RRR1: Disco Miracles, Rock Dust, and Challenging Our Routines
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Well, there you have it. I can’t even get into the beginning of edition #1 without breaking the proposed format I laid out in my coming soon post :). As I sat down to begin this first edition of Ramblings, Readings, and Rebounds, I quickly realized how callous it would feel to launch right into the recent activity section without a brief introduction of some sort. But then, what to talk about? Surely, there must be an official term that describes just these types of situations. In any event, I’ll be noodling on some sort of fun intro format for each future post.
A toast, if you will, to the first of many iterations on this writing journey of ours. In fact, a toast to what must certainly be described our first official Ramble! 🥂.
In Recent Times…
Music sounds better when you’re in a good mood, doesn’t it? I was on my way to a cookout last weekend when “I’ll Do My Best” by The Ritchie Family came on shuffle in the car. Keep in mind, I have listened to this song countless times before… maybe I’ll get back to you guys with some more specific numbers when Spotify Wrapped comes out again. I obviously already loved the song before this particular drive. However, something about this day was making me feel a little different than the other days in which I had listened to the song before. I was excited; my friends and I had been planning this cookout for months on end. Better yet, it was a friend group that doesn’t get together often enough, due to where we’re all living in addition to busy schedules. What else? Boy, was I caffeinated. I was three quarters done with a large cold brew from Best Video Coffee Bar, my favorite local place to grab some joe. I had finished a productive work week the day before, the weather had been great heading into the weekend, and I had my favorite bottle of Mezcal riding shotgun (unopened, of course), waiting to be enjoyed with my friends. When that synth riff kicked in at 0:33, my spirit surely left my body and started grooving while I focused on the road ahead.
As I settled myself down from this all time great moment in the coming half hour or so, I had a sobering feeling wash over me; what else am I experiencing in life that doesn’t feel as good as it should, simply because I’m not in the right mind space to receive it? I started to really think about this over the course of the car ride. If I get a call from a friend, am I as touched as I should be that they took time out of their day to chat? When someone tells you that you did a great job at work, are you taking the time to be grateful? Not just grateful that this person gave you a compliment, but that you put in the hard work and focus required to attain an appreciated skill? When my mom invites me over and cooks me a delicious steak on the grill after a long day, am I taking the time to ask myself what else I am really looking for in life, if not this? 🤔.
No, it is not feasible to be in a kick-ass mood all the time. With that being said, let’s all make a better attempt to be prepared to appreciate life’s little miracles, when life decides to throw them our way. They’re what make life miraculous on a daily basis.
Readings of The Week
In case you didn’t know, you can reply directly to the email containing this post if you’re a subscriber. Therefore, if you would like to discuss any of the following readings further, please drop me a note! I would truly appreciate the opportunity to hear your thoughts on any of the pieces you had time to read. For this first edition, I would like to link to some of my favorite authors, as they are a major influence as to why I decided to start Ramblings, Readings, and Rebounds.
“Why AI Will Save The World” by Marc Andreessen
Most people are not plugged in on a daily basis to the intersection of technology and business. Therefore, it’s safe to assume many reading this post may not know who Marc Andreessen is. Without writing a whole bio, let me simply state that there are not many people more qualified to author an opinion on how AI will impact society on the go-forward than Marc. We’re living in a pivotal moment in AI (obviously), and many people are taking precious time to tell us how we’re doomed to lose our jobs, live in a dystopian society, and fall victim to a technology that will take over the world in what would be a sci-fi tragedy made reality. Marc offers an important alternative view - here’s a favorite excerpt of mine from his post:
Perhaps the most underestimated quality of AI is how humanizing it can be. AI art gives people who otherwise lack technical skills the freedom to create and share their artistic ideas. Talking to an empathetic AI friend really does improve their ability to handle adversity. And AI medical chatbots are already more empathetic than their human counterparts. Rather than making the world harsher and more mechanistic, infinitely patient and sympathetic AI will make the world warmer and nicer.
Isn’t that something worth being excited about?
Liberty’s Highlights #428
Liberty is my favorite author on Substack, full stop. His writing is fun, insightful, full of nuance, and it demonstrates that some of the smartest people in the world are also the most curious. He’s a huge source of inspiration for me personally, and I think anyone would get tremendous value out of reading his work. Edition #428 does not require a paid sub, so please give it a read if you’re interested in seeing what he’s all about. I don’t even want to preview the content, as I think it would be more fun for you, the reader, to go in without a preconceived notion of what to expect.
“Where China is Beating the World” by Noah Smith
Noahpinion is another one of my absolute favorite reads on Substack. Put mildly, I think it’s so important to have even a basic understanding of economics. It helps explain things that are happening, and learn lessons from the past in order to make more accurate predictions about what will happen in the future. Noah will be the first to tell you, Macroeconomics is not an exact science. At the least, it provides a helpful framework to supplement how we view certain trends in the world.
