Last few days, I have consumed or been a part of many interesting conversations. Let me distil them for you.

One. FOMO + Sifting.

@saurabh sent me this. And this. And this.

And a question came to mind.

“Do you find a million cool people and read all their cool work? Or random? If A, then how do you manage to catch up? If B, then how? General how?”

I think I already knew what he had to say.

A: You do not let FOMO attack you.

B: Sifting – You have the patience to land on the good stuff.

FOMO.

Ever passing minute, more content is created than you could consume in a lifetime. The world today has so much to offer that you would probably never have it all. So, do not let FOMO touch you. Bunny, sunset, jitna bhi try kar lo?

What you can do, however, is make your choices. And let their consequences unfold. And then use it to fine tune your discernment.

Sifting.

Being on 100s of WhatsApp communities and meeting new people all the time can be exhausting. Especially when most (messages + people) do not fit in your life. But the pain to sift them out is worth the reward of finding The One.

I mean – think of it. The world is just a brownian motion of information and people. If you lucky so as to meet just one right person at the right time or land upon one super insightful tweet, bang – life’s changed!

And if that’s how it is – Don’t you think the pain is worth it? I do!

Two. Munger’s recipe for misery.

Now, I could not find the exact video but lore says Charlie Munger delivered a speech to the Harvard School, circa 1986. It’s called something like: Prescription for misery.

I wrote you a TLDR but redacted it. I really, really want you to read it. For your own good.

So that.

Three. Taste for makers.

I have never loved my feet. So I never took good care of them. But the last few months, I take myself out for a pedicure treat. The woman knows me. She knows I am not chatty. Doesn’t make meaningless conversation. I put on my music and read some dudebro article.

Taste for makers by Paul G was my pedicure re-read of the month. I got red toe-nails 😛

Here are some things I marked out.

• It’s a matter of pride, and a real pleasure, to get better at your job
• Instead of treating beauty as an airy abstraction, to be either blathered about or avoided depending on how one feels about airy abstractions, let’s try considering it as a practical question: how do you make good stuff?
• Good design is simple. […] In writing it means: say what you mean and say it briefly.
• When you’re forced to be simple, you’re forced to face the real problem. When you can’t deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.
• If you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself.
• Good design is suggestive. […] Everyone makes up their own story about the Mona Lisa.
• Form follows function.
• What practice does is train your unconscious mind to handle tasks that used to require conscious thought.
• The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is that it can be used as a substitute for thought.
• It’s a good sign when your answer resembles nature’s.
• It takes confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to think, there’s more where that came from.

Four. Emmett Shear.

I watched an episode of My First Million sitting in a rickshaw. And Shaan painted such a brilliant picture of Emmett Shear. I do not know much about the dude but I think I really like him.

Here’s some interesting things from the video:

• “Birds fly. Fish swim. Deals fall through. That’s what they do.” This was on managing expectations and keeping yourself anchored to some esoteric zen.
• Shaan calls Emmett “a fierce nerd.” Brilliant, socially awkward, competitive, independent-minded, overconfident.
• Emmett once had a pitch deck with a slide saying: We are steam rollers in a field of flowers. Corny. But confident. (Need to find this in myself.)

That’s all!