Turning 39, wanted to look back at the year’s media consumption & production – blog posts, podcasts, books, quotes, etc, and just share some favorites.
Some good quotes:
Whatever your idea is you’ve got to do more of it than anyone else — a task that’s easier if you structure things so that you like doing them. Since doing more almost always leads to greater accomplishments, in turn you’ll have more fun. And then you’ll want to do even more because of the rewards. And so on. – Bloomberg
The effort is the reward
Addiction is a progressive narrowing of things that bring us pleasure – Huberman
I would say being able to stay present in the work…is probably the most important part of it. – Rick Rubin
A great life is a string of great days – John Malone
A vibe is an emotion pretending to be an explanation – Venkatesh Rao
A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery. – PG
How am I supposed to fight someone whose me? Sages have struggled with that question for an eternity
Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do. – Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
Some good books:
(most of them are noted here)
Children of Men by Adrian Tchaikovsky
J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise
Breath by James Nestor (it influenced me so much, I wrote about it here)
**as I reviewed the books I’d read / finished, a thought occurred to me: I miss playing video games. I was having some fun times playing PS games like Elden Ring and Sifu — need to restart!**
Some posts I’m glad I wrote:
22 learnings from 2022 including:
…even up against powerful prescription medications like Adderall and Modafinil: sleep and all sport categories are in the top-10 for every metric, weightlifting and low-intensity exercise are ranked 1st and 2nd for “probability of having a positive effect”, and weightlifting is ranked 3rd for “probability of changing your life
Recommended / newer podcasts that I like
Matt Ridley on the lab leak hypothesis 🧐
Steadily adding to my Personal Bible (and Rafa’s memoir is just 🤯)
Wise advice from an experienced meditator in Hacker News comments. The internet remains undefeated:
There is a huge difference in effects, between a casual practice (a few minutes, some of the days) and a robust practice (long sessions every day).
Obligatory bitcoin post, but seriously, Wences is the best
Some fun use cases for ChatGPT: studying Jay Chou song lyrics, and rewriting my podcast show notes
More AI, podcast notes from Sam Altman + Lex Fridman
And the SHOWS, SO MUCH GOOD TV: starting with SUMMERTIME RENDERING
Some good TV / movies:
I am an addict, seriously.
Perhaps the highlight was Summertime Rendering as noted above. Anime.
But also:
Arcane (which I’ve watched multiple times now)
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Last of Us
Physical: 100
Ok that’s it. I had ambitions to do a more thorough and comprehensive review (including books which I sorta update monthly here), but I lost the desire to finish this properly and will just end here. Share your good stuff with me too :-)