Superposition

I will write a forthcoming book on the topic when the time is right. Holding two unresolving truths simutaneously is a superpower.....

• Builder and philosopher. Build things with your hands. Think about why with your mind.
• Specialist and generalist. Go deep in one area. Stay curious about everything else.
• Confident and humble. Trust your abilities. Acknowledge your blind spots.
• Patient and urgent. Play long games. But act with intensity today.

The tension between these states isn't a bug. It's a feature.

Boxing match: simplicious, science works because the universe is simple underneath. find an elegant equation and simplicity tells you you’re on the track vs ignorantio, we simplify because we are too dumb to do otherwise, models work well enough but they are useful fictions, the map not the territory

• both agree we need to simplify

• Galileo, Newton, Einstein all believed nature is fundamentally orderly and legible at the very bottom

• or is it learned ignorance

• a kaleidoscope where a few mirrors and transforms create tremendous richness when all this complexity is just a few bits repeated

While we are in the doing mode, we have no room for spaciousness

One of the paradoxes of life is that our big decisions are often less calculated than our small ones are. We agonize over what to stream on Netflix, then let TV shows persuade us to move to New York; buying a new laptop may involve weeks of Internet research, but the deliberations behind a life-changing breakup could consist of a few bottles of wine.

Taste, for Kant, is the faculty of aesthetic reflective judgment—the capacity to judge beauty from the bottom up. When I say “this is beautiful,” I am not applying criteria I already possess. I am responding to this particular object in a way that feels universal—I expect you to agree with me—but I cannot demonstrate that you should by pointing to extant rules. The judgment demands assent without supplying grounds. It is lawlike without being codifiable

Lovers kiss under the same sky that bombs fall through. Spring arrives even when grief is thick in the air. The simultaneity is not new; only the delivery system is. What has changed is that we are now handed the whole spectrum in a single flick of the thumb. The world has never moved in a single register, and neither can our hearts.

My current definition of God is: that which is absolutely self-created, with no antecedents, no dependencies, no priors. Might be the universe itself, or might be a personality in the sky. I like to think of God – the self-created core of the cosmos – as a superposition. A superposition is a concept in quantum physics which states that light can be both a wave and a particle, both off and on, present or absent at the same time. A cat can be both dead and alive, and you only notice the difference once you observe it. God/not-God is true at once, and the superposition is only settled once you choose which one to see.

When someone does something nasty, take the Sapolsky approach – just remember that there were factors that caused them to do it, and take practical steps to adapt and make sure you don’t fall for it again. Think of that person, in that circumstance, as a low-agency phenomenon – take the “chemistry and physics” frame; they couldn’t help it, given their biochemistry and past history, so why have any personal animosity toward them? But on the contrary: whenever someone does something good, kind, or brilliant, take the exact opposite approach. Revel in the beauty of their high agency as a real human being, far beyond their physical parts, deserving full credit and admiration for whatever they did. Surround yourself with those kind of people, use them as inspiration to raise your own game. Remember, the bad stuff was determined. The good stuff was a free act of a beautiful spirit. That’s a framing that will enrich your experience.

The essential thing about “The Brothers Karamazov” is the experience of it, the feelings it generates in the reader, and this makes it difficult to write about. The moment one steps out of the novel and describes it from a distance, by saying, perhaps, that in a fundamental way it is about freedom, and that in a fundamental way it discusses morality and obligation—to whom or to what, if to anyone or anything, are our actions obligated?—the essential thing is lost from sight.

I do a few loving things anonymously every day, but if I was being honest, I also do a few loving things that I make absolutely damn sure to get credit for.

They think love is supposed to make you crazy in the cartoon sense, where the mere presence of your beau will make your eyes turn into hearts and go AWOOGA. Love does drive you crazy like that, but it also drives you crazy in the sense of “my spouse only likes three songs and insists on playing them over and over again on our roadtrip”. If you’re looking for the person who will never annoy you, you’ll never stop looking. But if you find someone who annoys you juuust right, you’ll never stop loving them

• closeness is fundamentally annoying

To be loved, I must perform. But to be truly loved, I must be my full, authentic self

Anything that is real and profound has to have two and not one because it’s a vibratory thing

Where do we go from here? you have to feel very grounded and ready for the stars at the same time.

Curiosity grows in uncertainty, but most of us rush to the answer. Sometimes you just want to know, and the answer is just one search away - why wouldn’t you want to Google it or just ask ChatGPT? But here’s the thing: the second you have the answer, the question dies. You trade the aliveness of curiosity for the flatness of a fact. Being interesting isn’t about how fast you can recall information, but about the texture of your thoughts, the way you connect ideas, the questions you carry with you. That only happens when you let something linger.

The ability to sit with complexity, to tolerate confusion, to find meaning in difficulty… these are all largely learned skills that require time, practice, and often the privilege of safety

If you always let people in in traffic, no one can cut you off.

People are their own punishment, which means revenge is rarely worth it.

The people who make real change in the world are those who live on the knife edge between optimism (everything is really going to be okay) and pessimism (but everything is bad by default).

