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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 102 (Apr 17, 2022) — Mini Guide to Stoicism, Art of Life, Enlightenment Jokes, & More
Happy Sunday!
Here’s the latest from Sloww along with the most interesting things I discovered last week.
To respect your time and attention, every newsletter can be read in under 5 minutes. If you enjoy it, please take 5 seconds to forward the email version to some friends and family. 🙏
🆕 New News
🧠 Mini Mind: 365 Daily Emails of Bite-Size Brain Food
I was hoping to have this launched by today, but it’s been a beast of a project building out 365 emails! I’m still in the final stages of wrapping it up, and I can’t wait to share it with you this week.
How did we get here? Over the last year, I’ve ventured down the rabbit hole of mental models and cognitive biases. I read the books The Great Mental Models, Super Thinking, The Art of Thinking Clearly, Seeking Wisdom, and Poor Charlie’s Almanack. I also read the Wikipedia lists of cognitive biases, psychological effects, eponymous laws, and many (many) more.
Then, I compiled everything into the 🔒Mental Mastery Cheatsheet. But, a massive spreadsheet of 650+ rows sorted alphabetically can be quite overwhelming. So, I went a couple steps further and paired similar concepts together (650+ concepts organized into 365 emails) and grouped them into themes (12 themes with ~30 emails each). Here’s a teaser of the Mini Mind year-long roadmap:
🌀 Sloww Stuff
A Mini Guide to Stoicism
And, don’t miss my favorite Stoic quotes!
Learning to Live before you Die: “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca (Essay Summary)
A Handbook for Living: “Enchiridion” by Epictetus (Book Summary)
How to Live a Good Life according to “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius (Book Summary)
50+ Marcus Aurelius Quotes & Deep Questions from the Stoic Classic “Meditations”
🧠 Modern Knowledge
Iain McGilchrist Dialogues on “The Matter With Things”
Various Lengths | YouTube
Iain McGilchrist’s 1500-page book “The Matter With Things” has been out for about six months now. If you’re like me and don’t know when you are going to find the time to read it, then you may like to get the gist from these chapter-by-chapter dialogues (video/audio format) that Iain is beginning to publish:
· Iain reads “The Matter With Things” introduction (Part 1 | Part 2)
· “The Matter With Things” introduction dialogue
· “The Matter With Things” chapters 1-2 dialogue
“‘The Matter with Things’ is my attempt, using science and philosophy, to open our eyes to a world beyond everyday science and everyday philosophy. It argues that if we are wreaking havoc on ourselves and the world, and if our best intentions lead to paradoxical outcomes, it is because we have become mesmerized by a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking, the product of a brain system which evolved not to help us understand, but merely to manipulate the world: that of the left hemisphere. We have become blind to what the subtler, more intelligent and more perceptive right hemisphere sees. Consequently we no longer seem to have the faintest idea who we are, what the world is, or how we relate to it. Indeed there is a sense in which we no longer live in a world at all, but exist in a simulacrum of our own making. This book is an attempt to convey a way of looking at the world quite different from the one that has largely dominated the West for at least three hundred and fifty years – some would say as long as two thousand years.” — Iain McGilchrist
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
“The Art of Life” Documentary
38 mins | Science & Nonduality (YouTube)
I got sucked into this short documentary and ended up watching the entire thing. This is a beautiful example of the intersection of science and spirituality.
Pair with: 25+ Art of Living Quotes to Inspire the Ultimate “Work” of our Lives
“I spent 13 years in the university learning how to think. Now I have to spend the rest of my life learning how to not think.”
🤯 Mind Expanding
Enlightenment Jokes
Twitter
Can you be enlightened without a sense of humor? I don’t know, but here’s a short Twitter thread with some of the best jokes I’ve found.
💭 Deep Thought
Don’t aim to be a billionaire.
Aim to help a billion people and whatever wealth comes as a byproduct is what it is. Don’t aim for a 4-hour workweek. Aim for a 0-hour workweek because what you are doing feels like play and not work.
Life = Energy
Work = Energy usage you don’t enjoy (depleting).
Play = Energy usage you enjoy (regenerating).
Align your play as your work so your life is enjoyable, regenerative energy. And, if you want, design it in a way that money is a byproduct (more in the Ikigai 2.0 eBook).
💬 Wise Words
Before seeking enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. While seeking enlightenment, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are once again rivers.
— Zen Saying
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Feedback: Have something you want to say, or just want to say hi? It’s always greatly appreciated. Just send me an email or reach out socially.
Have an alive week!
Kyle Kowalski
Founder, Sloww
