Graphs on Deep Leisure

Newsletter (Sundays)

issue 43 was truly composed on a whim, but i think has interesting philosophical implications on the role (or lack thereof) of free will. specifically interesting to consider arrows from the future pointing to the present instead of the present pointing to the future.

Software (Saturdays)

when coding with cursor and copilot, think top down from the comment level instead of thinking bottom up from the individual line of code level. use your compiler to handle that kind of thing

Other Stuff

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Books (5/month)

• Black Rednecks & White Liberals - 58%
• Command & Control - 23%
• At Home in the Universe - 36%
• Napoleon: A Life - 54% (+5%)
  • "So affected was Ferdinand by what is today known as Stockholm Syndrome that he wrote to Napoleon in November 1808 to congratulate him on a French victory over the Spanish army at the battle of Tudela, and once again tried to solicit marriage with a Bonaparte."
• Glass Bead Game - 44%
• River of the Gods - 54% (+8%)
  • "So shocked was Isabel that she had been unable even to cry, her eyes wide, dry, and staring, her heart painfully pounding. Struggling to recover, she had pulled from a pocket the picture of Burton that she had carried with her for three years, an icon, a talisman, a symbol of hope. Without hesitating, he had reached into his own pocket and taken out a picture of her. Both pictures, Isabel would later insist, were in perfect condition, showing “how carefully we had always kept them.”"
  • "As Burton was still sick, complaining that “the fever… clung to me like the shirt of Nessus,” Steinhaüser advised that he stay in Aden until his health improved."
  • "I taught him archery by day—when his arm waxed strong, ’twas me he shot."
• Replacing Guilt: Minding Our Way - 34% (+15%)
  • "Rest is not a reward for getting through all your obligations. Rather, rest (and personal health, and personal time) are part of the goal. Both because most people care about their personal comfort, and because taking care of yourself is very important in order to do all the other things you want to do. Rest isn't something you do when everything else is finished. Everything else doesn't get finished. Rather, there are lots of activities that you do, some which are more fun than others, and rest is an important one to do in appropriate proportions. Disconnect your impulse to rest from whether or not the world is in a stable state, because, spoiler alert, the world isn't going to be in a stable state for a long time. Rest isn't a reward for good behavior! It's not something you get to do when all the work is finished! That's finite task thinking. Rather, rest and health are just two of the unending streams that you move through."
  • "Most guilt-motivated people I meet would do well to worry less about whether they're going fast enough now, and worry more about whether the amount of work they're doing day-to-day is ideal in the long term, taking psychological constraints into account. You don't get points for pushing your body and mind as hard as you can, you get good outcomes from using your resources as wisely as you can. That usually entails stopping well before you drop each day, while steadily improving your capabilities."