Hi friends,

A few months ago, I made the decision to move from a Operator CEO to Creator CEO at Write of Passage so I could focus more on writing. It took a few months to pull the pieces apart and set up a new structure, but I'm finally in a writing flow again, which means I have some big essays in the works.

I'm also excited about doing some podcast interviews, so if you'd like to have me on your show, I'm particularly game right now. Just send me an email.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking and writing about:

1. ​50 Ideas that Changed My Life: Exactly what it sounds like.
2. ​Own it Mentality: This is fast becoming one of my core mantras for life. It means confronting conflict as soon as it arises. By not saying what needs to be said, you trade short-term comfort for long-term pain, and the longer you wait to deal with an issue, the worse it usually becomes. Avoiding conflict means borrowing time and energy from your future-self… and the interest rates are high. (Read it on Twitter or my website)
3. Beware of Chasing Prestige: The drive for prestige can unconsciously rule our ambitions and blind us to great opportunities that are front in front of our eyes. Ask yourself: "What opportunities am I missing because they're not prestigious enough?" (Here's my short video about it)
4. Girard Lectures: The video above was inspired by a philosopher named René Girard, who famously created the concept of Mimetic Theory and taught Peter Thiel at Stanford. This 7-part lecture series, which I filmed with Johnathan Bi, is a good introduction to his work. This is the best video to start with.​

Today's Finds

​A World Split Apart: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist and critic of both communism and the Soviet Union. In his 1978 commencement speech, he warned against the West’s wholehearted embrace of individual rights and the decreasing responsibilities towards God and society. Voluntarily self-restraint is almost unheard of now. Sexual and economic norms have been forgotten. Ideas like sacrifice and selfless risk aren’t celebrated like they once were either. Instead, in the name of liberation, the West has caved to the allure of consumption, hedonism, and short-term thinking.

​The Use of Knowledge in Society: One of the most important economics papers ever written. It shows how price signals can help societies make the best use of resources, especially in an ever-changing world. The price system allows people to coordinate at scale. If there’s a shortage of a given material like copper, the price will rise and thereby incentivize people to produce more of it. When the price falls, the opposite will happen. By following the price system, individuals can contribute to a spontaneous global order by following their incentives. Here’s an excellent summary, and here’s Hayek’s original paper.

Christopher Alexander: The news of Alexander’s death is heartbreaking to me. He was the person who best articulated how spaces can feel alive, whether they are a collection of atoms or bits. To date, A Timeless Way of Building is one of the best books I’ve ever read because of the principles it presents for quality design — and by extension, a quality life. The book is written so masterfully that I feel a spiritual connection to it. Some of my favorites are: (1) Change the walking surface and the light quality to create a “transition space” between home and street, (2) the best rooms have light from two sides, and (3) in the northern hemisphere, if you want to maximize the natural light in your home, make sure the southern side has large windows. If you’d like to learn more about Alexander’s work, I recommend this Twitter account and this talk by Ryan Singer.

​Is It a Cheetah: Been coming back to this post about gifted children for a few years now. Ultra-capable kids are like a cheetah at the zoo. They're the fastest animals on earth, but you'd never know it because they're locked in a cage and take some time to hit their top speed. What looks miraculous to another animal (running 70 mph) is totally normal to them. But the metaphor goes beyond looking flashy. Cheetahs need to run, and being locked in a cage would drive them insane. This is how I felt in school. I sat in a classroom for six hours every day with only had 30 minutes to run around at recess. And when I got obsessed with a topic, teachers kept me on a leash by commanding me to follow the syllabus and keep pace with the class. This is normal, and it's why so many hyper-active kids lash out at their friends, parents, and teachers. Stephanie Tolan writes: "Children in cages or enclosures, no matter how bright, are unlikely to appear highly gifted; kept from exercising their minds for too long, these children may never be able to reach the level of mental functioning they were designed for." Highly gifted children are all different. Their strengths are extreme but singular. Only by taking them out of the "cage" and giving them freedom to run can they identify what they're uniquely designed to do.

​Christopher Hitchens Interview: This one is a conversation between a unitarian minister and the atheist philosopher Christopher Hitchens. It’s worth reading, partially because it’s so awkward. The conversation cuts to one of the core questions of modern religious thinking: Should you think about religious stories literally or metaphorically? And if you treat them metaphorically, are you really religious?