In this particular piece, Noah unpacks the impressive nature of Chinese high-speed rail systems, how they did it, and the cost-benefit analysis of the operation. The biggest takeaway for me personally occurred when I actually decided to turn off all economic thinking and just marvel at how much I would enjoy having a highly functional, high-speed rail system in the US! Imagine getting from New York City to Chicago in 4 hours by train? How about DC to Boston in just over 2 hours!? I so badly wish that we had the ability to collaborate on a cost effective, time sensitive, and societally beneficial high-speed rail.
Junto Club
As a reminder, the Junto section of RRR will deal with three of my favorite questions from Benjamin Franklin’s Junto club meetings in Philadelphia. As I was writing the answers to three prompts below, I may have developed my first tangible aspiration for RRR; what if we develop enough readership and interest that people start submitting their own answers to the three Junto questions? Wouldn’t that be cool? What if, the Junto section is such a hit, we can introduce a fourth question? A fifth? Let’s take Ben’s idea into the future!
But for now… let’s not get over our skis :).
Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
In fact, I have! This story will be all about the power of meditation. I have a very good friend (let’s call him Gary) that lives in Manhattan, and I recalled that a while back (maybe a year or more at this point), he walked me through a meditation routine he had been practicing for a while. I’m lucky that I have a lot of happy friends, colleagues, etc., and so I had a long list of people to write about. However, my friend Gary’s story about his meditation practice kept popping into my head. Maybe it’s because we’re living in the age of instant information and exponential technology… we can all use some time to clear our mind of some noise!
I reached out to Gary and he was kind enough to write up a little summary for me describing his routine. I will put it in his very words (and some of mine) below:
The Setting
“My first big step was realizing that white noise or nature sounds worked perfectly to set a scene of relaxation”
“From my research I learned that deep breathing has its obvious benefits but in meditation its also important to use”
He said he does 10-15 extremely deep and slow breaths in through the nose and out the mouth
The Practice
He built up a tolerance for the practice. It’s almost never a good idea to try and start something new without training yourself to do it slowly. Try to sit quietly with your thoughts for even three minutes… you might be surprised to learn that your mind is a little all over the place! Gary went from 2 minute sessions, to 5 when he had mastery of 2 (a 150% increase!!!), and now he aims for 10-15 mins depending on the day.
“I usually slap on some noise cancelling headphones and run the nature sounds (of) choice on loop”… that’s NYC living for you folks 🤷♂️
The Goal
“I normally do two different types… this is where my personal practice may deviate a bit from norms. But it works for me! Often after a long day or stressful event, I find myself needing less analysis and more quiet time. The goal here is not to work through thoughts but instead maintain a focus on THE MOMENT… i.e. the chair I’m sitting in, feeling my feet on the ground, is there a gentle breeze…”
The second type:
“I am looking to set intention for the day, maybe plan my first couple hours a bit and really think about what needs to be done that day… after that ill do a simple life check”
The life check consists of… “How’s the family (in my opinion or in relation to me), how am I feeling about work, am I needing to do anything to fix a craving, how are my people (in relation to me), am I doing my best health wise?” He continues, “this one is a bit tougher because sometimes it feels like the time isn’t enough. But the goal here is to just get my thoughts flowing and to consider some different areas of life. When I got “good” the items on the rundown are very focused and honest evaluations”.
I think what he says at the end is so important, regardless of whether it’s in the context of meditation. Are we being honest with ourselves? Lying to other people is often not the right thing to do, but lying to yourself is never the right thing to do. The most transformative moments in life are not typically grandiose. They often come from the most humbling and ruthless types of introspection.
Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? Or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
I’m sort of cheating here because this is not really a “citizen”, but I think Ben would let me get away with it. The Daily Nutmeg is an organization that disseminates news, noteworthy events, fun stories, and promotes local business in and around New Haven, CT. When I moved back to Connecticut last August, I needed to re-learn the happenings of the city. I had been gone for 10 years, and had never experienced New Haven as an adult before in my life. I stumbled upon the Daily Nutmeg on Instagram, and I immediately had an amazing source of information to make my life here better. Whether it was discovering a new Thai restaurant, learning about good coffee shops in the area, or hearing about fun events in the community, the Daily Nutmeg added so much value to my existence in the area.
I think that building these sorts of digital communities is a superpower of our time we don’t reflect upon often enough. If you’re passionate about something (in this case, a place), there are probably other people that share your enthusiasm! If not, you still might help people experience something in a new way by building a community around it. If we leave aside other incentives, isn’t it just awesome to impact peoples lives in a positive way?
Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
Yes. Zoning laws are playing a massive role in the current American housing crisis. Here’s a look at first-time homebuyer affordability since 2020:
I want to spend a lot more time on this subject in a future post. My thesis is that zoning laws were originally developed with positive intent, and are now so distorted that they’re hurting our country much more than helping it. It’s illegal to do anything! Here’s an important excerpt from a 2017 policy analysis from The Cato Institute:
The deleterious effects of this regulation extend beyond higher housing prices: artificially inflating housing costs discourages migration from rural or suburban areas to cities, which impedes appropriate matching of workers and jobs while limiting the scope of economies of scale and the scope of particular types of economic activity. Thus, these regulations impede economically efficient population density and population allocation.
For all the free market lovers out there (I’m sort of one of those myself), it cannot and should not be illegal to build because local municipalities are scared of traffic… we can fix that problem! Misuse of zoning law is one of the many reasons we live in an exceedingly zero-sum society.
Rock Dust
Amongst some of the scarier and more imminent issues we face as a human race, is climate change. We all hear the stories about severe weather, we see the data, and hopefully most of us feel compassion for those people who are living in areas which are more acutely affected. In an environment that is hyper-focused on the negative effects of climate change, we don’t give quite enough oxygen to stories that are critical to our understanding of potential solutions. Insert ~ rock dust ~.
Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) is a process in which volcanic rock dust (which is fairly plentiful) is spread out into large areas where it can interact with falling rain, to trap carbon and store it away. That falling rain normally takes our antagonist (CO2) out of the air on it’s way down, but it isn’t an effective mechanism for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. That CO2 typically makes its way back into the atmosphere rather quickly after rainfall. However, when rain makes contact with the byproduct of ERW, it forms a carbonate, which traps the CO2 from the rain, thus, stopping it form being released back into the atmosphere. As if this wasn’t awesome enough, there are nutrients released in this process which may be positive from crop yields on the farms and fields where the rock dust is spread:
Soil fertility naturally depends on rock weathering to provide essential nutrients, so enhancing the process delivers an extra benefit. Spreading the Greenland rock flour on fields in Denmark, including those growing barley for the Carlsberg brewery, significantly increased yields.
Greenland’s giant ice sheet produces 1bn tonnes a year of rock flour, which flows as mud from under the glaciers. This means the potential supply of rock flour is essentially unlimited, the researchers said, and removing some would have very little effect on the local environment.
More information here.
It’s pretty clear that CO2 reduction itself is not going to be enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, and that CO2 removal needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy. Hopefully someone can figure out how to scale this quickly, especially if the benefits to crop yields are there to be had as well.
The 2022-23 Denver Nuggets
I have to admit that at the beginning of this NBA season, I did not have the Nuggets winning a championship on my bingo card. I could focus on all the considerations I was making at that time, how I was wrong about a lot of them, and how the Nuggets surpassed a lot of my most optimistic projections for how they would perform in the playoffs. However, I want to focus on something that struck me over and over again throughout the season, which is now a factor that leads me to believe this team might be hyper-competitive for a long time…
He’s slow, can’t protect the rim on defense, doesn’t move well laterally, and doesn’t get good lift when finishing at the rim going off one or two feet. I’m here to make the case that his lack of elite athleticism might be the greatest strength of Nikola Jokic’s game, and something the Denver Nuggets surely didn’t value when they drafted Jokic 41st overall DURING A TACO BELL COMMERCIAL in the 2014 NBA Draft. How can you get hurt if you never put your body in stressful situations? I would be much more willing to bet on the good health of someone who can’t do anything with explosive athleticism, vs. someone like Zion Williamson who is too athletic for his own good.
I mean just look at some of the shots he’s making here… the one at 0:13 is literally too funny to be true! Upon reading this, you may think that I am making a dig at the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, now one-time champ and Finals MVP. Rest assured, I mean sincerely what I am saying. Jokic’s innate and almost supernatural touch around the basket makes it so that he doesn’t need the otherworldly athleticism that most NBA players possess. This ability compounds in efficacy for Jokic because it means longer, and healthier seasons. In fact, this was the very first season of his career where he appeared in less than 70 of the possible 82 regular-season games (he appeared in 69 games), and that was only because the Nuggets chose to rest him often heading into the playoffs.
In an era where the biggest question teams have heading into the playoffs each year is, “can we stay healthy?”, it’s a weapon to have a player that can be at his best without putting his body through too much stress. Anyways, this Denver Nuggets season has been covered in so many angles, I thought it was worth mentioning this kind of weird and ultra-niche takeaway that I found myself having once the series concluded.
