire Foy reads a hilarious letter from Phyllida Law to her mother-in-law

Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.

Each episode tells a different piece of the story:

1. Episode 1: Trip 19
2. Episode 2: The Brooklyn Boys
3. Episode 3: The Day
4. TBA
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7. TBA
8. TBA

History is full of parallels.

Residential is about 6%, commercial is another 8%. What consumes the other 86%?

Crop Irrigation.

What’s even more surprising is that the biggest share of this water goes to crops humans don’t eat; the biggest water guzzler is alfalfa. … We can group alfalfa’s water with the water used for other grass hays and for corn silage. Together, this accounts for 32% of the West’s entire water footprint. … These are all crops grown almost exclusively to feed cows. That’s more than all the residential and commercial uses combined.

So what do we do about this? It’s clear that letting our lawns die would have less of an impact than changing our diets. But that solution is a hard sell for consumers. Even the most informed ones.

The video goes on to describe something called rotational fallowing, where agencies representing metropolitan water users (commercial/residential) to set a price that they’ll pay farmers to temporarily stop irrigating a portion of their fields, which farmers can take or leave. I don’t think it’s the cure-all that the viewer should be left considering, but it is worthwhile to watch the video to be more informed about this great imbalance between agriculture and everything else in the American West.

My all-time favorite episode to date is his interview with Mary Karr from 2020. Mary’s wit and open discussion about all sorts of difficult topics makes this a delight to listen to.

Other favorite episodes include:

• Boyd Varty: The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life (transcript)
• Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim’s Best Penguin Impressions (transcript)
• Derek Sivers on Developing Confidence, Finding Happiness, and Saying “No” to Millions
• Michael Gervais - Performance Psychology (transcript)
• Jessica Lahey on Parenting, Desirable Difficulties, The Gift of Failure, Self-Efficacy, and The Addiction Inoculation (transcript)
• How I Built The Tim Ferriss Show to 700+ Million Downloads (transcript)
• Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and More (transcripts)
• Mary Karr: The Master of Memoir on Creative Process and Finding Gifts in the Suffering (transcript)
• Richard Koch on Mastering the 80/20 Principle, Achieving Unreasonable Success, and The Art of Gambling (transcript)
• Sir Richard Branson: The Billionaire Maverick of the Virgin Empire (transcript)
• Howard Marks on the US Dollar, Three Ways to Add Defense, and Good Questions (transcript)
• Walter Isaacson: Lessons from Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Ben Franklin (transcript)
• Bréne Brown: Striving vs Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More (transcript)
• How Seth Godin Manages His Life – Rules, Principles, and Obsessions (transcript)

• 2022 Mar 16: David Wolpe: Judaism
• 2022 Feb 20: Nicole Perlroth: Cybersecurity and the Weapons of Cyberwar
• 2021 Jul 11: Roger Reaves: Smuggling Drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel
• 2020 Jul 27: David Patterson: Computer Architecture and Data Storage
• 2020 Jul 18: Brian Kernighan: UNIX, C, AWK, AMPL, and Go Programming

Kessonga Giscombe, a meditation teacher on Headspace, hosts 8 episodes to start off the new year about the 8 concepts of mindfulness:

• Non-judging: New Year, New Me
• Patience: Patience Takes Practice
• Acceptance: Accept Where You Are
• Trust: Trust Yourself
• Non-striving: Non-Striving Attitude
• Letting Go: Lost In Thought
• Beginner’s Mind: New Beginnings
• Humor: The Healing Power of Laughter

They’re well-done, and they’re pithy (~5 minutes each). Go listen!

The website they built for it includes sample shots from national parks signs and a great story about how they got to working on it.

Licensed under the SIL Open Font License at the time of this post.

The Radiolab podcast has been releasing a series of episodes about cassettess called Mixtape. This episode has several stories. One story is about how the Lost Boys of Sudan & their communities recorded traditional oral song histories onto cassette tapes for the men who left the refugee camps in Kenya to keep in touch with their culture and their roots. This tradition of telling a personal history via song is perfect for the cassette. When these men were selected to go to the USA, or Europe, or some other country as refugees, their community recorded lessons, advice, and history onto these cassettes.

My church community growing up was fairly involved in supporting the Sudanese refugees who were relocated to the town. My family grew very close to one man in particular, a brilliant, driven, and fun guy who was like an uncle to me. Sometimes I would ride in his car, and he’d offer to play a cassette tape he had brought with him from his friends and family back home. I was always eager. He had several of them. Songs of all kinds in a language I didn’t understand but thought was beautiful. He’d sing along and explain them to me as they played. They were songs about his community, or about a legend, or about more mundane day-to-day activities. They transported me to a place I had never been and told me about a culture and a people that were in many ways different but in many ways the same as mine.

