⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🕹 Tetris with Word and Phrase: Tom White reflects on the superficiality of modern conversations, likened to playing Tetris with words and phrases, where real meaning is often obscured by clichés and scripted responses. He advocates for more genuine, meaningful exchanges that reveal true thoughts and feelings, comparing the depth of real conversation to a nourishing home-cooked meal versus the empty calories of a microwaved dinner. Read it here.

🤓 Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution: The article explores the lifecycle of subcultures, highlighting the roles of geeks (creators), MOPs (casual members), and sociopaths (exploiters) in their evolution and eventual decline. It argues that the influx of MOPs and sociopaths can dilute and exploit subcultures, leading to their demise, while suggesting that understanding and strategically managing these dynamics could preserve subcultural integrity. Read it here.

🤔 Long Distance Thinking: Simon Sarris discusses the fallacy of simplifying complex ideas to the point they can be understood by a child, arguing that true understanding often requires deeper, more time-consuming contemplation, akin to a craftsman honing his skill. Read it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

This image captures the phenomenon of sonoluminescence which is the emission of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound. It was first discovered in 1934 at the University of Cologne. It occurs when a sound wave of sufficient intensity induces a gaseous cavity within a liquid to collapse quickly, emitting a burst of light. I encourage you to watch the video to see it happen for yourself. See it here.

🗣 Life As Conversation

The stories we live are not monologues. They are conversations.

The shape and motion of our lives is informed by the exchanges we participate in. We put something out there, the world responds, we absorb the feedback, and reply. The world responds again.

On and on this cycle goes although it’s easy to unconsciously relate to this process. Many are confused into thinking they are to-do list conquerors acting upon a static world and if only they collect enough checkboxes they will inevitably reach their concrete destination.

It can be easy to think that a flourishing life is realized by imagining the perfect plan and executing the steps we’ve outlined. But after the first few steps, the world will have changed and we will have changed with it.

These changes may be subtle but they are not insignificant.

If we are wise, we will realize the flaws in our original roadmap and course-correct based on the feedback we’ve received. This is essential. We must not make rigid plans to force upon life but to cultivate an adaptive disposition sensitive to the openings of opportunity cascading across the field of experience. Life is always in flux.

Like we were tubing down a river with a great many tributaries, rather than assuming the stream you are in is the ultimate path, you might notice a fork in the flow and proceed down that route. Here you might encounter the spirit of what you were after with greater ease and grace than you would have otherwise.

I say “spirit” because often the imagined version of things we’re moving towards can look quite different upon arrival. It’s important not to fixate on particular forms and remain connected to the essence of what we’re after.

When we try to force things, we blind ourselves.

When we remain open, we can approach and welcome the experiences that didn’t fit the plan but reveal why the plan existed in the first place.

🤷‍♂️ Not Caring What People Think

“How are some of y'all going around living life not caring what people think about you?

I just realized I never actually knew what you were thinking about me. I just knew what I thought you were thinking about me. Which means I created a mean, judgmental version of you in my head and then used it to think mean things about myself.

Which means I made you mean in my head. Which means I was being judgmental of you, not the other way around. Now, I just assume people are nice. I just assume that they're cool. And if they act in some way that contradicts that, if they start being a total dick for no apparent reason, I assume that they're actually angry at themselves for something that they're then projecting onto me.

Just like I used to do. And then I forgive them, and get on with my life.”

As spoken by @PissedMagistus.

🤓 Learn This Word

Ganzfeld: A German word that means “whole field.” It refers to an unstructured, uniform space covering your entire visual field.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

How to Overcome Perfectionism: Life Lessons from Kubrick to Picasso

We all know the feeling…

We start a diet and we stick to it PERFECTLY.

Then suddenly temptation gets the better of us…

…we eat ONE bad thing and BOOM.

We binge like there’s no tomorrow, feel guilty, then binge some more.

This is All Or Nothing Thinking – a classic symptom of perfectionism.

But perfectionism doesn’t just affect our diets, it affects our confidence, our relationships, our work, our lives…

…And it needs to be stamped out.

Why Learning From Failure Is ESSENTIAL

In How To Overcome Procrastination And Turn Pro, I briefly explained that we often know what we should do in order to succeed, but find the idea of following our own advice too frightening to act upon.

If we fail under someone else’s council, then surely it is not our competence that is questionable, but the council we have received.

We seek out external resources (like this article) to lift some of the burden of responsibility from ourselves and provide a way of rationalising any potential failure.

The fear of creating art, and the fear of following our own advice, I believe, are symptoms of our proclivity to take failure personally.

We live in a society where everyone is basically given the same opportunities to succeed, and so our eventual position in life, including the successes and failures along the way, are thought of as deserved.

Good fortune is no longer a recognised compliment. Bad luck is no longer a recognised excuse — a man today must make his own.

Society’s seeming equality, coupled the media’s humiliating depictions of failure and the unrealistic models of perfection they present as successes, cause us to avoid failure so much, that we often also avoid taking the risks that are necessary to succeed.

If you read the biography of any successful person you will soon discover that failure and risk are an intrinsic part of success. Moreover, it has been well documented by psychologists that there is a large correlation between how often a person fails and how likely they are to succeed.

The most successful sportspeople, scientists and artists have all failed more than their less successful contemporaries.

The lesson?

​[Continue Reading]

🎬 Endnote

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

Want to help spread the word?

I love sharing these gems of wisdom and wonder with you each week. If you love receiving them and want to help me 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. I appreciate you.

With Wonder,

Mike Slavin