Right now and long term: aim shooting for the moon but I’m on my living room floor with three friends.

There is a tension between the demands of citizenship and the demands of philosophy. The tension is illustrated in the parable of the cave. The philosopher is like a man who escapes the cave and sees things directly, in the light of the sun, he knows the truth, whereas his fellow prisoners merely know opinions and appearances. Only such a philosopher would be fit to govern a city because he is the only one who knows how things really are. But there is nothing such a liberated soul would want less than to return to the cave where he would contend with the illusions and ignorance of ordinary people. His situation is extremely dangerous because he knows truths the rest of the world is determined not to hear

For Isaac Newton, time is absolute and used to measure motion — and yet within his theory the past, present, and future have no meaning. For Charles Darwin, evolution describes the temporal acquisition of adaptive order within a selective framework that is timeless — uniformitarianism. Henri Bergson equated time with conscious “duration” — far removed from the scientific quantification of motion, to be captured by the subjective experience of mental movement assayed by a timeless intuition.

Your first task is to find what feels effortless to you. Your second task is to put maximum effort into it.

There’s a theory that our ability to empathize with people originated to help us manipulate them. If we have a theory of mind about someone, we can simulate how we can get them to believe a lie, or do something for us, or feel a certain way about us. But what if those two talents - to empathize and to manipulate - are the same? To put yourself in someone’s shoes, to really feel what they must be feeling, is a precondition to making them feel what you want them to feel. It may be the case that the most empathetic people are the most capable of manipulation

Lyndon Johnson, as President, was perhaps the person most responsible for the advance of modern liberalism (maybe second to FDR). And yet throughout his entire pre-presidential career, he was sponsored and mentored mainly by men who were conservative, reactionary, and even racist to their core. For the first 55 years of his life, he convinced men of tremendous intellect and drive of their own that he was the scion of the Southern cause - that the only hope for that cause was to make Lyndon Johnson President. So much so that when Lyndon Johnson was Majority Leader, the Southern Senators, who at the time controlled all the important committees in Congress, allowed Johnson to pass liberal legislation they scorned because they believed it would help him become President. And, they believed, as President, Johnson would govern as a conservative, especially on the issue of race. The tragic irony and betrayal here is hard to over-emphasize. These powerful conservative men - who, while being ignorant and backwards in certain ways, were famously shrewd and intelligent - conceded on issue after issue, and campaigned with their immense political influence, for a man who ended up being the biggest liberal President since FDR.

the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

asking what problem I should be working on now does two things: first it lifts my eyes from the mess of the present so I can orient myself, But second it also points back down to the present, because of that now at the end of the sentence. This now reminds me that what I’m looking for is not the truth about my soul. ground myself and rank order my options

The internet would have us believe that the world falls into one of two categories — fuck and yay. Disaster and triumph. Birth and death. Honeymoons and breakups. Epic, shareable moments worthy of big reactions. But most of life happens in shades of grey. Into every day a little fuck and yay must fall.

Art is based on suffering and confusion and heartbreak… which is why AI can’t quite collect what makes a great work of art

The brain is firmly set within the cranium, but the position of the mind is indefinite. part individual, part collective, part made, part acquired, part deliberative, part automatic

In either/or, Kierkegaard explores the difference between the aesthetic life and the ethical life, a dichotomy that feels remarkably relevant in today’s world of curated social media feeds and performative success. the aesthetic life is about surface—chasing pleasure, beauty, and external validation. it’s the life of the summit, constantly striving for recognition and achievement, often at the expense of inner fulfillment. the ethical life, by contrast, is inward-facing. it’s not concerned with appearances but with authenticity, integrity, and the quiet work of becoming. while the aesthetic life seeks approval and applause, the ethical life finds satisfaction in depth over spectacle, in choosing actions that align with one’s values rather than what impresses others

The work and intention it takes to curate a feed- take the photo, set the stage so it doesn’t look staged, envision the aesthetic, the emotion, the feeling i want to convey. there’s an enigmatic dichotomy living inside of my brain that battles this every day. there’s a release and an art and a joy i feel creating this type of content, but the effort and work it takes is antithetical to the final product- which in turn perpetuates the belief that nothing you see on social media is real. because it isn’t.

The traps happen when you find an opportunity to trade off a useful value for greater competitiveness. Once everyone has it, the greater competitiveness brings you no joy – but the value is lost forever. Therefore, each step of the Poor Coordination Polka makes your life worse.

