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Sloww Sunday Newsletter 180 (Mar 24, 2024) — AI Tools, No News, Doing Nothing, & 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 this newsletter to other lifelong learners.
📚 Lifelong Learning & Deeper Development
Synthesizing with AI
I cancelled Twitter Premium on both my accounts and will instead be spending that money on AI tools. I asked my Twitter friends @Sams_Antics and @TinkeredThinker what they recommend these days. Here’s what they said:
If you are into AI tools, what do you think I should be trying to help with searching, reading, writing, summarizing, synthesizing, etc?
Explore more: 50+ posts on Lifelong Learning & Deeper Development (Sloww Stage Support)
🌎 Lighter Living
When was the last time you did nothing?
Literally nothing. Have you ever actually done nothing? It almost seems like it must be spontaneous and serendipitous—because planning to do nothing would still be something. Even meditating would be something. But, we’re talking about nothing. When I think about this in my own life, one instance in particular comes to mind. My wife I were camping in Big Sur just sitting and staring out into the ocean (the photo below was the view). For whatever reason, I was vividly aware and noticed that there was nothing going on in my mind. It was an unplanned experience of nothingness.
Explore more: 100+ posts on Intentional Living (Sloww Stage 1)
🧭 Higher Purpose
Do you know your Enneagram Type?
A few years ago, I read The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Riso & Hudson (Book Summary) and did some self-assessments. All in all, I was stuck between Types 3 & 5 with a dash of 1. More specifically, 3w4 and 5w6 (there are also Tritypes, so I could be a 351/531). My MBTI personality type is consistently INTJ, and apparently it’s very common for INTJs to be Enneagram Type 5.
So, what’s this deal about being stuck between Enneagram types?
- Theory 1: Maybe my existential crisis was when the Type 3 (Achiever) I had been playing my whole life in school, sports, and work started to give way to the Type 5 (Observer/Investigator) I actually am psychologically.
- Theory 2: Four of my top 5 CliftonStrengths strengths in my most recent self-assessment are Input, Analytical, Intellection, and Learner (Strategic Thinking strengths). However, my overall #1 strength is Achiever (Executing strength). So, maybe my Type 3 (Achiever) finally found its thing to achieve about through the Type 5 (Observer/Investigator).
Explore more: 50+ posts on Life Purpose (Sloww Stage 2)
🧠 Mental Mastery
Is your mind more trendy or timeless?
Here’s some inspiration from Henry David Thoreau to ditch the daily news:
- “To a philosopher, all news, as it is called, is gossip.”
- “I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.”
- “What news! How much more important to know what that is which was never old!”
- “The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.”
- “Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God.”
- “Read not the Times. Read the Eternities … Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”
- “It is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region.”
Explore more: 75+ posts on Mental Mastery (Sloww Stage 3)
☯️ Spiritual Seeing
Douglas Harding on the Headless Way
If I had to pick only one guru, it may be Douglas Harding of the headless way. To me, Harding is the total package: an architect, artist, author, philosopher, and someone who rigorously bridged science and spirituality. I love those who unexpectedly discover spirituality and are then absorbed by it: “My passion has not been architecture at all … My passion is to find out who I really, really, really am. The issue of my identity has been what makes me tick.”
If you’re new to Harding, read these quotes and watch this video from Richard Lang who is dedicated to carrying on Harding’s legacy of the headless way. You may also like Harding’s books On Having No Head (Book Summary) and The Science of the 1st Person (Book Summary).
All of this points to (pun intended) the experiments to experience headlessness for yourself: 🔒 How to See Clearly with the Headless Way Experiments (+ Visuals & Videos)
Explore more: 50+ posts on Spiritual Seeing (Sloww Stage 4)
💬 Wise Words
From Abraham Maslow:
- “It frequently takes half a lifetime for the creatively talented individual to come to terms with one’s own talent, to accept it fully, and to unleash oneself, that is, to be postambivalent about one’s talent.” — Abraham Maslow
- “If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life.” — Abraham Maslow
- “What one can be, one must be.” — Abraham Maslow
More Maslow:
- On self-actualization, transcendence, and his late-life writings in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (Book Summary)
🔒 Premium member deep dive:
- Behind the Scenes: My Self-Actualization Self-Assessment
- Self-Actualization Synthesis: How to be a Healthy Self-Actualizer with Maslow (+ Infographics)
- Transcendence Synthesis: How to be a Self-Actualizing Transcender with Maslow (+ Infographic)
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All the best,
Kyle Kowalski
Founder, Sloww
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