#62: start failing
👋 Welcome to the 62nd issue of Out of Curiosity, a weekly newsletter promoting ideas to help get 1% better everyday.
My name is Reza, and every week, I go through nearly 100 pieces of content (from books and podcasts to newsletters and tweets), and bring you the best in this newsletter.
In this issue:
✍️ 10 ways to support your writing habit
📖 How you read matters
💭 Life lessons from Steven Pressfield
👨🏫 40 useful concepts you should know
🔗 etc. etc.
✍️ 10 ways to support your writing habit
Fill your drafts with a bunch of potential stories. When you feel less motivated, take a look at what you’ve already started.
I always have dozens of drafts and half-finished stories and multiple, bigger projects in the works. Sometimes, it can get overwhelming and I have to close a bunch of tabs, but for the most part, the freedom to just pick anything out of a big pool each morning and just GO has helped me write more and faster!
If I feel friction on one piece, I can move to another. There’s always something I wanna write, and if I spend a little extra time figuring out what it is, the words flow a lot better!
📖 How you read matters
Be more selective. Read books twice.
Train your brain to read more efficiently through purpose-setting and priming.
Priming happens unconsciously, but you can control it if you know how. That’s the benefit of purpose-setting before you start reading. It works because it gives you a chance to prime your perceptual filters.
You are what you read. One way to measure the quality of reading material is to consider its influence over time – how relevant and widely-read it is after it was first published.
These days I find myself rereading as much or more as I do reading. It’s really more about identifying what are the great books to you, because different books speak to different people, and then really absorbing those.
💭 Life lessons from Steven Pressfield
Get out into the real dirt world and start failing. The goal is to connect with your own self, your own soul. Adversity. Everybody spends their life trying to avoid it. Me too.
But the best things that ever happened to me came during the times when the shit hit the fan and I had nothing and nobody to help me. Who are you really? What do you really want? Get out there and fail and find out.
Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something — the book you’re writing, the album, the movie — and staying there for a long, long time.
You’re not really allowed to get unfocused. Take a vacation. Gather yourself. But know that the only reason you’re here on this planet is to follow your star and do what the Muse tells you. It’s amazing how a good day’s work will get you right back to feeling like yourself.
Along the same lines…
👨🏫 40 useful concepts you should know
Epistemic Humility: Instead of trying to be right, try to be less wrong. Avoiding idiocy is easier than achieving genius, and by beginning from the position that you don't know enough (which you don't), you'll gain more awareness of your blindspots and become harder to fool.
Mimetic Desire: Craving is contagious; watching other people want a thing makes us want it too. It's why ads are so effective. But it puts us all into unnecessary competition as we fool ourselves into chasing what others are chasing simply because they are chasing it.
Overblown Implications Effect: We think people judge us by a single success or failure, but they don’t. If you mess up one meal no one thinks you're a bad chef, and if you have one great idea no one thinks you're a genius. People just aren't thinking about you that much.
Peter Principle: People in a hierarchy such as a business or government will be promoted until they suck at their jobs, at which point they will remain where they are. As a result, the world is filled with people who suck at their jobs.
🔗 etc. etc.
👨💻 A helpful list of 79 tasks your virtual assistant can help with.
❓ 100 questions to shape your strategy.
👋 Thesis Festival is an IRL and virtual conference happening on Feb 25 featuring some amazing internet writers and thinkers.
🥑 100 of the world’s most nutritious foods
📝 I recently came across a new tool for thought: Napkin is a new idea-saver that helps explore connections between the thoughts you collect. I love that it auto tags snippets and generates a collection of ideas that are related to each other to boost creative inspiration.
❄️ World’s highest-res pictures of snowflakes
✨ One last thing…
👋 Until next week,
