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My Thoughts on Excellent Advice for Living

by Kevin Kelly

(affl. link)

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Audio Guide [recorded on phone, excuse the quality]
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  • a collection of tweet length ideas
  • more memorable weirdly than the maxims from another book i read at the same time called maxims for thinking analytically (affl. link) despite the similarities in title and writing style
  • “The very best thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse.”
    • and loving yourself is the best thing you can do for your spouse. so by the transitive property...
  • “The quickest checkout line will be the one with the fewest people no matter the size of their carts.”
    • cashiers vs pulling money out of wallets and repeating the same “how are you” conversation
  • “At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job buy the very best you can afford.”
    • spend a lot (read: without limit) on the thing you care about/hunt for, and little on everything else
  • “Work to become, not to acquire.”
    • hunters care little for their licenses once they have passed the hunter exam
  • “All guns are loaded.”
    • cautionary advice... but also hidden double advice about people who keep weapons in their home. they plan at least a little bit on using them someday, even if just in their minds eye. people don't buy things they don't have a plan for.
  • “Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife?” or “Where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.”
    • see "At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find..." above
  • “Be a pro. Back up your backup. Have at least one physical backup and one backup in the cloud. Have more than one of each. How much would you pay to retrieve all your data, photos, notes if you lost them? Backups are cheap compared to regrets.”
  • “Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.”
    • childish gambino had an interview about some meme that was going around in 2013 on vine and how sad it is to make art to maintain success instead of chasing your own curiosity. he follows through on that to this day.
  • “Your goal is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.”
    • don't die until you're dead
  • “To be remarkable, read books.”
,   &  Bram Adams
books

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