⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

👶 The Value of Lifelong Learning: Cultivating beginner's mind is critical to sustaining a youthful spirit. Read more here.

🪐 Is the Universe a conscious mind? Cosmopsychism might seem crazy, but it provides a robust explanatory model for how the Universe became fine-tuned for life. Read more here.

👁 An Inspirational Laboratory for Well-Being: Sleepawake Camp is a 30-day immersive retreat for 18-30 year-olds looking for a game-changing path to deep connection with themselves and others. Learn more here.

🎇 Image of The Week

“The Shadowless Church or otherwise known as the Sino-French agricultural science and technology park in Chengdu, China, was designed by Shanghai Dachuan Architects and aims to embody the southern way of life. Drawing inspiration from Provence’s lavender fields and Impressionism’s freehand brushwork, the design breaks away from traditional forms to express freedom, romance, and diversity. The church, a central element, is envisioned as a beam of light that penetrates through, with a minimalist structural design and the extensive use of aluminum for its purity and simplicity. The architecture integrates ecological considerations and advanced lighting techniques to create a modern yet spiritually resonant space, where beauty, form, and soul converge to compose a complete poem.” See more.

🤔 Inconvenient Convenience

I often think about the experiences almost imperceptibly lost as we march forward towards our notions of "progress."

We cherish technology that makes our lives more convenient.

But value isn't only stored in ease of access and speed of delivery.

When my father was young and new music would be released he would go on a whole journey leading up to the actual listening.

He'd head to the record store, find the record in question, make his purchase and perhaps interact with the employees a bit.

Then head home and remove it from its packaging before placing the needle on the vinyl and allowing for the auditory odyssey to commence.

He'd absorb the art in its entirety.

Now we have what feels like all the world's music at our fingertips. An astonishing accomplishment. Even going back in time and showing Spotify to a human living in the walkman era would seem like wizardry.

I don't have that same journey with music that my father did and part of me feels like it diminishes the value of the music.

Somehow it's harder to cherish.

But this isn't about music.

It's about all the ways our shortsighted pursuit of convenience can unintentionally commodify what made something precious.

Limitations have their usefulness. Going through a process to obtain something of value is part of why we value it.

I'm not suggesting we revert to a time before streaming music or throwing our phones away. I'm a technophile who has greatly benefited from technology so I'm not preaching death to digital.

But this is a bit of an ode to analog.

And an encouragement to explore the ways we can optimize for reverence over convenience.

Write a letter. Develop some film. Make a time capsule.

You might be surprised by the kind of significance these sorts of activities can imbue into your daily life.

⭐️ Inexhaustible Treasure

Enjoy this reflection from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

“Mr. Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.”

🤓 Learn This Word

Efflorescence: the action or process of developing and unfolding as if coming into flower

⏳ 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.​

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🎬 Endnote

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

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With Wonder,

Mike Slavin