This Week’s BIG Idea
I’ve talked about this in past newsletters, but for the past few weeks, I’ve been deleting a lot of media from my PC. Since I’ve been redefining my relationship with entertainment, I’ve used this as an excuse to delete every digital movie, podcast, video, series, album, or book that doesn’t align with my goals. The result has been tremendous. While digital space isn’t a problem, the mental toll that accumulating media takes is incredible. I often find myself thinking about entertainment and not in a meaningful way. I think about all the movies I have downloaded and how I “have to watch them”.
So as a way to get back that mental clarity and focus I crave, I started deleting pretty much everything. The process has been quite straightforward: Would I watch do this right now? Does this mean anything to me personally? Does this bring me joy? If I had to track down this item physically and pay a modest sum for it, would I still buy it? If the answer to these questions is “no”, I get rid of the file. Interestingly, when something goes, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
This is a liberating process because 1) The few things I keep, mean a lot to me which means I’m surrounded by things I love and 2) I realize that I don’t need that much entertainment in my life. I thought about documenting the process of deleting movies, and other things, but I don’t know if this will benefit anyone other than myself. If this sounds remotely interesting to you, let me know.
What I’m Working on
I’ve decided to take some aspects of the website more seriously. So I decided to read more books about online writing, search engine optimization (or SEO), and copywriting. While it’s easy to ignore the information out there, these problems have been around for some time which means that people have been trying to solve them ever since.
Another area I decided to take more seriously is health. Books have been a really helpful resource on this topic as well. Of course, there’s an overwhelming number of books on this topic and it’s difficult to know where to start. My favorite books about diet and nutrition have been Michael Pollan’s Food Rules and Jessie Inchauspe’s Glucose Revolution.
What I’m Listening to
I recently started listening to Shane Parrish’s The Knowledge Project. For those unfamiliar, this is the podcast from the person behind the outstanding blog Farnam Street. To be honest, I’ve been trying to downsize my inputs for the past few weeks. In practice, this means cutting down on the content I consume which includes YouTube videos, podcasts, movies, and series. I might unsubscribe from a few podcasts further down the line, including The Knowledge Project. Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed some episodes tremendously such as the one above.
What I’m Reading
- Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman: I will read anything that Ryan Holiday releases. That’s a fact. Lives of the Stoics has been on my list for some time, but I finally decided to read it. As the name suggests, the book focuses on the lives of the philosophers that made a contribution to Stoicism. Since each chapter focuses on a different person, this is a perfect book to read one chapter at a time. Apart from including a short biography of each philosopher, chapters also reference the main concepts of Stoicism as well. Although this book isn’t as revolutionary as Ego Is the Enemy, it’s good to know the people behind Stoicism.
What I’m Watching
In a recent newsletter, Tim Ferriss recommended this free documentary of the popular video game League of Legends. I’ve talked about my past with gaming before and I’m trying to redefine my relationship with the medium so that it becomes healthy and enjoyable. For now, that means watching documentaries about how games get made and the journey has been extremely fun. To be honest, I don’t know what League of Legends: Origins is about since I haven’t watched it yet. That said, I’m excited to dive into the film as soon as I can.
This Week’s Quote
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
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