The Importance of Mindwalks
A long time ago my dad showed me a movie called “Mindwalk” and it left a big impact on me. Here’s a summary from ChatGPT:
“Mindwalk” is a 1990 film directed by Bernt Capra, based on the book “The Turning Point” by Fritjof Capra, Bernt’s brother. The movie is set entirely on the French island of Mont Saint-Michel and features a small cast of characters. It revolves around a poet, a politician, and a physicist who meet by chance and engage in deep and thoughtful conversations. The poet, Thomas Harriman (played by John Heard), is recovering from a political scandal, while the politician, Jack Edwards (played by Sam Waterston), is a U.S. presidential hopeful. Sonia Hoffman (played by Liv Ullmann), the physicist, has left her career at a European research lab after becoming disillusioned with the impacts of her work on the environment and humanity.
The film is essentially a dialogue-driven exploration of complex philosophical and scientific ideas. Sonia, Thomas, and Jack discuss various topics including quantum physics, systems theory, and ecological crises, challenging each other’s worldviews. Sonia’s perspective is heavily influenced by systems theory and holistic thinking, and she criticizes the reductionist approach of modern science and politics. The conversations delve into how these approaches affect our understanding of the world and the challenges it faces. The film has been praised for its intellectual depth and the way it presents complex ideas in an accessible manner, although some have criticized it for being overly didactic. “Mindwalk” offers a unique cinematic experience that focuses more on ideas and dialogue than on action or plot development, making it a thought-provoking piece for those interested in science, philosophy, and the interconnectedness of the world.
I need to rewatch it soon because I was pretty young when I first saw it and I want to see how it lands for me today. And while I’ve forgotten a lot of the details and plot points, I do try to practice the main idea of the film which is to go on mindwalks with close friends from time to time.
Funny enough, in writing this now I’m realizing how much easier it was to go on these mindwalks when I was younger because everyone had more time and fewer responsibilities. The older I get, the more I have to schedule and plan for them, and this is coming from someone with a flexible job and no relationship or children yet.
I think mindwalks are extremely important though. You don’t actually have to physically go on a walk to do one you just need at least one other person to talk to. Though walking for some reason does seem to help with creative thinking. This can be frustrating since to execute most of my creative thoughts I have to be in front of a computer, which can be very distracting.
But I digress.
Mindwalks are important for a few reasons. They help you discover new ideas, or work through blockers you have on existing ones. At their best, they are like a collaborative art project or playing on a tight-nit sports team. There’s this joint flow state that you can enter that isn’t achievable by yourself. You need that sounding board of the other person to help you reflect on your ideas and add their contributions. When done well, with someone you know on a deep level these can be extremely gratifying and even hilariously entertaining. The times I’ve laughed the hardest in the past few years, to the point of literally falling out of my chair, were all on mindwalks.
The trickiest part of mindwalks is just finding the right person or people to do them with. I can probably count on two hands the number of people in my life who I regularly go on mindwalks with, but I try to keep all those people close and regularly check in and maintain those relationships. They help me show up as the best version of myself, and I hope that I can help them do the same. So if you’re lucky enough to find people you can go on these long mindwalks with, make sure you keep them because they’re a rare find.
I’ll leave you with some topics I discussed in some of my most recent mindwalks:
- Jordan Peterson, and why one of us thinks he was a profound thinker and the other thinks he’s an overhyped charlatan.
- Liquid Democracy, and whether it’s better to try to deploy it first at the government or HOA level.
- The Banality of Evil, from the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, and terrible crimes can be committed in the name of “I was just doing my job.”
- Jungian archetypes and how they relate to the Platonic solids
- Accelerando, a book by Charles Stross that covers the story of humanity as it progresses through the technological singularity.
- The relationship between entropy and information, and whether the idea of life being anti-entropic is misleading in some way.
- An iOS game called “Cell to Singularity” whichcombines both of the previous two ideas.
- The Capital Allocation Line (CAL) and the theory behind the risk-and-reward profile of assets, and how it can be used to find the optimal portfolio.
- The Kelly Criterion and how to maximize the expected value of a bet you take.
- Strategies for growing an audience online in 2024, whether that be in short-form, long-form, and the different tradeoffs/benefits of each of the major social media platforms.
- Pretty much everything else under the Sun, in what can only be described as essentially a 2.5 hour where you get to be the guest and host simultaneously.
It’s been a few weeks since my last post so my daily posting cadence didn’t last very long. And that’s okay, I started writing again during the holidays when I had a lot more time on my hands. I’m still playing around with blog post length, and upload frequency. I think 500 words a day / 3500 words a week should be pretty doable but over how many posts I want to break that up is something I need to play around with.
I’ve also been hard at work in the background working on Tomorrow People stuff. Ultimately I think video is the right format for communicating most of the ideas I want to share and should therefore be the top priority, but writing outlines and scripts will be a big component of that, and these blog posts I think can complement that planning process a ton.
It’s just a question of fine-tuning at this point, I think I know the direction I want to head in, and I feel much better organized with how I want to go about things.
More updates to come soon ;)
