⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🧘 Nervous System Mastery: How I Learnt To Meet Myself Where I Am.  Read it here. 

🤔 A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning: I've never been plagued by the big existential questions. You know, like What's my purpose? or What does it all mean?  Read more here. 

🎯 SMART goals are not so smart: make a PACT instead: A system without a goal is like a marathon without a finish line. But a system with a bad goal will result in a bad outcome.  Read more here. 

🎇 Image of The Week

This is what sunset looks like from space. Taken by astronaut Alexander Gerst on October 28, 2018.

💯 The first 100 days of the rest of your life…

From Eric Brown, HighExistence Steward:

Imagine for a moment who you’d become if you dedicated yourself to a 100-day sprint towards something of bucket-list importance to you…

Writing that book draft you’ve always dreamt of. Learning the instrument that’s collecting dust in your closet. Turning your side hustle into your main gig. Sculpting the body of your fantasies. Running the marathon.

Whatever it is, it’s possible on the other side of 100 days of focused effort.

Pair this with an entire community behind you, offering 24/7 advice, support, feedback, and encouragement. Rooting for you to reach your dreams. Add on financial incentives and a strict accountability partner, working 1:1 to ensure you’re making progress daily. Top it all off with serious physical practices to keep you grounded, energized, focused, and playful throughout the entire experience.

Your wild fantasies would become your average Tuesday.

This is the process of elevating your baseline. Turning the ideal into the actual. All you need to do is make the choice. To take the leap. To run with open arms toward your goals.

And this is just the beginning, imagine what 2 rounds of 100 days would do – or 3, or 4! Now you see where we’re going. You’d make more progress in a year than many do in a lifetime.

We’ve been talking about the  Hero100  for a few weeks now. The time has come. The doors are closing in less than a week. We begin on April 1st.

It’s time to put yourself first. To prioritize your dreams, your evolution, your life. Bet on yourself, bet on your greatness, and come on this journey of transformation with us.

 Join the Hero100. 

See you there,

Eric Brown

🤖 The Jobs AI Won't Replace

Enjoy these poetics musing from Metavert:

"It will not replace the deep connection you feel with an old friend. It will not replace your sense of wonder upon learning something new. Beholding the splendor of the cosmos. It will not replace the thrill of wrestling the trout from the waters. As you stand hip deep in the rushing river, it will not replace the achievement you feel when standing a stride.

The summit, the mists rolling beneath you like a sea of clouds. It will not replace the surge of accomplishment. When you see the star scourge lay fallen by your stratum, it will not replace the delight of crafting something with your own hands. It will not replace the aroma of your perfectly baked focaccia as you remove it from the oven ready for the guests.

It will not replace the touch of your dog's slippery nose along your fingers. It will not replace the bliss of your lover asleep in your arms. Their breath, softly heaving. It will not replace your awe as you watch your newborn take their first breath. It will not replace the sense of responsibility as you deliver the eulogy overwhelmed by what was important in a life.

You are the universe experiencing itself. AI will not replace you living an earnest and mindful life."

🤓 Learn This Word

Duende: A Spanish word that describes the mysterious power of art to deeply move a person

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

 36 Questions To Foster Love and Intimacy (Even With Complete Strangers) 

If you’re allergic to small talk like I am and always feel a desire to strike cords of greater connection, then you’ll want to learn these 36 questions for fostering greater closeness in your relationships.

It can be very easy to get frustrated with the automatic “how’s the weather” questions that feel like dead ends to actually arriving at some semblance of intimacy.

But if we want to experience more depth in our relationship, the onus is on us to steward that process. It can be very easy to complain about the surface level conversations for those who crave more meaningful interactions but complaining isn’t a recipe for more meaning. Instead, we need to take the responsibility, grab our conversational partner by the hand and swim towards the deep end together.

Arthur Aron’s work can help us do that.

In 1997 he designed an experiment to see if he could get strangers to feel a sense interpersonal closeness after only a brief encounter.

He took pairs of people and had them spend time answering 3 sets of questions. Each set was more emotionally provocative than the last. The participants would take turns sharing their answers with each other, this created a mutually reciprocated vulnerability that by the end of 45 minutes the individuals felt a kind of intimacy you would expect to experience with a close friend or romantic partner. What’s astonishing is that this process will even work with complete strangers who you just met before answering the questions.

 [Continue Reading] 

🎬 Endnote

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