Trevor McKendrick - How to live a meaningful life

Good morning -

I asked a friend the other day: “Why do you wake up in the morning?”

I don’t think it’s actually all that easy a question to answer. If you do the “5 whys” thing (answer the question, then ask yourself “why” again, repeat 5x) it ends up getting to some fairly existential ideas:

“Because I want to be respected”

“Because I want to be a good parent”

“Because I don’t want to embarrass myself”

A possible choice is always something related to work: because I want to put my dent in the universe, because I’m excited about what I work on, because I want to live an interesting life. Because I want to win.

All of that to say I think it’s an interesting way to frame your values.

Have a great week!

Trevor

Scott Joplin’s music (Spotify playlist)

Scott was the king of ragtime. I’m extremely confident you’d recognize his music whether you know it or not. His 2 most popular songs are Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer, published as sheet music in 1899 and 1902, respectively.

Sadly Scott died fairly young (in 1917 at 49 years old) and long before his music became as famous as it is today - it launched into mass popularity when it was used in the 1972 winner of Best Picture, The Sting.

On one level it makes me incredibly sad that an incredible artist and creator didn’t get the recognition he so rightly deserved while he was alive.

On the other hand, you can’t listen to his music and not think this guy wasn’t proud & delighted with his work. You don’t make work and music that good without caring deeply, without having an excellent & confident sense of taste, and being willing to push all of that into the world.

In the end all you can do is make your best thing, that you’re excited about, and give it to the world.

Blip: a tool for seeing your Internet latency (github)

This is great because it tests latency instead of just bandwidth (what Speedtest.net does).

You can open the website tool and walk around your house/office with your device and actually see where your best reception is, deadspots, etc.

Simple, useful, free tool.

Peter Thiel on happiness (1:34 minute youtube)

The interview asked Peter about happiness, which Peter then reframes as seeking meaning, which I prefer.

(I’m not anti happiness per se, it just feels like a much more ephemeral & destination type idea. Meaning feels like a journey - you’re always seeking out meaning.)

And so what does Peter say about finding meaning?

“We have meaningful lives… when we do things that are important that otherwise would not get done. You don’t want to be a cog in a machine, you don’t want to be doing a thing that if you didn’t do it, a thousand other people would take your place. And so it’s always but for you, but for this venture or this company that you’re working on, this important thing would not get done. That tends to be extremely meaningful, and I think you should always aim for that.”

American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class (article)

I confess that I didn’t actually read this article from the Economist (pay walled), but I agree so much with the headline that I had to share.

See here for my favorite essay on social class in America.

Social class is so under discussed in the US that I believe most people don’t even consider it a category.

Twitter quote I’ve been thinking about (twitter)

“The difference between a great person and a median person is that they’re in contact with divinity like 2% of the time vs 0.01%”

Some people have a special sauce where they are in contact with The Bigger Why more regularly than everyone else. The Why can be whatever - it’s not about the actual topic. It’s that the person is more in sync with, aligned, and understands something much bigger than the day to day trivialities of their short existence.

(Fun to notice that the first reply in my thread is “… i don't think you've met the Mormons have you?”. Mormons remain quite underrated imo! Much more to stay on Mormonism at some point…)

Paul Graham on how to know whether someone has good taste (twitter)

“By asking them why they chose the things they did. When someone has bad taste there will always be a taint of bogusness about their motives. E.g. that they like the things they do because someone spent a lot of money on brand advertising to make them like them.”

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