Drugs and the Meaning of Life, The Saturday Morning Test and The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Learnings from what I am listening to, reading and watching in the past week
Reading
I personally have not tried any of these drugs so I cannot vouch for what those experiences entail. Though as I have practiced, I have gotten a few glimpses of surreal sympathetic joy and calm. There are other faculties that also need to be developed along with feeling “enlightened”. You need to learn to not cling and to not crave for that experience. Because by design it will not last. You need to be aware and realize the changing and temporary nature of everything. Now assuming you go on a “good trip”, you are going to be exposed to something amazing that is temporary. It is going to last until the that effect lasts. Once it’s gone you are back to your normal unenlightened banal existence. These drugs apparently pose no risk of addiction. But it will generate clinging unless all your other faculties have also developed. If your other faculties of awareness and sense of impermanence are undeveloped then there is a profound risk in trying these states of mind with use of drugs. It seems like a violent way of trying to bring a positive change to your mind when there is the wise way of practicing on a cushion that does not present same risks.
Read The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha this past week. Fascinating book. I stumbled upon Neil’s work on Unmistakable Creative podcast. Neil gave out his email at the end of the podcast (I know! Why would you do that!). I was moved by his work and I reached out to him without any hope of a reply. Amazingly, he replied back and it led to a conversation which led to a book club at work. 40 people at work are reading this book and Neil has graciously offered to do a video Q&A with us this coming Tuesday! Such a nice guy.
The Saturday Morning Test stood out for me in this book.
Look at this horrible question: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”. The Saturday Morning Test helps you find an authentic passion. The Saturday Morning Test is your answer to one simple question: What do you do on Saturday morning when you have nothing to do? It asks you to lean in to your natural passion to enrich your work and personal lives.
Watching
“The Pleasure of Finding Things Out was filmed in 1981 and will delight and inspire anyone who would like to share something of the joys of scientific discovery. Feynman is a master storyteller, and his tales — about childhood, Los Alamos, or how he won a Nobel Prize — are a vivid and entertaining insight into the mind of a great scientist at work and play.” — Ref
Listening To
“Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions, which went public as part of Shopping.com, and Vast.com. He is an active angel investor and has invested in more than 100 companies, including more than a few “unicorn” mega-successes.
His deals include Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Postmates, Wish, Thumbtack, and OpenDNS, which Cisco just bought for $635 million in cash”
This is probably one of the best podcast episodes I have ever heard. This Tim Ferris Show’s episode with Naval Ravikant was very popular and was nominated for Podcast of the Year. It has pearls of wisdom sprinkled all over that 2 hours. I would like to nominate Tim Ferris’s Show as the best commute podcast of the year.
