Aidan's Infinite Play 11 You Have More Influence Than You Think
Hello players!
Today my brother asked me what drives me. How do I come to almost every interaction with overwhelming positivity and continue to pursue goals not expected of me?
He was going through a low point at Utrecht because he couldn't physically find driven, likeminded people at his college. And he didn't feel like he could continue to be positive and driven without a mindset shift.
I told him that, surprisingly, I'm actually not god. I'm human. I don't wake up every morning with an infinite splurge of motivation to create content, go to class, exercise, and read.
But I explained that one concept inspires me repeatedly during my lowest lows: rippling.
Rippling is the idea that your actions in the world influence the feelings and actions of people you interact with, which in turn influence the feelings and actions those people ripple out to others in their day.
In effect, you have way more influence over other people than you think you do because the ripples you instill in those you interact with carry over to the people they interact with creating a beautiful butterfly effect.
So when I come to my interactions offline, my ripples don't just affect the person I interact with; they carry over to the hundreds and thousands of people they interact with.
When you take this idea and apply it to online content creation, the effect one person's ripples can have on others quickly becomes unfathomable.
This answered my brother's question about why I can come to almost all my interactions with positivity and will; I know they will have positive ripples. But it didn't answer how I continue to feel driven to do things not expected of me by my biological and social controls.
To answer this, I told my brother that I believe happiness is not the ultimate goal of life. The pursuit of happiness for its own sake is foolhardy. Instead, the overcoming of adversity in the pursuit of one's goals is what brings meaning.
This is better than happiness.
All you can hope is you're lucky enough to experience happiness along the way.
Life is short. On average, people have 4000 weeks to live. Do you really want to spend that time sitting on your couch eating Doritos and watching television all day?
I won't lie, all the content creation, the reading, the writing, the remaining disciplined brings me immense suffering at times. Sometimes I feel tired, doubtful, and like I'm screaming into a black hole.
But there is meaning in the suffering itself. No truly important things are ever done without some suffering along the way.
Life is an infinite game but we play it in finite time. So in your limited time in this world, why not do something interesting and leave ripples in the people around you? Who knows, maybe they will make their own self-improvement journeys, striving toward a goal in the face of adversity, and cause positive rippling themselves.
Here's what I would like to share this week.
📸News From The Channel!
Watch This to Finally Understand The Zettelkasten Method in Obsidian: By the end of this video, you will have a concrete zettelkasten system and workflow to use in Obsidian. You will understand the history, benefits, and practicalities of using a Zettelkasten, as well as the philosophy behind it so you can transform your system and process to fit your needs. I will take you through an overview of my entire zettelkasten Obsidian workflow. I will show you how I capture, organize, distill, and express information.
Rachel Madrigal: From Chronic Notetaker to Minimalist Obsidian User: Rachel Madrigal is a Software Engineer turned product manager at Twingate and part-time YouTuber who creates vlog and Obsidian content. She's also a friend because we meet weekly for our YouTube accountability meetings. This week, we talked about Rachel's work as a software engineer and experience switching to product management, how notetaking is helping her in both careers, and her experience becoming a more minimalist Obsidian user.
Siddhartha: this book follows the life of a young Indian boy as he makes his spiritual journey through life. He begins a devout Buddhist monk and journeys into the life of an aesthetic, then a gambler, drunk, and sex addict, and finally ends it ferrying people for free across a river. Along the way, he learns many profound things, like you can't teach someone else your wisdom, but they must learn it themselves by going through worldly struggles. He would never have learned the things he did if he didn't go through the struggles he went through. If you want to learn more, read my book summary.
💡My Best Insights:
📖Book - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: a biography of one of the people that has most influenced my life. My Feynman came to life with a genuine curiosity and love for learning. He was playful. He didn't fall for normal biological or social controls. While the book is mostly a collection of Richard Feynman's most mischievous and hilarious acts, profound wisdom hides inside the stories.
✍️Blog Post - The Uncertain Mind How the Brain Handles the Unknown: Highly uncertain situations force us to use additional working memory resources. This is because uncertain situations are generally more likely to be dangerous and therefore, the brain should allocate more mental resources to filling in the uncertainty. Luckily, Anne explains in this article how we can use use thinking tools to offload the burden uncertainty places on our mind.
🎙️Podcast - 554 Laura Vanderkam 9 Strategies to Better Control Your Time: Time is the single most important finite resource because everyone is beholden to the same 24 hours each day. I like this podcast episode because it gives time management advice that goes above standard tools. Vanderkam talks about the mindset behind the time management. What are you going to fill your extra time with? Freeing up more time to do things doesn't matter whatsoever if you don't know what to fill that spare time with.