Jay Matthews

Here is something I strongly believe: These are the kinds of people that are not only going to thrive on unconventional paths but in the broader working ecosystem. The world of work is increasingly being driven by creativity, art, and storytelling.

Knutson goes on to explain the potential implications of embracing Future Self-Continuity, especially when the world seems bad, because of the way our ability to relate to our future selves shapes our decision making. Knutson suggests what this could look like at a group level.

The example of how we already participate in the gift economy is given with the service berry:

The upside is so powerful that it often masks the downside, which is why so many people find themselves in a state of automaton conformity:

• we gain a community that (superficially) makes us feel secure; we do not feel isolated or out of place or weird;


• we are provided with (and rewarded for taking) shortcuts for what to believe in, what to do, and

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The takeaway is that you can take it slow. Creating online, doing your own thing, and dabbling here and there might dramatically expand your possibilities in the future.

In one of my favorite podcast episodes, Tim Urban and Jim O’Shaughnessy talk about the benefits of viewing the world through models instead of beliefs —an idea that has stuck with me since I heard it and pretty much sealed the deal of an individual-first approach to my life.

Peter Kropotkin spend 5 years observing animals in the wilds of Siberia, and having read Darwin, sought to replicate his opersations of the competitive struggle of species in the wild.

 I look at it, certainly, inside relationships and how we reconcile these two fundamental needs that often spring from different sources and pull us in different directions. And I also think that love and desire belong, a little bit, to both of these sets of human needs, as well. So they relate, and they also conflict. And herein lies the mystery

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