Is Being Routine Oriented Always Positive?
I’ve been talking to my friends a lot about this question. Let me start by saying I don’t know the answer, nor do I know that there is an objective truth to be had here. However, I have a general thesis on this topic that I want to explore. Furthermore, I would love for anyone reading this to continue the conversation by commenting or sending a note via email! I’m really curious to see what other people think about this through the lens of their own life.
Okay, here we go: I think generally, American society is too routine oriented, and that it’s often detrimental to our personal growth and even life satisfaction. I can’t speak too much on other countries, but I can hypothesize from limited experience that it is different in many of the places I’ve been. Before I continue, let me check my big bag of privilege at the door, as they say. I am so lucky to live a life where I don’t have to be locked into a routine all day every day, and I’m happy it’s a choice I can make instead of a necessity. I know that there are lots of people who are struggling with the rising costs of living. In addition, there are areas of the country where much of the industry has left, making day-to-day life more complicated and full of acute stressors for people in the community. I also ought to state outright that I believe there is a strong use case for routines. Heck, I might actually be more routine oriented than the average person. It’s kind of a subjective measure!
With all that being said, living some days a bit differently doesn’t need to be constrained by time or finances, nor does it need to be drastic, which is why I feel so passionately about this topic. Let’s dive in.
We should start with the basis for my thesis which might be entirely wrong to begin with. I believe routines are a mechanism we employ to reduce anxiety and stress. I think this, because there is science which says the absence of routines will cause anxiety and stress. At the same time, there is science which says if we don’t challenge ourselves enough to step out of what feels comfortable, our self confidence and life satisfaction can be a casualty. What I am going to advocate for here is a healthy balance, which is a principle that applies to so many facets of life, not just our preferences for routines.
My thesis on routines is backed up at least in some regard with anecdotal observations. How many people do you know personally that are catapulted into distress if a box is left unchecked in their routine? I think if we’re being honest, that number is high. By the way, that’s okay! It’s perfectly normal. Ask my family how I react if I don’t make it to the gym for a lift… it drives me nuts!
So why don’t we just end it there? Routines are good because they protect us from feeling unsettled.
Unfortunately, we can’t. Why? Because sometimes feeling unsettled is necessary to achieve growth. Growth, by the way, does not need to be some big shiny object. Growth can be forming new thoughts. Growth can be confronting thoughts we’ve buried in our subconscious for a long time. Growth can be feeling happy because we overcame our anxiety, or figured out what was causing us to feel that way in the first place! Growth can be much more than all of that, it can be way less that all of that. But I don’t think we achieve growth unless we’re willing to be a bit uncomfortable.
I will take this one step further too, while I’m at it. Breaking routines doesn’t just need to be about getting uncomfortable and experiencing growth. Sometimes it’s just making room for you to enjoy something you don’t appreciate often enough! Take my day, as an example. I worked a bit late, and decided instead of trying to squeeze in a workout, I would make a cup of tea and enjoy the beginning of sunset from the front steps of the house. I didn’t get uncomfortable at all, but I got sheer, unmitigated enjoyment sitting on those steps. The smell of the rain that had fallen just an hour earlier created such a nice smell. It reminded me of when I was a kid for some reason. It also took some of the heat out of the air, which made the hot chamomile tea that much more enjoyable. I also work at a desk all day and tend to spend many nights at that same desk reading and writing. So, damn, it was just nice to see mother nature doing her thing with a nice sunset.
Here are some really simple ways to jazz up your average day:
Take a walk whenever the weather seems ideal for you, if you don’t already do that as part of your routine
Set an alarm and sit in a dark room for 7 minutes in complete silence
Don’t watch TV for a day, if that is something that’s part of your routine
If you have kids, invent a new game to play with them
Cook a meal you have never made before
Listen to a genre of music you haven’t tried (I admittedly now have an old school country playlist of 30 songs and growing)
Call someone you haven’t talked to in a long time
Read about a place you’ve never been! I recently enjoyed reading about Selangor, Malaysia. No need to get fancy, Wikipedia is fine.
Read about history
If you like to eat out sometimes, try a cuisine type you have never had before! Subjectively, highly routine eating habits seem to be a pervasive issue. Do you think people from other places love to eat food that tastes bad? I promise you they don’t!
Doing some of these things in lieu of activities you choose on an every day basis will definitely shake your mind up and inspire some new thoughts and ideas. Give it a try.
That’s it guys, thanks for reading! I’ll shorten this up moving forward because we almost hit the email length limit 😲.
Excellent piece Tiko! Excited for the future of RRR.
Thanks for the link, Tiko! Glad to see you writing, and so clearly excited about it and making it an outlet for your curiosity! Cheers 💚 🥃