⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🔎 What You'll Wish You'd Known: This article discusses the importance of curiosity, intellectual responsibility, and working on hard problems, emphasizing that high school students should not design their lives around college admissions but rather focus on developing their interests and skills, and that true learning comes from personal interest and not from a pre-defined curriculum. ​Read it here.​

🙃 The Happiness Ruse: The article explores the evolution of the concept of happiness, arguing that it has transformed from a simple state of contentment devoid of physical and mental pain (as per Epicurean philosophy) to a relentless, competitive pursuit of peak experiences and positive emotions, often driven by societal and commercial pressures, which ironically leads to dissatisfaction, loneliness, and a misunderstanding of genuine satisfaction. ​Read it here.​

🌊 Flow State Training: A browser extension that helps you achieve "flow state" by showing a browser-wide timer that helps you initiate focus, structure your time, and enables you to get in the ‘zone’. ​Try it here.​

🎇 Image of The Week

This isn't a photograph. It's a pencil drawing by Dylan Eakin. Each of his pieces takes hundreds of hours to complete. His attention to detail is awe-inspiring. It's a reminder to me of the immense and almost otherworldly capability human beings can develop through enduring practice.

📈 Consistency over Intensity

One of the most valuable principles I ever learned, at least in regard to habit building is to focus on consistency over intensity.

A great way to ground this is thinking about starting a workout regimen. Imagine you kick off your aspirations of exercising more regularly with a very difficult exercise, and the next couple of days you're so sore, you can hardly move. I've done this before and I found I was actually disincentivizing myself from continuing with the program.

So rather than focusing on that extreme intensity to start, give yourself the space to build momentum over time.

Start with something so easy you know you can stick with it. Grow into intensity as you build a track record of continuity.

🧘 30 Challenges To Enlightenment

This "self development obstacle course" has been beloved by our readers for years. It's been undertaken by thousands across the globe in the 6+ years it's been available.

To make way for the new, we'll be closing the doors to this experience.

But not yet.

There's one last chance to tackle the challenge. And you can do so for $40 off when you used code ​SAVE40.​

Here's what we mean by Enlightenment:

"To clarify, we are not promising that this course will definitely turn you into the Buddha or some other mythical being, liberated from all fear and suffering, floating on a cloud of perpetual bliss.

"Enlightenment," in the most general sense, simply means a state of greater knowledge, wisdom, awareness, or understanding. First and foremost, this is what we mean by "enlightenment." This is what we guarantee.

In addition, however, we also maintain that what has traditionally been called "enlightenment" in the Buddhist tradition (among others) is a real and attainable shift in consciousness—a liberation from much unnecessary suffering which results from a deep recognition of ambiguity and a relinquishing of attachments, preferences, desires, and expectations. The course will indeed help you let go of internal burdens and progress toward this ideal as well.

It's also true that some individuals will be less interested in pursuing spiritual enlightenment through our course and will be more interested in building discipline, willpower, healthy habits, and other indispensable character attributes. This is the beauty of this course: it's flexible and customizable and can be applied as a bridge to a wide variety of worthwhile destinations.

"Enlightenment" is a notoriously ambiguous term, and we ultimately encourage users of this course to determine for themselves what enlightenment looks like for them. No two paths are alike. No two forms of enlightenment are alike. You must find your own. We believe our course can help you do that."

❓Questions With No Answers

Renowned author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera died on July 11th. Here are a couple of eye-opening passages to honor his memory:

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”

“Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.”

🤓 Learn This Word

Recherché: A French word that describes that which is rare, exotic, unusual; not understood or appreciated by many people.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

​Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Ultimate Guide to the Human Dark Side​

How well do you know yourself?

If you’re like most people, you probably have a decent idea about your own desires, values, beliefs, and opinions.

You have a personal code that you choose to follow that dictates whether you are being a “good” person.

If there is any one thing you can know in this universe, surely it is who you are.

But what if you’re wrong?

What if much of what you have come to believe about yourself, your morality, and what drives you is not an accurate reflection of who you truly are?

Now, before you launch into a, “Hey, you don’t know me, you don’t know my life, you don’t know what I’ve been through!”-style defence, ponder this for a second:

Have you ever said or done something really shitty, mostly on an impulse, that you later regretted?

After the damage was done and the other person involved was hurt, you couldn’t bury your shame fast enough. “Why did I say that?” you might have asked yourself in frustration.

It’s that “Why?” question that indicates the presence of a blind spot. And though the reason for your reaction may have been obvious (perhaps even “justified”), the lack of control you had over yourself betrays the existence of a different person lurking beneath your carefully constructed idea of who you are.

If this person is coming into focus for you, congratulations—you’ve just met your shadow self.

​[Continue Reading]​

🎬 Endnote

We hope you enjoyed this issue of Down The Rabbit Hole. Feel free to reply and tell us what you think.

Want to help us spread the word?

We love sharing these gems of wisdom and wonder with you each week. If you love receiving them and want to help us spread the word, here is one quick way you can do that:

Forward this email to one friend.

That's it. It will take 5 seconds and will help us spread the good vibes and reach more people. We appreciate you.

With Wonder,

Mike Slavin & The HighExistence Team

P.S. Did a friend forward you this email? Read previous issues and sign-up to receive future issues here: ​https://highexistence.com/

Tackle The Challenge

❓Questions With No Answers

Renowned author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera died on July 11th. Here are a couple of eye-opening passages to honor his memory:

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”

“Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.”

🤓 Learn This Word

Recherché: A French word that describes that which is rare, exotic, unusual; not understood or appreciated by many people.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

​Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Ultimate Guide to the Human Dark Side​

How well do you know yourself?

If you’re like most people, you probably have a decent idea about your own desires, values, beliefs, and opinions.

You have a personal code that you choose to follow that dictates whether you are being a “good” person.

If there is any one thing you can know in this universe, surely it is who you are.

But what if you’re wrong?

What if much of what you have come to believe about yourself, your morality, and what drives you is not an accurate reflection of who you truly are?

Now, before you launch into a, “Hey, you don’t know me, you don’t know my life, you don’t know what I’ve been through!”-style defence, ponder this for a second:

Have you ever said or done something really shitty, mostly on an impulse, that you later regretted?

After the damage was done and the other person involved was hurt, you couldn’t bury your shame fast enough. “Why did I say that?” you might have asked yourself in frustration.

It’s that “Why?” question that indicates the presence of a blind spot. And though the reason for your reaction may have been obvious (perhaps even “justified”), the lack of control you had over yourself betrays the existence of a different person lurking beneath your carefully constructed idea of who you are.

If this person is coming into focus for you, congratulations—you’ve just met your shadow self.

​[Continue Reading]​

🎬 Endnote

We hope you enjoyed this issue of Down The Rabbit Hole. Feel free to reply and tell us what you think.

Want to help us spread the word?

We love sharing these gems of wisdom and wonder with you each week. If you love receiving them and want to help us spread the word, here is one quick way you can do that:

Forward this email to one friend.

That's it. It will take 5 seconds and will help us spread the good vibes and reach more people. We appreciate you.

With Wonder,

Mike Slavin

P.S. Did a friend forward you this email? Read previous issues and sign-up to receive future issues here: