Friends,
I was in DC last week for Spring Break. The flight let me catch up on about 50 articles and papers. Here are 4 worth boosting. They form a bit of a progression.
"The Anxious Generation": A Q&A with psychologist Jonathan Haidt on the "Great Rewiring of Childhood" (21 min read)
by
This is a topic that affects everyone and doesn’t need me to point to anything in particular. It’s overall worth your time. I will admit I didn’t know my generation was exposed to the most lead poisoning of any cohort since the Roman Empire. And in typical Baader-Meinhof fashion, I’ve seen that fun fact pop up in other things I’ve read recently.How to Break Free from Dopamine Culture (5 min read)
by
My attention was most gripped by item #2 which reminds us:
This is the real world. This is how you develop confidence and mastery in it. And it’s more than just learning skills—doing these things also connects you with your community and other people. No app will ever match this kind of personal empowerment.
and #4:
They are sources of joy and stability in everyday life. Instead of the ceaseless quest for novelty embedded in scrolling, ritual offers the deeper satisfaction of mindful repetition.I believe Kierkegaard was correct when he claimed that we misunderstand repetition in the modern world. We fear that it leads to boredom. Yet the most powerful sources of happiness in our life will actually be the result of repetition—in family or vocational relationships, for example.
Ritual is how we cultivate this deepened type of repetition.
[Kris: Despite an under-theorized understanding I think there’s something profound about wax-on, wax-off. I hadn’t necessarily considered ritual in the same context.]American Nightmares (19 min read)
by
A thought-provoking essay that opens:
THERE IS A PASSAGE in Democracy in America that has appeared in many of my essays. "In the United States,” Tocqueville reports, “there is nothing the human will despairs of attaining through the free action of the combined power of individuals." Tocqueville contrasts his vision of the American yeoman with the stereotypical “inhabitant of some European nations,” who “sees himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the place he inhabits… enjoying what he has as a tenant, without any feeling of ownership or thought of possible improvement.”
Tocqueville was a more gifted sociologist than most Europeans who traveled to the United States in the 1800s. But his caricature of America as a land of unbounded optimists was not his alone. A century of European travelogues describes Americans as a people utterly convinced that no feat lies beyond their reach. The 19th century American sincerely believed a determined group of American citizens could surmount any challenge, provided they had time to put their minds to it. Some found this trait arrogant, even silly; others found it commendable. For Tocqueville it was a defining feature of the American character. He hoped this character trait would spread to other lands as their peoples sped towards democracy.Wang Huning also marveled at the can-do spirit of the Americans he encountered on his journey through the United States. Wang visited the United States more than a century after Tocqueville. Perhaps this is why Wang did not identify the ”free action of the combined power of individuals” as the engine of 20th century American self-confidence. Wang argues that if the Americans he met believed they had the power to change the world it is because they had faith in the transformative power of science and technology.
In January the Center for Strategic Translation published two new excerpts from Wang Huning’s travelogue-cum-philosophical meditation, America Against America. Excerpts translated a few months previous covered Wang’s fascination with American technological might and his attempt to isolate the aspects of American culture and politics responsible for its technological success. In these newly translated passages, Wang turns that question around, asking not how American society has shaped modern technology, but how modern technology has shaped American society.
His conclusions are dark and sobering.
[Kris: if the essay provokes a sense of alienation or disembodiment I think the last link below will be extra provocative]Why We’re Moving to Valle de Bravo, Mexico (17 min read)
by Tiago Forte
This essay ties back to the “anxious generation” one linked above through the following passage. I’ve had my share of convos with friends where we are thinking what Tiago states below although most of us haven’t pulled stakes and bolted (we did lose close friends to the call of kangaroos last year…the dad is Aussie and found Americans to be crazy. Which is wacky to me because he’s nuts — he’s lived all over the world and has the most hilarious life stories of anyone I’ve ever met. But he’s also the most offline person I know and the first one to attend to anyone in need. He doesn’t seem like he’s from our times and one of those role models I try to channel when the situation calls for it.)
Excerpt from Tiago’s essay:
The fear and the bliss of leavingThis idea has been brewing for a long time in Lauren and me. As the concrete details have begun to fall into place, I’ve noticed that this isn’t just about the fun and adventure of a foreign land: it’s also about leaving the U.S. for its own sake.
I’m definitely not the first to observe this, and it saddens me a bit to do so, but I think there’s something deeply broken about the U.S. as a society now. Most people seem so disconnected from themselves and each other. Life is so work-centric and everything else is an afterthought in comparison. Everything is for sale, feels like a scam, or involves a tech company harvesting our attention for profit. It feels like the U.S. as a culture has entered a kind of stagnant decline that I don’t want to be a part of.
I don’t want my kids growing up only as Americans and seeing the world solely through that lens. I don’t want them steeped in the hyperindividualism, consumerism, tech addiction, media sensationalism, political polarization, and social isolation that are so unavoidable here. I increasingly feel that limiting my kids’ perspective to the American one would be dangerous to their mental health.
I recently read about the work of Professor Mariana Brussoni, about how important it is for kids to engage in risky physical play. It crystallized for me something I’ve always sensed: that in the U.S. we are gripped by fear of everything from traffic accidents to terrorist attacks to crime to dangerous playground equipment, despite it objectively being among the safest places on Earth. This culture of ubiquitous liability waivers, caution tape, and exaggerated caution I think is one of the deepest, most subtle causes of suffering in our society. When you act as if everything in the world is dangerous, all you see is danger and all you feel is fear.
At many points in my life, the Latino cultural qualities – collective welfare over individual success, default sociability versus isolation, cultural heritage versus material wealth, cooperation versus competition – have served as an antidote for me against nihilism and depression. They’ve given me an alternative “way of being” that I could switch to when my American outlook felt bleak. Giving my children access to that way of being is even more important to me than a new language.
To put this in personal terms, I’m just much happier when I’m abroad. I don’t feel nearly as much pressure to work long hours and pursue relentless achievement. When I’m abroad, time slows down, and the days feel longer. I create more memories, deeper relationships, and I like who I am more.
The U.S. doesn’t work for me long term because it reinforces the worst parts of my psychology, or at least the parts that I’m ready to deemphasize now.
The U.S. is the best place in the world to start a business, but now that I’ve done that, I want to go to where I will most be able to enjoy the “finer things in life.”
[Kris: I put that emphasis on Tiago’s words — the self-awareness to match yourself to your environment is an underappreciated lever. I’m biased because I think it’s worth at least trying to re-arrange your life around your priorities which are often at odds with “what you're supposed to do”. From the outside, an intentionally underemployed person looks like someone who's leaving a lot on the table…but you can flip that as a form of spending. Actually, it’s a form of spending capitalism hates because it doesn’t show up in GDP. A finer look would reveal underemployment to be spending that is a mix of consumption + investing. It’s another example of “worse first” ]
My friend Ced sponsored today’s post:
Commoncog: Learn Like Charlie Munger
We know the best investors read a lot. But HOW do they learn from what they read? And why do they read so much history?
This is a free series of essays that draws from a theory of expertise called Cognitive Flexibility Theory. It explains how YOU, too, can learn like Charlie Munger.
From My Actual Life
DC was an overdue reunion of family and college friends. My friend Rebecca graciously called in a favor landing us a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the West Wing including the Oval Office (it’s the brightest room I’ve ever seen — lumen overload).
Of course, the kids’ favorite part of the trip was Rebecca’s pups, Bix and Ahsoka
Despite the rain and cold we loved our stay in DC. Could totally imagine living there if there wasn’t, well rain and cold. (As of today, I’ve lived 50 more days in CA than I did in my entire time in NYC — 12 years).
A few of the restaurants we loved from our trip:
Diplomate
Mi Vida
Yellow (Georgetown)
Compass Rose
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