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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 145 (May 21, 2023) — Voluntary Simplicity, Synthesizer Inspiration, Be Here Now, & More
Sloww Sunday shares my latest and greatest creations and curations 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.
📚 Lifelong Learning
For the Aspiring Synthesizers
I’m in the process of outlining and organizing all my content for the Synthesizer course (I can’t imagine there’s anything else out there like this course). As part of the course creation process, I released some new posts as byproducts:
- 25 quotes to inspire the aspiring synthesizer (Premium members can access all 🔒100+ quotes)
- Book summary of A Synthesizing Mind by Howard Gardner (Premium members get the 🔒more organized and actionable summary plus bonus infographic on the synthesizing process and goals)
Here are some questions to ask yourself if you think you may be a synthesizer:
🌎 Lighter Living
The Value of Voluntary Simplicity
I’m rereading the summary of The Value of Voluntary Simplicity by Richard Gregg (Essay Summary). This essay was published almost a century ago in 1936, but most of it could have been just as easily written today. Richard Gregg is quite a fascinating human. After graduating from Harvard and Harvard Law in the early 1900s, he sailed to India in the 1920s and was one of the first Americans to live and work with Gandhi (pictured together above).
- “Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life … The greatest characters, those who have influenced the largest numbers of people for the longest time, have been people with extremely few possessions. For example, Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Kagawa, Socrates, St. Francis, Confucius…” — Richard Gregg
Explore more: How do I design a lighter life? (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Deeper Purpose
Looking for a way to help the world?
There are countless ways to get involved in our current meta-crisis, but in my opinion, the most urgent and important is our ultimate root problem: ourselves. More specifically, our relationship with our minds. Here are some quotes that I think come closest to illustrating the root problem:
- “Despite all the concrete problems faced by society, the most pressing problems are actually ‘in our heads’ … The meta crisis—the crisis that contains all of the other crises—is something like a crisis of the human mind … An invisible crisis unfolding within our own minds and cultures that is getting much less attention … which has to do with how humans understand themselves and the world.” — Zak Stein
- “We are unlikely to effectively solve these problems unless we truly understand their ultimate source: the human mind. In our view, to survive and flourish…we must look inward. In an era defined by human impact, the most pressing questions of this time are about ourselves. The duration and prosperity of our species’ journey together on this planet will, in part, be determined by the extent to which we can come to understand our minds and apply the lessons we learn to how we live our lives.” — Nathaniel Barr & Gordon Pennycook
- “Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better … and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be it ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable.” — Václav Havel
- “As technology is empowering our choices and we are getting something like the power of gods, you have to have something like the love and the wisdom of gods to wield that or you self-destruct.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
- “Humanity is once again faced with its most primordial nightmare: an explosive growth in exterior technologies has not been met with an equivalent growth in interior consciousness and wisdom … Stated in more general terms, one of humanity’s constant nightmares has been that technological growth has always run ahead of the growth in wisdom, care, and compassionate use of that technology … In other words, exterior development has run ahead of interior development … Without interior development, healthy exterior development cannot be sustained … Unless we put as much attention on the development of consciousness as on the development of material technology—we will simply extend the reach of our collective insanity.” — Ken Wilber
- “You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion … Responding to a radical crisis that threatens our very survival—this is humanity’s challenge now. The dysfunction of the egoic human mind, recognized already more than 2,500 years ago by the ancient wisdom teachers and now magnified through science and technology, is for the first time threatening the survival of the planet … To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for your inner state at any given moment. That means now.” — Eckhart Tolle
- “When we talk about the meta-crisis, I call it the ‘identity crisis.’ This is a crisis of culture. This is a crisis to the person. This is not a crisis to the planet. This is not a crisis for atoms. This is not a crisis for the universe. This is a crisis just for us.” — Nicholas Lattanzio
Note: I’ve mentioned that I think the solution to our root problem is further psychological development individually and collectively. How do we that? I see it as a process of adult questioning, that leads to adult learning, that leads to adult development (new posts on this coming soon).
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
The Societal Drug of Approval, Appreciation, Acceptance…
I’ve searched for this Anthony de Mello excerpt multiple times in the last couple years, but I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for—so I created it. This new short post outlines what Anthony de Mello says about the societal drug keeping you a sleeping robot. You can also watch him deliver the message in this video clip.
- “You and I, as children, were given a drug: it was called approval, it was called appreciation, it was called praise, success, acceptance, popularity … Awake people break out of this drug.” — Anthony de Mello
Pair with: The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello (Book Summary), Awareness by Anthony de Mello (Book Summary | 🔒Premium summary), & my Anthony de Mello spirituality study (🔒Sloww Society Community)
Explore more: How do I master the mind (Sloww Stage 3)
Get Mini Mind: 365 Daily Emails of Bite-Size Brain Food
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
Be Here Now
I finally read Be Here Now by Ram Dass (“Ram Dass” means “Servant of God”)—he was formerly known as Dr. Richard Alpert, Ph.D. (Book Summary | 🔒Premium Summary). The Premium summary includes guides on witnessing practice, self-enquiry practice, and a bonus practice. For a video intro to Ram Dass, check out this interview from 1981. While this wasn’t my favorite book on spirituality, his life story was wild to read. I’m also not personally into psychedelics, but this book includes quite a bit about them which I found interesting as it relates to the awakening journey. I should note that I read a digital version of the book which makes it harder to appreciate the numerous illustrations that are in the physical book.
- “To think that working on oneself requires ‘dropping-out’ of society is to miss the point. Certainly you must drop out . . . but the drop-out is internal, not external … Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” — Ram Dass
I’ve shared several highlights on Twitter:
- On how to spend 30 mins per day
- On being a good game player
- On conscious revolution
- On his life’s message
- On helping others
- On spiritual ego
- On free will
- On Jesus
Explore more: How do I embody wisdom (Sloww Stage 4)?
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Go with the Sloww,
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur
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