Hearing this story was really meaningful. My family became very involved in bringing to life a project he dreamed up to drill wells for water for the people of South Sudan called Water for South Sudan. This organization was started in 2005 and has drilled more than 500 wells, helping provide safe fresh drinking water to the people of South Sudan. Countless families across the US have been similarly moved by the stories and the songs of the Lost Boys of Sudan and so much understanding and compassion has been built as a result of this cultural exchange.

Each episode I have enjoyed is really well done. The speaker is also walking, so you can hear a bit of their surroundings like crunching snow or chirping birds. The speaker

• Jane Fonda discusses overcoming fear and taking action as an antidote for hopelessness.
• Wanda Sykes discusses taking chances and getting back on the horse when you fall off.
• Min Jin Lee discusses finding her voice as she comes of age as a refugee in NYC and begins a career as an author.
• Jon M. Chu discusses representation, doing the work you don’t want to do, and the siezing every lucky break that comes your way.

I have run into a few bugs downloading & playing back the content, but otherwise the audio itself is a really great motivator for taking a walk.

• Do it after your must-do
• How to stop being late
• Don’t be a human reminder
• Thinking of you
• A crisis can be a turning point
• What else could that buy?

There are so many great episodes, but here are some of my favorites to get you started:

• Trying to Talk to Family About Climate Change? Here’s How
• How Screwed Are We?
• Breaking Buildings’ Addiction to Fossil Fuels
• Cold Hard Cash for your Greenhouse Gas
• Are Electric Cars Really Better for the Climate?
• Making Republicans Environmentalists Again

A good place to start with any issue is to educate oneself. I think listening to this podcast is a great first step.

I’m constantly looking up how to do bash string manipulation and this comic summarizes everything so concisely! This is kind of a cheat sheet and entertaining comic all in one.

If you like these, definitely pick up some of the comics on wizardzines.com. I have a few of them and found them both entertaining and useful for my day-to-day work.

Craig’s analysis of what makes for an emotionally intelligent person resonates with me:

I find high emotional intelligence is defined by a refined sense of empathy, thoughtfulness, brilliance, kindness, and curiosity. High emotional intelligence is the antipode to bombastic jingoisms, and signals an overcoming of childish impulses. Most importantly: High emotional intelligence does not suffer sloth. Lazy responses are often physical responses, takedowns, attacks, slanders, ad hominems. Someone with high emotional intelligence rises above the low-hanging response, takes time to compose themself, and responds with clarity and with a clear goal in mind.

This kind of calm is uncharacteristic of our world’s discourse, each issue fighting for the world’s attention, delivering an increasingly dark and panicked message. Clarity comes from turning down this fight-or-flight instinct, separating the message from the alarm, and taking a careful look at the issue.

Craig has a dim view of social media’s role:

It’s easy to pick on social media, but perhaps more than any tool in history, social media rewards, amplifies, and encourages a self-immolation of any emotional intelligence someone may have. The less emotionally intelligent the tweet, the more likes, the more retweets.

This seems right to me. The 250-character dunking that folks do on Twitter isn’t improving anyone’s lives. The rage-inducing headlines that are shared on Facebook aren’t improving anyone’s understanding of the issues. All these things do is make us less human and more beast.

Personal attacks are often emotionally driven attacks. And in that sense, they are perhaps the simplest indication of someone with low emotional intelligence. Personal attacks represent low impulse-control. They are childish by default, and often have no lasting useful effect. Folks who tend to attack — rather than deconstruct, or empathize — are often trapped in tremendously narrow world views. They tend to see all relationships as existing within a thin column, a tight hierarchy of being above or below each other. And in service to that “alpha” pole position at the top of the column, they need to attack and make sure you or your work sits below.

Talk about clarity. This particular passage reminds me of “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, which is presently the Oprah Book Club’s pick. This “tremendously narrow world view” is that of the caste – our social hierarchy made into steel and concrete. The impulse to maintain this caste system is so strong, it can only be overcome with emotional intelligence.

Read the whole essay. It’s worth your time.

Just because there is now a multi-billion dollar industry based on the abject betrayal of our privacy doesn’t mean the sociopaths who built it have any right whatsoever to continue getting away with it. They talk in circles but their argument boils down to entitlement: they think our privacy is theirs for the taking because they’ve been getting away with taking it without our knowledge, and it is valuable. No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.

I am eager to get my hands on iOS 14 for this feature alone – stop tracking me!

We also need to raise our sense of urgency for rapid follow up on outage issues. That doesn’t mean we just add them to our list. We need to clear room for post-incident action explicitly. I will clarify the priorities and and explicitly push out other work.

Follow-up work after an incident is absolutely crucial. It prevents these same problems from recurring, but more importantly it gives the team the confidence to continue innovating knowing that there is one less thing to worry about.

Well done, and thanks for sharing your experience, Basecamp team!