all killer no filler

Knowledge decays in half-lives like a radioactive isotope. Some of what you know today will have to be unlearned in the future. The half-life of knowledge decreases inversely to the pace of new information. As this decay accelerates, the more important it is to continue unlearning.

Learning is the most important skill for becoming educated. Unlearning may be the most important skill for keeping yourself educated. Neither has much to do with what is taught in school, in the same way that what you learn in school has little to do with life.

Some people feel the rain, and other people just get wet. Some folks prefer more certainty, while others would rather bet. Some people stop to smell the roses, but others never even notice. So much of what we think life imposes, depends on where we put our focus.

If Covid has done anything other than generally increase fear and distrust, it has shown us the degree to which our lives can be impacted by the assumptions and decisions other people make about their own lives. We are, it seems, all in this together, for better or worse, until death do us part.

When it becomes hard to decide because of information overload, we rely more on our assumptions. When our assumptions prove inadequate, we rely on our feelings. Ironically, with more information, our decision-making becomes more primitive.

Based purely on casual observation, there is a pretty strong inverse correlation between your age and the length of time you can look at TikTok without thinking ‘maybe the world should end.’

Just because something is hard to do or doesn’t kill you, doesn’t mean it’s good for you even if your purpose in life is to struggle more and avoid being killed.Life just doesn’t give extra points for suffering more or dying.

COVID is an allegory for the world we live in, it crystalizes the new normal. It’s a world of invisible threats. Pollution poisoning the air and water. Rising temperatures and costs. Wage erosion. Threats to life and liberty. Threats that produce more invisible threats — fear, suspicion and stress.

If you asked everyone you know if they are doing their best, pretty much every one of them would at least say, ‘Pretty darn close.’ But if you look at the big picture, it’s easy to see we have to do better. If we don’t expect more from ourselves, it will, at some point, be demanded of us.

Science excels at creating useful information but does little to create understanding that nourishes the soul. The more science explains, the less we feel we understand. Science has actually increased our sense of uncertainty.

The true revolutionaries are not angry resisters of the status quo. They are warm, friendly and generous folks who care for other people. They are curious and concerned and open to new ideas. This is what makes them truly revolutionary.

People pay a lot of money for advice they want to hear. Therapists, lawyers, gurus, preachers, gypsies — they all take their cut. Apparently advice people want to hear is big business. People just don’t pay for the advice they don’t want to hear.

Almost everyone organizes their reality in a bubble of space and time with themselves at the center. The ones that don’t do it this way just don’t fit in because their bubble doesn’t overlap with everyone else’s.

One of the hardest things about being an introvert is learning to laugh at yourself. I mean, it’s an occupational hazard. Cuz most of the time there’s no one else around to laugh at.

You can tell people are serious about climate change and threats to democracy. You can see it everywhere you look. People are relentlessly practicing their ’21st century survival skills.’ Couch sitting, ordering take-out, binge-watching and posing for selfies.

You have to admire From a strategic perspective, you have to admire COVID. It reinvents itself so it can thrive and take advantage of opportunities by forcing humans to reinvent ourselves to limit those opportunities and, of course, humans are resisting. Humans are just so… ‘human.’

Minimalism is less about having less and is more about making more space and time for more opportunities to use more effort and attention on the things that matter more.

Of course, millionaire CEOs had to have their limousines and mansions. Then, multimillionaires just had to have their own private yachts and islands. But now that we have billionaire CEOs, they have to have their own rocket ships.

Plastic is the perfect metaphor for a blessing that’s a curse. It’s so good at doing what it does it creates more problems than it solves. Just the kind of thing humans can’t resist.

Every now and then you should ask yourself, ‘Hey self, how are you doing?’ And really give yourself a straight answer instead of just saying some version of, ‘I’m okay, how are you?’

The legacy of Covid: During times when people need to be closer to each other we are forced into isolation, distrust, and greater polarization. Damn, I miss hugs!

Nobody alive today has lived through a COVID pandemic before. This is the first time in history vaccines have been produced and deployed in a matter of months. We have never done any of this before. How can so many people be so sure of themselves?

I found proof that humans believe in magic. We’re facing direct existential threats to our species. A multi-dimensional climate crisis and a global pandemic, and our ‘best minds’ are focused on creating unicorns.

How can anyone even consider going back to business as usual after what we’ve all been through? It’s business as usual that got us into this mess.

We are all in on the secret no one talks about. We’re all sitting around knowing something needs to be done about climate change and hoping someone will hurry up and do something about it.

Lots of people are starting to recognize humanity has big problems to solve. Analysis reveals the worst problems humanity faces are self-inflicted. In other words, the root cause of all our biggest problems is humanity. The real problem is how do you solve a problem when you are it?

What is it about living up to your potential? No one lives up to their potential. There’s always something they could have done better. Especially if you ask someone else.

Fill in the blank: If we handle all the issues that come packaged-up with climate change with the same flair and cooperation we’ve used with COVID, we’re not just in for a hard time, we’re ______.

I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours doesn’t mean what it used to. Not that it ever meant just one thing. But from now on it refers to your Covid vaccination card.