#89: how to love
👋 Welcome to the 89th 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:
📝 100 ways to live better
🎙️ Useful, not true
📚 How to love
📝 100 ways to live better
Any life advice that isn’t given to you personally is not designed to be followed to the letter. Try to resonate with the philosophy that generates it instead.
Find a medium of expression and express yourself publicly every day for three months. If you’re good with words, write 100 Tweets. An artist — post 100 sketches on Instagram. Music/dance person — 100 TikToks.
Humans are made to walk. Set up your life to encourage walking by acquiring soft-soled shoes, good audiobooks, and/or a dog. If you’re not enjoying walking and not getting your 10,000 steps you can get there with good design choices.
→ Put A Number On It! | 16-min read
🎙️ Useful, not true
An intimate chat between Derek Sivers and Tim Ferris. This is one of the most unfiltered interviews I’d listened to from Derek. It’s a long one, but absolutely worth it. They dive into topics like un-optimizing life, taking giant leaps, and how to find and learn from mentors.So I had to think, what's the most useful thing I could share with your audience that I've learned like in the last seven years since we last spoke? The thing that's made a biggest difference in my life, a superpower, a big, huge change.
To me, it's been, in short, skepticism.
So if you wonder why I'm so happy, why I'm thriving, why I seem to be doing well, to me, it's a lot of my happiness comes from this worldview that is radical doubt. It's skepticism.
And I'm going to give this the shorthand of calling it useful, not true. But the visual for it is that moment at the end of the matrix movie, when Neo realizes like, those aren't bullets. This is just code. It's like, oh, wait, right. Like none of these rules apply to me. That's deep skepticism.
It's empowering. It's liberating.
I'm going to tell you the four bits first, and we'll use that to kind of make sure that we come back to this:
Almost nothing is objectively true.
Beliefs are placebos. So you've got to believe whatever works for you now.
Rules and norms are arbitrary games that can be changed.
Refuse ideology.
→ The Tim Ferriss Show | 2h 55m listen
👩💻 A cool, newsletter-related app to check out
Meco is a distraction-free space for reading newsletters outside your inbox. It helps cut through the noise and supercharge your learnings from your favourite writers - check it out!
📚 Two recent books I’m excited about…
Masterpiece in ProgressSean’s new book contains 365 passages filled with timeless wisdom and life lessons to inspire and instigate personal and professional evolution. You can grab it here.
His podcast (What Got You There) is also a must-follow!
Clear ThinkingShan Parrish highlights crucial moments that can reshape your life's trajectory through breaking free from autopilot reactions and engaging rational reasoning for better decision-making.
📚 How to love
Tiny read filled with timeless wisdom on love and connection.To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we actually are
If you have the impression that you know the other person inside and out, you are wrong. Are you sure that you even know yourself? Every person is a world to explore.
In the practice of compassionate listening, you listen with only one purpose: to give the other person a chance to speak out and suffer less. Practice breathing in and out deeply and concentrate on what you are hearing.
When we love someone, we should look deeply into the nature of that love. If we want to be with someone so that we can feel safe, that’s understandable, but it’s not true love. True love doesn’t foster suffering or attachment.
→ Goodreads | 128 pages
✨ One last thing…
👋 Until next week,
🗂
#88: living life on your own terms
If you enjoyed this issue, let me know by hitting the ❤️ button below ⤵️
The profound challenges many individuals face in life are often rooted in not having a clear sense of what they truly want. This, in turn, often derives from a lack of self-awareness. It's inspiring to see discussions like this that emphasize the importance of self-discovery and mindfulness. At the end of the day, you could never love someone if you don't love yourself!
Thanks for sharing such thought-provoking topics, keep up the great work!
I’m glad the highlights from How to Love resonated!