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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 123 (Nov 13, 2022) — Book Reco Request, Us vs Them, The Grand Redesign, & More
Sloww Sunday shares creations from Sloww and curations of fascinating finds to 10,000+ students of life. If you enjoy this issue, please help grow Sloww by forwarding the email version of this newsletter to others.
🌎 Lighter Living
What’s the best book you’ve ever read on intentional living?
Please message me or leave a comment and let me know! I’ll share some of the top recommendations in next week’s newsletter. Any intentional living subject goes: slow living, simple living, downshifting, voluntary simplicity, decluttering, minimalism, digital minimalism, lifestyle design, financial independence…
PS: You can see the books I’ve already included on my reading list.
Explore more: How do I design a lighter life (Sloww Stage 1)?
🧭 Higher Purpose
Transcending Othering (“Us vs Them”)
I recently shared a Twitter thread of “us vs them” images that seemed to resonate—along with this quote:
“I against my brother.
I and my brother against our neighbors.
I, my brother, and our neighbors against the other neighborhood.
I, my brother, our neighbors, and the other neighborhood against…”
— Ancient Proverb
The “us vs them” mentality may be a byproduct of humanity’s current stage of psychological development. It seems like it could resolve itself when enough humans reach the watershed stage in Ego Development Theory. Further development means more people taking a higher perspective—transcending “us vs them.”
Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory says:
“As development moves from preconventional to conventional to postconventional (or from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric), the amount of narcissism and egocentrism slowly but surely decreases.” — Ken Wilber
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and work on self-actualization and transcendence says:
“All dichotomies can be transcended so that the mutual exclusiveness and oppositeness and zero-sum game quality is transcended, in the sense of rising above to a higher viewpoint where one can see that these mutually exclusive differences in opposites can be coordinated into a unity which would be more realistic, more true, more in accord with actual reality … To rise above dichotomized nationalism, patriotism, or ethnocentrism, in the sense of ‘them’ against ‘us,’ or of we-they … To be a full member of the human species does not mean repudiating the lower levels; it means rather including them in the hierarchical integration.” — Abraham Maslow
Get the eBook: Ikigai 2.0: A Step-by-Step Guidebook to Finding Life Purpose & Making Money Meaningfully (+ Bonus Workbook)
Explore more: How do I find higher purpose (Sloww Stage 2)?
🧠 Mental Wealth
Principle of Least Effort
You’ve heard of the “path of least resistance,” but what about the “principle of least effort”? The principle says animals, people, and even well-designed machines will naturally choose the path of least effort.
Think about what this means in terms of the information age we are living in: information-seeking tends to use the tools that are most familiar and easy to use along with the most convenient search method—and stops as soon as minimally acceptable results are found. No wonder there’s so much bad information floating around today.
“In a physical world governed by thermodynamics and competition for limited energy and resources, any biological organism that was wasteful with energy would be at a severe disadvantage for survival. Thus, we see in most instances that behavior is governed by a tendency to minimize energy usage when at all possible.” — Shane Parrish (Farnam Street)
Build mental wealth: Mini Mind: 365 Daily Emails of Bite-Size Brain Food
Explore more: How do I master the mind (Sloww Stage 3)?
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
The Nonduality Podcast
I’m not sure how I just recently discovered The Nonduality Podcast (YouTube), but it seems to be a pretty solid channel.
Explore more: How do I embody wisdom (Sloww Stage 4)?
🤯 Mind Expanding
🆕 Book Summary: The Grand Redesign by Sam McRoberts
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book this short that’s packed with so many of my favorite subjects: the human operating system, the latest technological innovations, humanity’s biggest challenge, and how we move forward.
I highly recommend reading it in full because it’s a quick read. Oh, and it’s free! Check out my book summary or pick up your own copy of the book: The Grand Redesign.
“This short tome may not seem like much, but is, effectively, a mental vaccine. You have been, for lack of a better word, inoculated with a new set of unifying memes … Change the stories, change the world.” — Sam McRoberts
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Go with the Sloww,
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur
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