Life

Studies of individuals who report high life satisfaction consistently show one pattern: they engage in activities with naturally extended feedback loops. Mastery of skills, service to others, deep relationships, creative expression—all require tolerating periods of boredom or frustration before delivering their rewards.

I am a first-person protagonist in the small and specialized corner of reality that is my own life. In everyone else’s life, I’m an autonomous — and to some degree mysterious — visiting character.

If knowledge is causal, creative, and world-shaping, then we’re now in an era where what you know — and how expertly you encode and refine it — can literally shape the world (and beyond).

Most of the things we do and believe result from stories that we tell ourselves

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight

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