About designing a good life:
I live in a city where almost none of my closest friends live, so I spend a lot of time on phone calls. The subject of how to design a good life has felt especially salient in conversation recently, though if I really think about the last seven years, this a constant fascination for me and my closest friends (I have my theories on why, but that's for another time).
A few years ago I watched a Leena Norms video (I think it's this one?) in which she talks about about organizing life into several venues for conducting science about yourself.
A few weeks ago, I ended up accidentally watching this video of neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff giving clear instructions about how to do this:
On the surface, it might sound like a "work-life-balance/self-care" or worse, a Atomic Habits/James Clear video, and it's neither of the two.
It's about how to live a vibrant life characterized by deep engagement with the world around us, led by curiosity, wielding simple mental tools for making sure we're doing things we feel good about.
It's also given me the language and principles to justify pursuing some of the bigger risks I've been preparing for in my career — not to tamp down ambition, but to channel it well. And it’s helped me take the electrical charge out of procrastination and inconsistency. Instead, Le Cunff suggests treating both things as information.
I strongly recommend watching this with a notebook and pen (literally) or taking out a laptop and opening up a document to take notes.
I shared this with like twenty people this month, and a lot of them found it valuable, too:
Relatedly, here's Jeff Buckley talking about grace for 2 minutes.
About finding love:
You Don't Want Love — You Want to Be Picked So You Feel Worthy by @pearilee
One of the lenses through which I've been thinking about designing a good life has been teamwork — partly in the context of friendship and community, but mostly in the context of love.
My friend just got married and she was telling me about how freeing it feels to be part of a financial team, about how two incomes make it possible for one of them to rest if they need it. I completely forgot about that aspect of partnership. Of course, she married for love, and so will I, but this video smacked me in the face with an elegant but forceful takedown of the fallacies I unconsciously use to shape my approach to love on a daily basis. It unfortunately feels true that I've been designing my life around the performance of a few key vectors for perfection, acceptance, interestingness, creativity, etc.
I sometimes wonder if these creators have ever felt like they didn't know if the things they've made will be valued — something I struggle with whenever I make anything; these videos have been essential to me.
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