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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 167 (Dec 24, 2023) — What is Love, Truth about Ikigai, Art of War, & 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 & Deeper Development
Where’s the Synthesizer course?
I’ve been working on the Synthesizer course for years now (off and on), and I’m still hard at work on it. That’s the bad news. But, the good news is that the course has incubated and evolved during that time. It’s become exponentially better than if I had launched it earlier.
Here’s what’s finished:
- ✅ All the inputs, research, book reading, etc.
- ✅ The course framework / structure / roadmap.
- ✅ A bonus microsite that curates and connects 200+ concepts.
Right now, I’m in the process of organizing everything into a comprehensive outline. After that, I’ll film all the videos. Then, it will be ready to go!
“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” — E. O. Wilson
Pair with: 25 Synthesis Quotes to inspire the Aspiring Synthesizers + 🔒Meta-Synthesis (100+ Quotes)
Explore more: 50+ posts on Lifelong Learning & Deeper Development (Sloww Stage Support)
🌎 Lighter Living
What is love?
Most people seem to have no idea what love really is. If you want to learn about real love, I recommend The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello (Book Summary).
In a nutshell, Anthony de Mello says love = consciousness; awareness; sensitivity to the whole of life, to all persons, to every portion of reality within you and without, to the uniqueness and beauty of every single thing and person around you; to feel for everything and everyone to the exclusion of nothing and no one; to see as it really is, not as you imagine it to be; clarity of perception, objectivity; no demands, no expectations, no dependency; casts out fear and only exists in freedom.
Ultimately, he says love is about seeing:
- “It is said that love is blind. But is it? Actually nothing on earth is as clear-sighted as love. The thing that is blind is not love but attachment.”
- “Love means to see a person, a thing, a situation, as it really is and not as you imagine it to be, and to give it the response it deserves. You cannot love what you do not even see.”
- “Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.”
- “You cannot love what you cannot see afresh. You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew.”
- “It is in that act of seeing that love is born, or rather more accurately, that act of seeing is Love.”
Pair with: Awareness by Anthony de Mello (Book Summary + 🔒Premium Summary)
Explore more: 100+ posts on Intentional Living (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Higher Purpose
Did you know this is not ikigai?
Years later, I’m still surprised more people don’t realize the truth about ikigai. The viral diagram above is not “original” or old—and it’s not ikigai! The diagram was created in 2014 when someone took an existing Spanish diagram for “purpose” and just swapped the middle word for “ikigai.” That’s literally it:
Like most people, I discovered the viral diagram when I was searching for purpose after my existential crisis. I was intrigued, so I dug deeper. This led to uncovering and understanding the truth about the actual concept of ikigai which is centuries old and completely unrelated to the viral diagram created in 2014. So, I attempted to redesign the diagram into “Ikigai 2.0,” and it’s what I personally used to find purpose (and still recommend):
So, what’s the truth about ikigai, and how can you find yours? That’s what I studied for 5+ years and synthesized into this eBook: Ikigai 2.0: A Step-by-Step Guidebook to Finding Life Purpose & Making Money Meaningfully (+ Bonus Workbook)
Explore more: 50+ posts on Life Purpose (Sloww Stage 2)
🧠 Mental Mastery
The Art of War for Self-Defense
I had 10+ bosses in my marketing career; 3 were absolutely awful. The common theme? They were manipulators—putting on an act of caring about others while really only concerned about their own success. One was so covert I didn’t even realize it until after the fact; I was involved in a game that I didn’t even know I was playing. This is why everyone should study the military classic The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Book Summary) for self-defense. You can’t properly protect yourself if you aren’t consciously aware of the strategies and tactics that can be used against you.
For those who want to go deeper, I highly recommend learning about the 400+ “mental immunity” concepts on the Mental Mastery Cheatsheet (🔒).
“Warfare is the art of deception. So when you can, feign incapacity, and when deploying troops, appear to have no such plans. When close, seem to them to be far away, and when far away, seem near.” — The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Nylan translation)
Explore more: 75+ posts on Mental Mastery (Sloww Stage 3)
☯️ Spiritual Seeing
The Direct Path of Atmananda Krishna Menon
Have you heard of “nonduality” or the “direct path”? Spiritual teacher Rupert Spira seems to be fairly well-known these days. But, did you know Rupert Spira learned from Francis Lucille who learned from Jean Klein who learned from Atmananda Krishna Menon? You won’t find these Atmananda books pretty much anywhere (online or off), but I managed to get my hands on them: Atma Darshan & Atma Nirvriti by Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon (Book Summary).
- “He, whose mind is captivated by the beauty of a figure sculpted in a piece of rock, forgets even the fact of the rock being its background. When he rises above this captivation and looks at the figure, he sees the background rock, which supports the figure. When the rock thus receives attention, rock is seen also in the figure, and later on the figure is seen as nothing other than rock. Enlightenment of truth also comes in this manner. Consciousness becomes dimmed chiefly through one’s captivation and abiding interest in external objects. When one outgrows this interest and looks at the objects it will be found that they rise and abide in Consciousness alone. When Consciousness thus begins to receive due attention, it becomes revealed in objects as well and they themselves will in due course become transformed into Consciousness. It is the realisation of oneself and the entire world as one Consciousness that is known as realisation of Truth.” — Atmananda Krishna Menon
Explore more: 50+ posts on Spiritual Seeing (Sloww Stage 4)
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All the best,
Kyle Kowalski
Founder, Sloww
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