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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 154 (Aug 20, 2023) — Dead Authors, Deeper Development, Asleep vs Awakening, & 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
How many dead authors are you dialoguing with?
In other words, how many old books have you read? What if you had as many dead friends as living friends? Earlier this year, I analyzed the authors of 100+ books I’ve read. My ratio was 1:3 (1 book by a dead author for every 3 books by a living author). I need to increase the amount of older books I read to get that closer to 1:2 or 1:1.
“The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.” — Niall Ferguson
🌎 Lighter Living
What were you doing 10 years ago?
Me 10 years ago (vs me today):
- I was 6 years into my marketing career and working at my third company (Sloww didn’t exist!)
- I had no purpose (no existential crisis until late 2015)
- I did not read books for fun (now have read 100+ books for fun)
- I never would have considered quitting alcohol (now 100+ days into a no-alcohol year)
- I was going to bed at 1-2am (now 10-11pm)
Think about how different your own life is now compared to 10 years ago. How different will your life be 10 years from now?
Explore more: 100+ posts on Intentional Living (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Deeper Purpose
A Different Perspective on the Hero’s Journey
I replied to a tweet from Tim Ferriss and Naval Ravikant talking about the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Book Summary). The reply took off, so I figured it was worth sharing here as well. I think about Siddhartha’s story as a sort of spiritual hero’s journey:
Explore more: 50+ posts on Life Purpose (Sloww Stage 2)
🧠 Better Mind
The Deeper Reaches of Human Development
Here are a few research studies I skimmed this week that I thought were interesting:
- The validation of a new scoring method for assessing ego development based on three dimensions of language (ResearchGate)
- Transcendent experience and development of the post-representational self (ResearchGate)
- Mature Ego Development: A Gateway to Ego Transcendence? (ResearchGate)
- The evolution and development of consciousness: the subject-object emergence hypothesis (ScienceDirect)
- The Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment (NADA): New Tools to Assess Nondual Traits and States of Consciousness Occurring Within and Beyond the Context of Meditation (NIH)
Explore more: 75+ posts on Mental Mastery (Sloww Stage 3)
☯️ Beyond Mind
What’s the difference between asleep and awakening?
“Asleep” = when one thinks they are their mind. One’s lived experience is in the relative world of duality as a separate self/individual agent with ultimate responsibility and free will—and views and interacts with others as separate selves/individual agents. One thinks they are the dancer dancing the dance.
“Awakening” = when one (as subject) becomes aware of and able to observe/witness their mind (as object)—in other words, realizes they are not their mind. One’s lived experience calls the separate self/individual agent into question—and therefore ultimate responsibility and free will. Who are “you” if “you” can see “your” mind? And, who are “you” if “your” mind wasn’t created by “you” (a mind that was constructed completely outside “your” choice and control)? “You” aren’t this mind that “you” thought “you” were for “your” entire life up to this point. One realizes the dancer isn’t dancing the dance; the dance is dancing the dancer.
The asleep-awakening-enlightened distinction is outlined in detail in this 🔒new Premium post.
Bonus: No idea how I just stumbled upon this short animation on oneness and duality when it was uploaded to YouTube 17 years ago!
Explore more: 50+ posts on Spiritual Realization (Sloww Stage 4)
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Go with the Sloww,
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur
