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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 137 (Mar 19, 2023) — New Podcasts, Slow Living, Wu Wei, & More
Sloww Sunday shares creations from Sloww along with 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 other lifelong learners.
🆕 New News
What Got You There Podcast
I recently went on the What Got You There podcast with Sean DeLaney. You can watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple. If you’re looking for a video intro to me, this is the first one! We cover my existential crisis, finding purpose, an ikigai breakdown, intentional living, lifestyle design, relationship with money, and more. I attempted to create detailed show notes here.
Audience of One Podcast
I also chatted with Spencer Kier on his new Audience of One podcast. This one is audio-only on Spotify or Apple while he gets it off the ground (video coming in the future). We have a wide-ranging conversation covering my personal journey, finding purpose, human development, the lottery of birth, free will, and more. I also attempted to create detailed show notes along with a bonus pre-show Q&A.
Tip: If you only have time for one of the two podcasts, I’d suggest those most interested in intentional living and finding purpose watch the first one, while those more interested in mental mastery and spiritual growth listen to the second one.
📚 Lifelong Learning
Reading & Learning in the Brain
I just added two books to my upcoming reading list (book summaries of all coming soon):
- Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf
- Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene
Bonus: I also have another Stanislas Dehaene book on my reading list: How We Learn
🌎 Lighter Living
Slow Living Myth-Busting
I can’t tell you how often I see people talk about slow living in the context of doing things as slowly as possible. Or, doing as little as possible. Or, that slow living is an interior design aesthetic that’s all muted/neutral color tones. Or, that it’s anti-technology. These are just a few of the myths I bust in the slow living series: 101, 201, 301.
Slow living isn’t about that stuff. It is about pace, balance, connection, depth, intentionality, unbusyness, and mindfulness. It’s about living a full life (not a busy life).
I like to think: what simple living is for your things, slow living is for your time. Or, you can think about the dynamic duo of simple and slow as: space and pace.
Explore more: How do I design a lighter life? (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Deeper Purpose
Find the thing you can’t not do
Don’t buy into people saying “passion” is a dirty word. I’ve found it’s a key ingredient in purpose—the very first step in the Ikigai 2.0 process. The following quote is from Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer (Book Summary | 🔒Premium Summary):
“Vocation at its deepest level is, ‘This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.'” — Parker J. Palmer (Let Your Life Speak)
I’ve had many people over the years ask me how to pick a path from a multitude of passions. Ask yourself: what’s the one thing I can’t not do?
Explore more: How do I find higher purpose (Sloww Stage 2)?
Get the eBook: Ikigai 2.0: A Step-by-Step Guidebook to Finding Life Purpose & Making Money Meaningfully (+ Bonus Workbook)
🧠 Mental Wealth
Meta-Crisis Meta-Resource Update
I attended the UTOK Consilience Conference the last two days which was as mind-expanding as expected. At the same time, I’ve also been revisiting and updating the side project I created last year: MetaCrisis.org. It’s a digital directory of all the people and projects in the ever-growing “wisdom web” (which has also been called the intellectual dark/deep web, the sensemaking web, the liminal web, and more). For Twitter users, I recently doubled the size of this Twitter list.
Personally, I think the root cause of the meta-crisis is the human mind (our relationship to our minds). Most people still think they are their thoughts. Their ideas are their identity. If you criticize an idea, it’s equivalent to attacking their identity. So, I’m most focused on synthesizing lifelong learning that catalyzes human development. But, we need people helping in many different areas. Choose your own interest area because everything interconnects. Here’s a nice 5-minute overview of the meta-crisis from Daniel Schmachtenberger.
If you have no idea what I’m even talking about, no worries! Start here: A Crisis of Crises: What is the Meta-Crisis? (+ Infographics)
Explore more: How do I master the mind (Sloww Stage 3)?
Get Mini Mind: 365 Daily Emails of Bite-Size Brain Food
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
Alan Watts on Wu Wei & Sailing with Life
What is wu wei according to Watts?
- “Many think that wu wei means ‘do nothing’ in the sense of laissez-faire, be lazy, always be passive. It doesn’t mean that. There is a time for action.“
- “Wu means non, not, no, negation. Wei has a combination of meanings. It can mean action, making, but the best translation I have found for it is forcing. So, wu wei is the principle of not forcing in anything that you do … It’s often called not doing, not acting, not interfering—but not to force seems to me to hit the nail on the head.”
- “Always to act in accordance with the pattern of things as they exist. Don’t impose on any situation … It would be better to do nothing than to interfere without knowing the system of relations that exists. It’s terribly important to have this feeling of the interdependence of every form of life upon every other form of life.”
- “Apply this ‘not forcing anything’ and you get spontaneity—a life which is so of itself, which is natural, which is not forced, which is not unduly self-conscious.”
Want a brain-bender?
- “The real wu wei is not intentionally wu wei, and so is wu wei. But, inferior wu wei so tries to be wu wei that it isn’t.”
“Wu wei is based on knowledge of the tide—the drift of things. Get with it. Wu wei is the art of sailing rather than the art of rowing.” — Alan Watts
Explore more: How do I embody wisdom (Sloww Stage 4)?
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Go with the Sloww,
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur
