Walden - Henry David Thoreau

•  I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily accquired than got rid of
• Who made them serfs of the soil?
• How many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty
• It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before
  
• the laboring man
• He has no time to be anything but a machine
• making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day
• but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself
• What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation
• Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me
• so little has been tried
• The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad
• ... and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries
• The ancient philosophers, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inwards
• voluntary poverty
• to be a philosopher is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically
• What does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter fires
• I have been anxious to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment
• Clothing
• true utility - the object is, to retain the vital heat, secondary to cover nakedness
• A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in, for him the old will do. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they served his valet. bare feet are older than shoes, and he make them do
• I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If you have any new enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want something to do, or rather, something to be.
• All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque
• The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life
• And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him
• for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them
• Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have
• Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?
• We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate [see also who needs 4G, 5G, 6G, new and newer iphones,... Tech is driving, not demand]
• As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly
• I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot [if you take other transportation you need to add to travelling time the time it takes to earn the money for the transport]
• This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it
• I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men.
• Furniture
• The more you have of such things the poorer you are
• I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them
• Morning
• I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did
• Renew thyself completely each day; do it again and again and forever again
• The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour
• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
• Living is so dear
• I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
• to get the whole and genuine meanness of it
• For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it
• simplicity, simplicity, simplicity
• simplify, simplify
• Instead of a hundred dishes - five
• Men think that it is essential to export ice, talk through a telegraph, ride thirty miles an hour. But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.
• I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper
• To a philosopher all NEWS, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip.
• When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence - that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.
• We spend mor on almost any article of bodily aliment or ailment than on our mental aliment.
• I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. I love to be alone. A man thinking or working is always alone.
• Certainly less frequently would suffice for all important and hearty conversations
• I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.
• It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route and make a beaten track for ourselves.
• Do not trouble yourself much to get new things
• Things do not change, we change.
• Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts
• Not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century (sic!), but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by.
• 
  

Thoughts are things - Ernest Holmes and Willis Kinnear

•  Some individuals are able to master them and literally become masters of their own lives. Others seem to let life overwhelm them, seem to be as lost and helpless as a small rudderless craft in a storm-swept sea. The difference can be traced to a way of thinking.
• Are you slave or master? Do you let external situatoins control you? Or do you control them? Through right well-directed patterns of thought life can become a joyous daily challenges
• We live according to the patterns of thought that we maintain.
• we can do a lot about what we think about ourselves.
• We encounter enough difficulties in everyday living without going to the trouble of creating additional ones through the negative nature of our thoughts.
• learn to look, quietly and calmly upon every false condition
• constructive action, producing health, harmony, happiness, and success
• you are a blessing to yourself, to mankind, and to the day in which you live
• Today I uncover the perfection within me
• Love harmonized my mind so that joy sings in my heart
• God makes the path ahead of you one of joy, happiness and security
• Only good comes to me and goes out from me - this is what I expect - This is what I accept as my experience
• we do have the capacity to deal with new ideas, to expand our horizon of knowledge. It is like developing stonger muscles; the more we use them, the more we will be able to use them. The more we think, the more we will be able to think.
• We may allow ourselves to catch anothers happiness, his confidence, his stability.
• you alone determine what ideas you are going to be susceptible to, and to what degree you will absorb them.
• You must constantly be on guard as to what you allow to enter your mind.
• I entertain only constructive ideas; all others I willingly discard
• What are we doing to ourselves by the way we permit ourselves to think?
• Until we step in and discipline our thinking the same old monotonous ideas will keep repeating themselves and our problems will not clear up.
• Anyone at any time can start educating his thinking in the fundamentals of good behavior. It is a simple process of thinking about what you want rather than what you dont want. Our experiences in living are the results of ideas we entertain in mind, so we all need to make our thoughts behave properly.
• One can keep busy with many things that consume time and occupy thoughts, but in the long run there is lacking that sense of satisfaction which comes only as a result of having accomplished something creative and worthwile.
• Creative activity is very vital and must be entered into just for the sheer joy of doing it.
• Creativity appears to be a neccessity for all people.
• do-it-yourself activities
• there is nothing in you or around you which can limit your constructive thought.
• With regularity the same pattern of throught keeps repeating itself with no end in sight
• the merry-go-round of our own negative thinking
• If we would only realize it, we can do with our minds just what we would do with our record player when such a thing occurs. We can change the record.
• There are many mental records we can play which are enjoyable and beneficial.
• The record of love, confidence, faith and forgiveness - we will discover we can automatically change it and play a more harmonious one
• Feat is the only thing of which to be afraid
• The lack of confidence in the good alone which should concenr you
• You know that right finally dissolves everything opposed to it.
• With joy I enter into the activities of the day, without regret I remember the events of yesterday, and with confidence I look forward to tomorrow, that today my heart is without fear.
• We attract what we think; we become what we think; we become what we thing and what we become we attract
• Living is a very personal matter. Nobody can do it for you.
• You are you. What you are and what you are to become is the result of an inner motivation which you alone have established
• As you come to understand the way your mind is creative new vistas of living will open up for you
• Awareness!
• Devote more attention to this nebulous, intangible thing we call our mind. This inner space is something that each can investigate for himself. Each person can become a scientific researcher. The equipment with which he works is his own thought. And the results of his experiments can have measurable effects in his everyday living.
• Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts, cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
• Say: I know that I am a perfect being now, living under perfect conditions today.
• Most of the difficulties we encounter in life just do not descend upon us out of "nowhere"
• Regardless of the difficulty that confronts us, the first thing we should do is to find out what we are thinking, for this is the factor controlling the way we feel and act.
• There is something in me that knows what do to
• Therefore, everything I ought to do, I shall do; anything I ought to know, I shall know.
• There is an inner, quiet flowing stream of Life that carries me surely and safely to my proper destination and accomplishment of my every good purpose.
• Regardless of age, the individual who is bored, frustrated, and ucnreative is the one who is beset with all kinds of physical problems. Then the main focus of attention becomes the physical problem and this only tends to increase the difficulty.
• A lazy mind creates a sluggish body which seldom functions properly.
• It is not the calendar, but how we think, that determines how old we are or feel.
• What ever we can do about work we dislike, we have to do to ourselves. We are the source of our own unhappiness. It is the way re react to our work, not what the work does to us. If a person cannot in some way find it possible to be happy at the work he is now doing he never will find work that can make him happy.
• We all have to work because we all have to eat, and we may as well be happy in the process. 
• it is plain nonsense to allow ourselves to be miserable more than half the time we are awake. When we can learn to like the job we are now doing, we will be able to find one we will like even more.
• Through affirmative thinking you are able to clear your mind of negative thoughts, fears, and doubts.
• All the good that you desire awaits your acceptance of it.
• I now let go of all fear, doubt, and confusion, and turn my throught and attention to the belief that only good is my experience
• Peace and happiness, joy and contentment always walk with me
• Unhappiness is a habit
• Pay particular attention to what others talk about. You'll be surprised at what you hear. Toil, trouble, headaches, and hearaches for the most part, and only a few expressions of joy, happiness, and an enthusiasm for living.
• Nobody ever thrived mentally or physically by dwelling on the negative aspects of living.
• More and more you will hear a Song of Joy singing at the center of your being. You have only to be still and listen to this Song of Life, for It is always there.
• I know that the Song of Joy, of Love and of Peace, is forever chanting Its hymn of praise and beautry at the center of my being, therefore I tune out of my mind all unhappy and negative ideas.
• I direct my thought to the sunshine of life, to brightness and laughter, to the joyous presence of radiant Spririt.
• I lay aside all anxiety, all striving, and let Divine Love operate through me into my affairs
• Joyfully I anticipate greater abundance, more success, and a deeper peace.
• Joy weels up within my mind, and Life sings Its song of exstasy in my heart.
• I am remembering only the good; I am expecting more good; I am experiencing good.
• I now accept as mine all that is needed to make my life a joyous experience.
• There is peace at the center of your being
• I see good in everything
• I know that all is well
• Therefore, today I declare that my thoughts shall only be affirmative, positive, and constructive
• I know, not only that all is well with my mind and my body - all is well with my affairs
• we are as young as we feel.
• feeling of vitality, well-being, and a continuin enjoyment of living
• positive motive for living
• Life is always active, creative, and constructive
• we have to provide ourselves with some reason to stay alive
• stop blocking the flow of Life through you
• For a doctor to tell a patient that he will have to change his way of thinking, that he will have to start thinking in an affirmative rather than egative manner, means that he will have to do some consistent constructive thinking - praying
• Prayer is a process of thinking in a certain way
• Your life is of God
• I say to my own mind: "You are to believe in this Power. You are to accept it.
• There is no other life: all the Power there is, all the Presence there is, and all the Life there is
• It is possible that you have been using the power of your mind to produce the very limitation from which you wish to extricate yourself.
• Today, realizing that my life is truly a reflection of what I think, I now permit the Spirit within me to guide and direct my thoughts and emotions
• The Divine influx refreshes me daily. I feel it flowing in and through me
• brainwork
• just the contrary appears to be true
• those engaged in intellectual pursuits actually live longer than others.
• brainwork acts as a tonic and source of vitality for the whole body
• in one way or another almost every function and activitiy of the body is in some way influenced or controlled by what we think. If we allow ourselves to become mentally sluggish, the body follows suit. If we are continually disturbed and fearful, the body starts to malfunction. If, on the other hand, our thoughts are constructively active, it is logical that the body will similarly respond
• This is a personal equation which demands what we live up to be best we have in us. And the best we have in us is an unlimited resource we but little realize, let alone use. So start to think and live longer.
• The eternal now is forever filled with the Presence of perfect Life. You always have been, and forever will remain, a complete and perfect expression of the eternal Mind
• Knowing that all experience is a play of Life upon Itself, the blossoming of Love into self-expression
• I enter into the game of living with joyful anticipation, with enthusiasm
• Today I enter into my Divine inheritance, freeing my thought from the belief that undesirable external conditions imposed upon me are necessary and unchangeable
• I declare the freedom and imbibe of the fullness Life has to offer
• Once we know what capabilities we have for causing ourselves trouble, perhaps we will be more careful as to how we use them. There is also the fact that this creative ability we have can be used for our benefit instead of our detriment. There are many wonderful things to be experienced in life. Let us learn to concentrate on pulling these out of the creative power of our thoughts.
• I am drawing into my experience today and every day an ever-increasing  measure of vitality, health, joy, and harmony
• Divinely guided, everything I think, say, and do is quickened into right actin, into productive action, into increased action.
• The harmonious action of Life now permeates every part of my being and experience.
• All the there is, is mine noe
• "a man should appreciate what his actions and goals are costing him. Then if he chooses, he may pay for them in pain and disease."
• Instead of sitting back and letting conditions, situations, and problems overwhelm us, could we not develop an attitude of mind that lets us meet them and handle them in a manner that is intelligent and emotionally mature? When we learn to meet the problems of living without sacrificing our goals or comforts, we can have our cake and eat it too, and the price is controlled thinking.
• Know that you are an individualization of the Spirit - the Source of wholeness, love, reason, and intelligence. Empty yourself of any and every thought that denies this.
• I recognize that I am a perfect being, living under perfect conditions
• I also know that Mind alone is the only thing that has any power either to act or to react.
• My recognition of this Power is sufficient to neutralize every false experience
• Definitely I know that this recognition establishes harmony in my experience, prosperity, and a sense of happiness and health.
• The future is something everyone seems to dream of, but seldom does anything about.
• The future is born out of what you are thinking today
• Your future is like a projection screen upon which are thrown the images of the thoughts you have today. It can be no better. It can be no worse. But at any time you can change that picture - change it to something definitely to your liking.
• If there is one thing that appears to have absolutely no limitations it is our capacity to think; our thoughts are free to soar to any height. But too often we allow ourselves to think just so far and no farther. We make use of our ability to think to build barriers around ourselves which we are afraid to cross.
• Today, as a child, I accept this Presence that responds to me as personal, warm, and colorful. It fills me with vitality, opens my mind to greater vistas, and imbues me with a love for all life.
• You are different from any other person who ever lived
• You are you, and you are eternal
• The resurrection of life is today. Begin to live today and all thought of death, all fear of change, will slip from you. You will step out of the tomb of uncertainty into the light of eternal day.
• I know that life shall be an eternal adventure.
• Contemplation of the immeasurable future, the path of eternal progress, the everlastingness of my own being, the on-going of my soul, the daily renewed energy and action within me
• To be creative seems to be a fundamental drive that of necessity must find an outlet in a constructive manner if one is to be a full and complete human being.
• in all that we do, in everything we undertake, we must in some way discover how we may contribute something new and constructive to our world. We need to encourage the flow from us.
• To enjoy a life that is productive of the greatest good for ourselves and others we need to express the most that we are.
• As we delve into the inner resources of our minds we will be surprised at the limitless potential that resides there. To think is Life's greatest gift to us. Why not start to use it more effectively.
• New and happier horizons of living will open up for us to the extent we learn to keep our thoughts directed in an affirmative manner.
• you get rid of that self which is impotent. You brush aside its weakness, its fears, its doubts, its misunderstandings, and its uncertainties
• "There is One Life, that Life is my Life now."
• I know that there is a Presence of Perfection at the center of my being.
• I feel the Divine Life flowing through me, animating every atom of my being.
• And I feel that everyone else is of like nature to myself - we all live, and move, and have our being in God.
• I now affirm, with complete acceptance, that the Intelligence is now leading and guiding me into the accomplishment of every good and worthwhile purpose.
• The Presence exists at the very center of my being and is flowing rhough me, establishing happiness, joy, abundance, harmonious living, and a constructive use of the creative power of my mind. I am now open to new ideas, new hopes, and new aspirations
• Instead of being masters of the situation we now appear to have become enslaved by the society and culture we have created and discover in many respects we are no longer able to keep pace with or meet the demands that it makes upon us.
• we can discover a way to grow up so that we are once more masters of our lives and do not just exist as automations and slaves in a system from which we try to escape by retreating from life.
• individually we alone are responsible for how well we can grow mentally to cope with the pressures of daily living. 
• No one else can do for us
• developing greater mental and emotional maturity
• regaining our lost freedom
• You need to awake to a new joy of living
• realize that today is a new beginning. Your world can be made new from this moment.
• Have the will to be well, to be happy, and to live in joy. Recognize that there is nothing in your past that can deny you the privilege of living happily
• There is nothing in the future that can bring anything other than joy to you. Learn to fin only the likeness of good in your daily experience. As you discover your daily good, and believe in it, and think about it, you expect it to continue.
• find that every activity of my mind and body is in rythm with the one perfect Life
• Having the will to live in joy and in wholeness, I am at peace with the world about me
• It is my desire to live and to let live, to give and to forgive, and to see in every person I meet the Divine likeness
• I am lifted up into a new joy of living
• My heart sings a song of happiness and freedom
• Possibly the happiest man in the world might be the one who had just fulfilled a lifelong ambition and climbed the world's highest mountain. But then he would become a most sorrowful figure - no peace of mind, no contentment - for there would not be a higher mountain to climb
• There is a divine discontent within us. It keeps driving us on to greater goals. It is the process of reaching these goals, not the goals themselves, which provides contentment and peace of mind.
• Recognize this Divine discontent within you. It is the creative impulse which through the ages has urgend man on to evergreater achievement
• The Divine Presence is already what you are, and It contains the possibility of all joy in living. You should not entertain any thought that would limit your experience of the good life. There is nothing in you that can separate you from the Divine Presence, but in many ways you are able to inhibit Its flow through you. 
• increased joy of living and greater good in your life, is yours for the accepting.
• leading me on the pathway of joyful living
• directing my thoughts, my words, and my actions into constructive channels of self-expression
• forever uniting me with others in love, kindliness, and consideration
• I live, and move, and have my being in the infinite sea of perfect Life
• Everything necessary to my happiness is now established in Mind and does become an established fact.
• All of us seem to be burdened with an ever-increasing number of responsibilities
• our great responsibility to ourselves - that of keeping ourselves in good health.
• We need to mature so we will be enabled to do what needs to be done, and get over the attitude that we will only do what we like to do when we want to do it.
• We will always have responsibilities
• being able to fulfill them
• A life without responsibilities would be a void. The greatest of all responsibilities is to ourselves
• that of so expressing the Life within us that we fulfill Its need to expand and at the same time enable us to meet demands made upon us. It is then that we begin to grow up.
• You let your problems slip away from you, realizing that a Power greater than you are, and a Presence that is within you, is ready, willing, and able to guide you in all ways. Then peace, security, and fulfillment come with ease and there is a sense of joy and accomplishment.
• I now loose all thoughts of fear, doubt, and uncertainty, knowing that the infinite Intelligence of the Spirit within me knows what to do, how to do it, and does it with ease.
• Everything I do shall be a joy and shall prosper.
• My every encounter with others shall be a blessing for all.
• Loving, I know that I am loved
• Giving, I know that Life shall give back to me
• bringing joy and happiness into my life and the lives of those about me.
• Resting in calm faith and quiet expectancy, I know that there shall be only happiness and joy in every situation in which I find myself.
• We seem to possess a built-in sense of needing goald to be achieved, of having to experience a feeling of mental and emotional satisfaction for a worthwil undertaking well done. This cannot be attained through purposeless play and time-killing amusement. Something more is needed
• We should conscientiously educate ourselves in the use of leisure time. The endeavor need not be overserious or labored time-consuming activity. It should and must be enjoyable, but at the same time provide us with an end result of being able to give forth the best we have within us.
• there is more fun in creating than possessing
• we can squeeze out of our spare time the last full minute of constructive and creative achievement
• There is always the greater possibility available to you. There is a Divine Strength at the center of your being, ever waiting to be released, that will enable you to put more into life and living and to take more out of it.
• New ideas are coming into my mind.
• I am meeting new situations.
• I expect to accomplish and achieve.
• new horizons of joyous living continually open up before me.
• I accept the fullness of Life this moment.
• a parent finds his own mental states reflected right back to him in attitude and behavior of his offspring
• Everyone responds to you at the level of your recognition of them.
• express only love and appreciation to and for everyone I encounter ,knowing that only what I think, say, and do can return to me
• 
  

Digital Minimalism - Cal Newport

•  Frenzied activity.... the fact that it's increasingly beyond control. Few WANT to spend so much time online. ... behavioral addictions. The URGE to check Twitter or REFRESH become a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence neccessary for an international life.
• This irresistible attraction to screens is leading people to feel as though they're ceding more and more of their autonomy when it comes to deciding how they direct their attention.
• They joined Facebook to stay in touch with friends across the country, and then ended up unable to maintain an uninterrupted conversation with the friend sitting across the table.
• In an open marketplace for attention, darker emotions attract more eyeballs than positive and constructive thoughts.
• What Andrew Sullivan meant when he lamented: "I used to be human being."
• This reality creates a jumbled emotional landscape where you can simultaneously cherish your ability to discover inspiring photos on Instagram while fretting about this app's ability to invade the evening hours you used to spend talking with friends or reading.
• I call it digital minimalism, and it applies the belief that less can be more to our relationship with digital tools.
• Marcus Aurelius asked: "You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life?"
• you'll encounter many examples of digital minimalists who experiences massively positive changes by ruthlessly reducing their time spent online to focus on a small number of high-value activities.
• The minimalists would argue that this perception is backward: what's extreme is how much time EVERYONE ELSE spends staring at their screens. The key to thriving in our high-tech world, they've learned, is to spend much less time using technology.
• What's making us uncomfortable is this feeling of LOOSING CONTROLL
• It's not about usefulness, it's about autonomy
• Checking your likes is the new smoking
• "This thing is a slot machine," Harris says early in the interview while holding up his smartphone.
• Well every time I check my phone, I am playing the slot machine to see "What did I get"
• Technology is not neutral  - they want you to use it in particular ways and for long periods of time. Because that is how they make their money.
• If the ap is only one tap away on the phone in your pocked, a moderate behavioral addiction will make it really hard to resist checking your account again and again throughout the day
• (very low hurdle (=cost) to succumb to addiction)
• how tech companies encourage behavioral addiction: intermittent positive reinforcement and the drive for social approval
• rewards delivered unpredictably are far more enticing than those delivered with a known pattern (=slot machine)
• "gambling" every time they post something
• Will you get likes
• one facebook engineer calls "bright dings of pseudo-pleasure"
• sparked by unrpedictable feedback: most articles end up duds, but occasionally you'll land on one that creates a strong emotion
• Facebook: "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?" - we need to give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone likes or commented on a photo or a post or whatever
• The universal urge to immediately answer an incoming text, even in the most inappropriate or dangerous conditions (think: behind the wheel)
• Compulsive use is not the result of a character flaw, but instead the realization of a massively profitable business plan. 
• We didnt sign up for the digital lives we now lead.
• Our current unease with new technologies is not really about whether or not they're useful. It's instead about autonomy.
• we need to make a serious strategy - to swat aside the forces manipulating us toward behavioral addictions
• What all of us who struggle with these issues need is a philosophy of technology use. Something that covers from the ground up which digital tools we allow into our life, for what reasons, and under what constraints.
• Introspection
• Happily miss out on everything else
• By working backward from their deep values to their technology choices, digital minimalists transform these innovations from a source of distraction into tools to support a life well lived.
• Constrasts starkly with the maximalist philosophy that most people deploy by default - a mind-set in which any potentital for benefit is enough to start using a technology that catches your attentoin
• Why do I need to use facebook - I would ask. I can tell you exactly - what if theres something useful to you in there that you're missing
• minimalists dont mind missing out on small things, what worries them much more is diminishing the large things they already know for sure make a good life good
• that now that his phone is no longer glued to his hand
• he got rid of his smartphone and replaced it with a basic flip phone
• the core question: "Is this the best way to use technology to support my value"
• In true minimalist fashion didnt settle for simply deciding to use instagram, he instead through hard about how best to integrate this tool into his life. Posting one picture every week of whatever personal art project he happens to be working on
• His own father wrote him a handwritten note every week during his freshman year of college.
• cluttering their time - creates an overall negative costs - that swamp the small benefits that each individual item provides in isolation.
• Think carefully about HOW you'll use the technology
• Being more intentional about how you engage with new technologies
• is a nicer-looking window treatment really worth so much of your life? why would you add hours of extra labor to obtain a wagon?
• Things are more easily acquired than getting rid of
• How much of your time and attention must be sacrificed to earn the small profit of occasional connections an dnew ideas that is earned by significant presence in ... twitter, linkedin,...
• The law of diminishing returns can apply to the various ways in which we use new technologies to produce value in our personal lives.
• lets focus in trying to improve the value these processes return in your life - through better selection of tools, the adoptoin of smarter strategies for using these tools
• Not only what technologies to adopt but also how
• netflix not alone (i watch only on bike)
• remove social media apps from phone (only browser)
• news collect and only read dedicated en bloc once a week
• personal emails only laptop not mobile
• replace online news by radio or a news summary podcast
• printed newspaper
• setup schedule for calling and texting with friends
• remove web browser from phone
• 
  
• Start furiously optimizing
• the very act of being selective about your tools will bring you satisfaction, typically much more than what is lost from the tools you decide to avoid
• The sugar high of convenience is fleeting and the sting of missing out dulls rapidly. but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists
• Gradually changing your habits one at a time doesnt work well (like smoking one cigarette less,...)
• My addiction habits were revealed in striking clarity. I'd reach for my phone and then remember that everything was gone.
• The compulsion to browse SOMETHING was too strong to ignore
• trying to rediscover what is important to you and what you enjoy outside the world of the always-on, shiny digital
• reducing the role of digital tools in your life - if you cultivate high-quality alternaties to the easy distraction they provide
• rediscovering what you enjoy
• to put tehcnology to work on behalf of specific things you value.
• This means to and end approach to technology requires clarity on what these ends actually are
• finished 8.5 books that month
• finished 3 books
• organized wardrobe
• setup dinner with friends
• face-to-face with brother
• hunt for a new home
• restarted painting
• computer coding
• start journaling
• listening to records on a record player - from beginning to end
• start own blog
• connect with other hobbyists
• visit local library
• spending real time with his boys
• interacting more intentionally
• playing piano
• far less rushed and distracted
• "perceived lack of time"
• aggresively explore higher-quality activities to fill in the time
• strenuous activity and experimentation
• rediscover activities that generate real satisfaction
• technology serves only a supporting role for more meaningful ends
• the fact that a technology offers SOME value is irrelevant - deploy technology to serve the things you find most important in your life - be HAPPY missing out on everything else
• how addicted he had become to checking news online
• Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes
• This isnt bringing me any kind of happiness - these technologies arent actually adding anything to my life
• Time and space to think
• What made his time at the cottage special  was the lack of people demanding his attention: Lincoln was able to be alone with his thoughts.
• Everyone benefits from regular doses of solitude and anyone who avoids this state for an extended period of time will suffer
• Give your brain the regular doses of quiet it requires to support a monumental life
• to be a subjective state in which your mind is free from input from other minds
• Solitude requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiences - wherever you happen to be
• Edward Gibbon lived a solitary life, but not only did he produce wildly influential work, he also seemed perfectly happy
• Solitude can be just as important for both happiness and productivity
• New technologies help create a culture that undermines time alone with your thoughts, noting that "it matter enormously when that resource is under attack."
• Average user spends three hours a day looking at their smartphone screen and picks up their phone thirty-nine times a day
• Solitude deprivation: A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.
• In 1990s still there were many situations in everyday life that forced you to be alone with your thoughts.
• This prioritization of communication over reflection becomes a source of serious concern.
• ability to clarify hard problems
• regulate your emotions
• build moral courage
• strengthen relationships
• the quality of your life degrades
• She had begun seeing major shifts in student mental health
• We NEED solitude to thrive as human beings we've been systematically reducing this crucial ingredient from our lives.
• Humans are not wired to be constantly wired.
• Assuming you accept my premise that solitude is necessary to thrive as a human being, the natural follow-up question is: How can you find enough of this solitude in the hyper-connected twenty-first century
• I've always had a sort of intuition that for every hour you spend with other human beings you need X number of hours alone. Now what that X represents I dont really know... but it's a substantial ratio.
• Practice: Leave your phone at home
• Everyone secretly fears being bored
• in 90% of your daily life, the presence of a cell phone either doesnt matter or makes things only slightly more convenient. They're useful, but it's hyperbolic to believe its ubiquitous presence is vital.
• life without a cell phone is occasionally annoying, but it's much less debilitating than you might expect.
• The urgency we feel to always have a phone with us is exaggerated.
• Smartphones are the primary enabler of solitude deprivation, therefore it makes sense to try to spend regular time away from these devices - re-creating the frequent exposure to solitude
• I recommend that you try to spend some time away from your phone most days
• It does aim to convince you that its completely reasonable to live a life in which you sometimes have a phone with you and sometimes do not.
• Practice: Take long walks
• Nietzsche began to walk up to eight hours a day. During these walks he would think, eventually filling six small notbooks
• key property of walking - its a fantastic source of solitude
• solitude = Freedom from input from other minds
• contrast the originality of walk-stimulated ideas with those produced by the bookish scholar locked in a library reacting only to other people's work
• but honest-to-goodness, depp-in-the-woods, Nietzsche-on-the-slope-of-a-mountain-style long journeys - these are the grist of productive aloness.
• I sometimes start a walk with the intent of tackling one of these goals, and then soon discovery my mind has other ideas about what really needs attention.
• how hard it would have been to pick up these signals amid the noise that dominates in the absence of solitude (if not walking)
• On a regular basis, go for long walks, preferably somewhere scenic. Take these walks alone, without your phone.
• The hardest part of this habit is making the time. You'll have to invest effort to clear the neccessary hours from your schedule
• Broaden your definition of "good weather"
• The power of specialized craftsmanship in an age of general-purpose computing
• Journaling
• uneven pacing - sometimes I'll fill dozens of pages in a single week, while othe times many months might pass without any new notes
• they provide me a way to write a letter to myself when encountering a complicated decision, or a hard emotion, or a surge of inspiration. 
• Composing my thoughts in the structured form demanded by written prose
• habit of regularly reviewing these entries
• It's the act of writing itself that already yields the bulk of the benefits
• Solitude as time spent alone with your own thoughts
• Writing a letter to yourself is an excellent mechanism for generating exactly this type of solitude
• The key is the act of writing itself. This behavior necessarily shifts you into a state of productive solitude - wrenching shifts you into a state of productive solitude - wrenching you away from the appealing digital baubles and addictive content waiting to distract you, and providing you with a structured way to make sense of whatever important things are happening in your life at the moment.
• Social Media
• The more you use social media to interact with your network, the less time you devote to offline communication.
• The negative associations of Facebook use are comparable in magnitude to the positive impact of offline interaction - suggesting a trade-off
• The key issue is that using social media tends to take people away from the real-world socializing that's massively more valuable
• The small boosts you receive from posting on a friends wall or liking their latest Instagram photo can't come close to compensating for the large loss experienced by no longer spending real-world time with that same friend.
• Distinction between connection (low-bandwidth interaction) vs the much richer, high-bandwidth communication that defines real-world encounters between humans
• Fully present to one another, we learn to listen
• young employees who retreat to email because the thought of an unstructured conversation terrifies them
• My argument is not anti-technology. It's pro-conversation
• Anything textual or non-interactive doesn't count as conversation
• conversation-centric communication requires sacrifices. You'll almost certainly reduce the number of people with whom you have an active relationship. Real conversation takes time.
• Just five days at a camp with no phones or internet was enough to induce major increases in the campers' well-being and sense of connection.
• Instead of seeing these easy clicks as a fun way to nudge a friend, start treating them as poison to your attempts to cultivate a meaningful social life. Stop using them. Dont click "like". Ever.
• Stop leaving comments on social media posts as well
• teach your mind that connection is a reasonable alternative to conversation
• Despite your good intentions, the role of low-value interactins will inevitably expand until it begins to push out the high-value socializing that actually matters.
• Dont be distracted from this reality by the shiny stuff on your screen
• The more you text, the less neccessary you'll deem real conversation, and, perversely, when you do interact face-to-face, your compulsion to keep checking on other interactions on your phone will diminish the value you experience.
• Keep your phone in Do not Disturb mode by default
• Turn off notification when text messages arrive.
• Adjust the settings so calls from a selected list do come through
• Anxiety reduction
• If people are used to grabbing your attention at any time,... (EDUCATE the people around you by not reacting and replying)
• If they need you urgently, they can always call you
• When someone instigates a low-quality connection, suggest they call or meet you during your office hours sometime when it is convenient for them.
• People deploy daily walks for this purpose - (join me for a conversation on the walk)
• low-quality digital distractions play a more important role in people's lives than they imagine
• more and more people are failing to cultivate the high-quality leisure lives that Aristotle identifies as crucial for human happiness
• It's now easy to fill the gaps between work and caring for your family and sleep by pulling out a smartphone or tablet, and numbing yourself with mindless swiping and tapping
• He didnt know what to do with himself once his general access to the world of connected screens was removed
• Cultivating high-quality leisure
• "I never understood the joy of watching other people play sports, cant stand tourist attractions, dont sit on the beach, dont care about what the celebrities and politicians are doing. I seem to get satisfaction only from making stuff
• I'll have a joyful time rotating between carpentry, weight training, writing, playing around with instruments, making lists and executing tasks from them
• for me, inactivity leads to a depressive boredom
• the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity, they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change - not rest, except in sleep
• Expending more energy in your leisure, can end up energizing you more.
• We might tell ourselves theres no greater reward after a hard day at the office than to have an evening entirely devoid of plans or commitments. But we then find ourselves, several hours of idle watching and screen tapping later, somehow more fatigued than when we began
• "craft" describes any activity where you apply skill to create something valuable
• high-value behaviors
• craft is a good source of high-quality leisure
• People have the need to put their hands on tools and to make things. We need this in order to feel whole.
• Many people experience the world largely through a screen now. We live in a world that is working to eliminate touch as one of our senses, to minimize the use of our hands to do things except poke at a screen.
• the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on.
• Become handy
• start with small projects
• Join something
• sports clubs
• Social events
• Gaming evenings, poker round
• Strategize your free time, quarterly plan and reflect
• Go on a hike
• Doing nothing is overrated
• Invest energy into something hard but worthwile almost always returns much richer rewards
• Attention resistance movement
• Its instead quite natural, once you recognize that the power of a general-purpose computer is in the total number of things it enables the user to do, not the total number of things it enables the user to do simultaneously.
• the ideal of single-purpose computing that much more compatible with our human attention system
• "low information diet" in which you aggressively eliminate sources of news and information to help reclaim more time for other pursuits
• focus only on the highest value sources
• limit your attention to the best of the best
• I feel less anxious. I hadnt realized how anxious i had become
• the key to sustained success with this philosophy is accepting that it's not really about technology, but it is instead more about the quality of your life.

The fund - Rob Copeland

•  The theory posited that employees should be tested and ranked by their overall problem-solving ability - known as stratum - and that managers must always be more capable of complex, broad thinking than their subordinates.
• two people inside bridgewater had higher believability scores than dalio himself
• Dalio: Why doesnt believability cascade from me?
• a new rule build into the software: Dalio himself would be the new baseline for believability in virtually all important categories
• A strong Sharpe ration was 2.0. though a ratio of 2.0 or even higher wasn't out of the question for top investors. ... Dalio's approach produced a Sharpe ration of less than 1.0
• Concepts of alpha and beta. Beta was the return that any investor would expect to get simplay from exposure to the markets. ... Alpha, on the other hand, was the extra juice. ... What a talented investment manager could earn on top of the beta return.
• To people that didnt deliver and respond after two reminders:
• "Those who didnt get them in and didnt communicate with you after being nagged twice are fired." ... People who cant do what they are asked or have a quality communication when asked to do something twice are not the sort of people that you want to rely on... Anyway, they are not the sort of people who I want to work here.
• A reporter: "In the time I spent at the firm I saw senior people criticizing subordinates - but not the reverse."
• The one metric highly correlated with how much a country would grow was the number of hours per week its citizens worked.
• "There is no cycle of history. It's a fantasy"
• "I always feel that when someone uses the f-word, they're losing the argument."
• "You've got 375 principles. Those arent principles. Toyota has fourteen principles. Amazon has fourteen principles. The bible has ten. 375 cant possibly be principles. They are an instruction manual.
• Stefanova described herself as having spend "nine years as a seinor executive and managing comitteee adviser reporting directly to the CEO at Bridgewater Associates and serving in critical investment and management leadershipo roles." In truth, she had been far removed from any invetment leadership role, critical or otherwise, but the pitch worked. She raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors,... [No one is checking facts]
• Though relatively few people present knew anything about how the hedge fund actually invested.
• Those at Bridgewater who had been rated highly... They earned it by being an artificial Ray Dalio. ... Model oneself after the only man who mattered. Bridgewater didnt run on believability. It ran on believers. "Ray, this is a religion", Rubinstein said
• Remarkably few people at briedgewater were involved day-to-day with how the hedge fund made money.
• Only a tiny group at Bridgewater, no more than about ten people, enjoyed a different view. This band of almost allm en were chosen not only on merit, but on loyalty. They almost eiwhtout exception had never woeked anywhere else. ... The lucky few satdown with Dalio and were offered a choise. n excahnge for signing a lifetime contract - and swarting never to work at another trading firm - they would be one of theh andful to see ithe inner secrets of Briedgewater, what Dalio had earlier in his career called the Holy Grail.
• There were two version of how Briedgewater invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the markets. One version Dalio told the public, and clients, over and over. The other version was what happened with the Circle of Trust behind closed doors.
• The transpared discussion.. It was also almost entirely irreleant to what Bridgewater did with its money; as one firmer top investment staffer put it: "It's a facade"
• I could run this firm", Jensen once told a friend over drinks, "on a single spreadsheet".
• The secret... was that there was no secret. Dalio was Bridgewater and Dalio decided Bridgewater's investments.
• There was essentially no grand system, no artificial intelligence of any substance, no Holy Grail. There was just Dalio.
• It also helped explain why Bridgewater seemed not to move the market with its trading.
• Dalio could have skipped the cloudy language and more simply described Pure Alpha as a series of if-then rules. If one thing happened, then another would follow.
• Many of the rules dealt simply with following trends.... Dictated following the momentum in various markets.
• Bridgewater was among the first hedge funds to create its own estimates of economic growth, integrating both public statistics and its own market surveys.
• As the years passed, however, Dalio's advantage softened.
• The study showed that Dalio was wrong as much as he was right. Trading on his ideas lately was often akin to a coin flip.
• Dalio picked up the piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it.
• Didnt mention the leib familys help nor his wifes family wealth [to start his company and fund]
• didnt mentino the funds relatively lackluster performance since 2010
• the published principles werent the principles. They were more like Some Principles
• He could apparently accept giving up the practice (radical transparency, the transparency library), but would never give up the story. (he keeps on telling on TV, in his books etc.)
  
• An annual fixed fee of 3.39%, but receiving only an average return of 3.1 %
• By now, the principles were more of a fantasy, or, perhaps more kindly, a collection of fables. ... Though they had nevery had as much impact on the firm's investing as he claimed publicly, they were rapidly cast aside elsewhere across the firm, too.
• It proved though to be a bully when anyone could put him on mute. [covid time all in VC]
• No major company publicly signed up to adopt The Principles
• found out the hard way that intergenerational wealth can be fleeting. Their three sons frittered away the family fortune in usual ways: divorces, the racetrack, poor investments,...
• Bridgewater laid off most of the remaining staff dedicated to building the Principles software. It was 100 mUSD, at least, down the drain.

- "Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

You dont have to be faster than the bear, only faster than your fellow people who are fleeing.

Bhagavadgita - Das Lied der Gottheit

Wer voll von Wahn Genuss erstrebt

Und himmlische Glückseligkeit

Gelangt niemals, o Prithas Sohn

Zur Ruhe und Beständigkeit

begehre nie der Taten Frucht, 

Doch fräöne nicht dem Müßiggang

Ob gut, ob schlecht der Ausgang sei;

Bewahre stets den Gleichmut dir.

Erhaben über alles Tun

Für immer die Erkenntnis bleibt.

In der Erkenntnis suche Schutz;

Verächtlich ist, wen Lohnsucht treibt.

Denn jenseits von Verdienst und Schuld

Steht der,d er die Erkenntnis hat,

Drum wiehe ernst dem Yoga dich,

Er macht gechichkt zu aller Tat.

Die Weisen, die entsagungsvoll

Sich fon der Sucht nach lOhn befrein,

Die gehn, erlösut von Wiederkerh,

Zur leidentrückten Stätte ein.

Hat sich dein Denken einmal erst6

Vom Wirrsal allen Wahns entfernt, 

Wenn so dein Geist, nicht mehr berückt

Von alter *Überliefrung Schein,

Gesammelt, unbeweglich ruht,

Dann ist die wahre Andacht dein.

Wer jede sinnliche Begier,

O Sohn der Pritha, von sich weist,

In sich und durch sich selbst beglü+ckt,

Den, Tapfrer, nennt man fest im Geist.

Wen nie ein Leid erschüttern kann,

Kein Freudentaumel überwand,

Wer frei von Gier, von Furcht und Zorn,

Ein Schweigender wird der genannt.

Wer nicht frohlockt, nicht mürrisch wird,

Ob Glück, ob Unglück ihn befällt,

In allem frei von Leidenschaft,

Der heißt, o Freund, ein Geistesheld.

Drum wer die Leidenschaft bezähmt, 

Mit Herz uind Sinn mir zugewnadt,

Wer seiner Sinne Mister ist,

Nurt der wird fest im Geist genannt.

Aus Neigung dann entsteht Begier,

und aus BEgier wird Zorn erzeugt.

Der Zorn dann wider schafft den Wahn,

Der Wahn Gedächtnisstörung schafft,

Gedächtnisschwund trübt die Vernunft;

Fehlt sie, versiegt des Denkens Kraft.

Doch wer von Hass und Liebe frei,

Betrachtet diese Sinnenwlet,

Der kommt zu stiller Heiterkiet,

Wenn Selbstzucht seinen Weg erhellt.

Wem stille Ruhe ward zuteil,

Den fechten keine Leiden an,

Und überlegene Vernunft

Beherrscht bei seinem Tun ihn dann.

Ist Wahrheit dem, der SICH bezwingt

Den Brahma Zustand nennt man dies,

Wer den erlangt, ist frei von Wahn,

Im Ewigen löst er sich auf

Am Ende seiner Lebensbahn

Vollziehe das notwendige Werk,

Denn Tun ist besser als nicht tun,

Das nicht geschiegt aus Opferpflicht;

Vollbringe darum zwar ein Werk,

Doch hänge an demselben nicht.

Doch wer an seinem Selbst sich freut,

An seinem eignen Selbst vergnügt,

Für den bleibt hier nichts mehr zu tun.

Weil ihm sein eignes Selbst genüft.

Vom Einfluss aller andern frei,

Verfolgt er seines Lebens Plan. 

Wer frei von Wunsch ist und Begier,

Der wird ein Wissender genannt.

Wer nicht der Taten Frucht erstrebt,

Zufrieden, auf sich selbst gestellt,

Der ist von allem Handeln frei,

Auch wenn er handelt in der Welt.

Wer ohne Hoffnung und Besitz

Gezähmten Sinns sein Werk vollstreckt,

Der handelt mit dem Leibe nur,

Er wird von keiner Schuld befleckt.

Wem, was von selbst sich beut, genügt,

Wer keinen Gegensatz mehr spürt,

Wem gleich sind Fehlschlag und Erfolg,

Der wird vom Handeln nicht berührt.

Wem Wissen fehlt und Glaube fehlt,

Wer Zweifel hegt, wird untergehn:

In dieser Wet, in jener Welt,

Wird niemals Glück für ihn entstehn.

Wer alle Werke von sich warf,

Wer jeden Zweifel überwand,

Wer so sein wahres Selbst gewann,

Den fesselt nicht der Werke Band,

Wer seine Pflichten treu erfüllt,

Nicht nach dem Lohn der Taten fragt,

Der ist ein wahrer Yogi nur

Wer nicht mehr hängt an einem Tun

Noch an der Sinnendinge Lauf,

Wer allen Wünschen hat entsagt -

Der - heißt es - stieg zum Yoga auf.

Der steht mit seinem Selbst im Bund,

Der sich aus eigner Kraft besiegt;

In Feindschaft lebt mit seinem Selbst,

Wer seinen Trieben unterliegt.

Wer durch sich selbst sein Selbst bezwang.

Wer maßvoll speist und sich erholt,

Wer maßvoll handelt jederzeit,

Wer maßvoll schläft und maßvoll wacht,

Bei dem tilgt Yoga jedes Leid.

Wer einen wohlbezähhmten Sinn

Im Innern tief befestigt hat,

Von keinerlei Begier beleckt,

Der hat der Andacht sich genaht.

Wenn man durch Selbst das Selbst erschaut

Und rihig sich am Selbst erfreut

Entsagend einem jeden Wunsch,

Den unsre Einbildung gebar,

Durch strenges Denken zügle man

Der unbotmäßigen Sinne Schar.

Allmählich tritt die Ruhe ein,

Wohin das schwanke Denken auch

Usnteten Wesens sich verliert,

Stets wird zur Unterwerfung es

Durch weisen Zwang zurückgeführt

Die höchste Lust den überkommt

Der Ruhe des Gemüts erreicht

Und frei von Trieb und frei von Schuld

Dem makellosen Brahma gleicht.

Wohl ist, o Held, zu zügeln schwer

Des Herzens Vieleweglichkeit,

Doch bannet es, o Kuntis Sohn

Die Übung und Besonnenheit.

Doch wer den rechten Weg beschritt,

Bis zur Vollendung vorwärtsdringt.

Furchtlosigkeit und Lauterkeit,

Im Wissenstrieb Beharrlichkeit,

Freigebigkeit, Enthalsamkeit

Und Opfer, Buße, Redlichkeit

Und Unschuld, Güte, Freundlichkeit,

Wahrhaftigkeit, Leutseligkeit

Und Menschenliebe, Milde, Ernst,

Schamhaftigkeit und Festigkeit,

Kraft, Langmut, Würde, Mäßigkeit,

Ausdauer, Demut, Arjuna,

Sind Zeichen göttlicher Geburt;

Dies halte fest, o Bharata.

Voll unerträglicher Begier

Als wohn im Leben nur das Glück

Von eitlen Hoffnungen genarrt,

Genuss nur suchen, häufen sie

Das frevelhaft erworbne Gut.

"Jetzt hab ich dieses Gut erlangt,

Und der Genuss steht mir bevor,

Jetzt hab ich so viel, morgen mehr."

So denkt und rechnet stets der Tor.

Denn Buße, Reinheit, Redlichkeit,

Geduld, Enthaltsamkeit und Ruh,

Erkenntnis, Wissen, Frömmigkeit

Kommt der Natur des Priesters zu.

Ausdauer, Kraft, Gewandheit, Mut

Wer sein Gemüt geläutert hat,

Wer in Beständigkeit sich übt,

Wer sich der Sinnenwelt verschließt,

Wen weder Hass noch Neigung trübt;

Wer in der Einsamkeit gern lebt,

Mit Fasten Leib und Sinn kasteit,

Wer fromme Selbstbetrachtung übt,

Sich von der Leidenschaft befreit;

Wer Selbstsucht, Wolllust, Denkel, Zorn

Und Prahlsucht völlig abgestreift,

Gelassen, ohne Habe ist,

Der ist zur Göttlichkeit gereift.

Zum Brahm geworden, heiter, still,

Erlöst von Kummer und von Gier

Und allen Wesen gleichgesinnt,

Hegt höchste Liebe er zu mir.