There is nothing binary in nature so all these boundaries are superficial impositions and stories permit us the elasticity and fluidity to be able to tolerate these things

The truly free individual is only free to the extent of his self mastery

Fundamentalism and art are mutually exclusive, there is no such thing as fundamentalist art but this doesn’t mean that the fundamentals are not creative, rather their creativity is inverted. they create chaos

Fourier tradeoff: time and frequency correspond to position and velocity of object being measured

• the more certain about the position, the less certain about the velocity (short pulses from radar give more precise locations but the Fourier transform of a quick pulse is more spread out and more likely to overlap in frequency space and very ambiguous to separate frequencies)

• concentrated signals in frequency space necessary has to be spread out in time (cannot have crisp delineation for both)

• not a core nugget of everything is unknowable: it’s a tradeoff

what can I use this for vs moments of “resonance”

• we walk in a place of extreme beauty while obsessively take one photograph after another, present yet fundamentally absent

One of the most valuable rights as Americans is asymmetric access to American labor markets, but sometimes being forced to use American labor isn’t efficient

The enclosure of a study offers a paradoxical sort of freedom

Penrose staircase

Assess and evaluate but don’t judge

In listening, interpret what others are saying without getting lost in our thoughts

Derivative: instantaneous rate of change

Run loose but don’t be chaotic

The word “liminal”

In tennis (life), the current point is the most important thing in the world, but after it is behind you, it’s only a point

Mastery requires lots of practice, but the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes

Must be able to know your field inside and out and yet be able to question its most entrenched assumptions

Find the sweet spot between imposter syndrome and dunning-kruger effect but it’s impossible to think about both

Medicine perceived the world through mirror writing: illness used to define wellness, abnormality marks the bounds of normalcy, deviance demarcates the limits of conformity so we have a perverse vision of humanity

Friendships require both keeping and revealing secrets at the same time

Goodness & generosity is usually cold-blooded biologically

The illusion of freedom: religious people find freedom in giving themselves. by losing themselves in their god, they become secretly free, in spontaneously accepting slavery, they recover a deep independence

In religion the very thing that led to despair of the meaning and depth of this life now give it its truth and clarity

You can’t see electricity and you can’t see most gases, but when you combine the two you can

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense, but the real universe is always one step beyond logic

Paradox of infinite speech is that it continues only because it is a way of listening

recognizing constraints makes you feel less constrained

isovaleric acid (sweat) is such a good feeling but the least pleasant smell

the empty set: in math it states that there must be a concept of nothingness, the concept of zero, zero items

the only thing worth it in this life is conflict and suffering, we need struggle because luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are our vanities

some women manage to be so pretty while being so plain

have a north star and something to look forward to but if I’m staring at it I’m tripping on the way

challenges that are simple to define but difficult to execute

if I give freely, there will always be more… I keep trying to find a loophole in this

is life too short to be taking shit or is life too short to be minding it?

being in the present and becoming in the future

pursuing a goal yet with no attachment to its outcome

art is distortion, but a form of distortion that has the possibility of offering clarification

a feeling too strong to be identified, the way heat and cold can both burn

pulling a knife out of your gut is both a relief and a new wound

there is power in submission

vantage widens perspective but brings obscurity too through the loss of details

so venerable and so free yet so concealed and so mysterious

interpersonally skilled but independent and works well in solitude

seek the universal through the particulars

distinguish stubbornness with resolve

childlike trustfulness and simple innocence, but piece a man through like an arrow with the deepest psychology of observation

calm astonishment

open-mindedness and assertiveness at the same time

toxic positivity

absolute uncertainty

• freedom and justice cannot both be maximized

we must create a shell to define our appearance and strategic blindness to negativity, but not too much shell to not be self-aware

you need the chaos of life to birth a star

perfectly simple and concealing nothing, yet complex and poetic

command a room with my presence but remain humble

without law, freedom does not exist

1984 doublethink—holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously

celebration of the here and now but following my pole-star

simple-mindedness but thoughtful approach to life

independence of character but also being a good teammate

be so very pro that it is a con

don’t challenge the bounds, but it’s only by advancing beyond boundaries do we experience a new realm of experience

a corner-stone and a stumbling block are the same thing

perform at an elite level but do so from a sense of fullness

humility is elusive when I seek it for itself but is a natural by-product of losing myself in love

wonder that stops short of being fear—astonished but not afraid

an artist needs to be discontented with his pictures without being discontented with his art

we shouldn’t have modesty about truthful conviction

we anthropomorphize god, but the only way to experience god is to de-humanize god

reason breeds insanity

complete total self-confidence is a weakness

riddles that are crystal clear

“your patient has become humble; have you drawn attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is especially true of humility” - screwtape letters

• be humble but unaware of it

waterless clouds - deception

childlike naivety in adulthood

learned ignorance

after a farmer plants a seed, is it the plant that grows larger or the farmer that becomes smaller?

leadership

• courage vs running blind

• taking ownership vs identifying what went wrong

• micromanaging vs transformational empowerment

• continue the tradition vs clear-eyed account of developments for change

• fully accomplish the small, detail-oriented goals but simultaneously keep directed on the grand-strategy

• see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things

• see the marvels of the palace but never forget the drops of oil on the spoon

• strong convictions & expectations vs adaptability

• single-mindedness to remain unyielding in storms but mentally agile enough to adapt

mind & heart being of one confusions hsin or separate entities that go together as parts of a whole

creative quietude - supreme activity and supreme relaxation

if you pour extremely hot water on a glass it will break. if you pour extremely cold water on a glass it will break