Scarcity Brain

“You risk so much by hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss.”

We can invent our own game with different goals that enhance how we spend our time and interact with others. These goals will be harder to measure, but they’ll be far more meaningful than anything we can quantify.

I think part of it is taking small risks in everyday life. Seeking adventure and experiences that build perspective.” These risks and adventures can be both big and small. Problems from escaping into the scarcity loop are often a signal. They indicate that it’s time to make uncomfortable choices that force the will to live.

“Ask, what should I do with my life? Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to be doing? Who am I? What does all this beautiful order mean? Those are questions you have to ask yourself seriously and answer. You’re the only one who can do it. Ultimately, it’s you and something larger. That’s the drama of all human life. And it’s worth being a

We live in a big propaganda machine convincing us that the world is all about us.

By detaching from material things, the monks are freer to attach to a bigger thing. If everything is everyone’s, nothing takes on any special significance beyond another tool for the job. It’s gear, not stuff.

There is, apparently, an expression in French to describe the work style here. It is “un travail de bénédictin.” It means “a Benedictine labor.” It describes, as the academic and essayist Jonathan Malesic put it, “the sort of project someone can only accomplish over a long time through patient, modest, steady effort.

Given our wiring, they write, “dissatisfaction is not a personal failure. Far from it. [It is] what makes you human.”

It’s ultimately up to us to be aware of when and why we’re falling into the scarcity loop, and look for ways to shift it to an abundance loop.

This current manifestation of the internet and consumer technology is insidiously powerful because of the way that it can mimic these loops that evolved for other things and were necessary for our survival. They’re now essentially being co-opted by a sort of fake system. The tech systems have gotten so good at mimicking these ancient reward pathway