🔥✌🏻 two truths at once, 💻 great meta skill of the next century
#79: a weekly newsletter for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.
Welcome to the 79th edition of the Antifragile 🔥.
I’m doing away with the 4-item format. Which means the name also loses the “4”.
Instead, I’m opting for a format where I will provide as much value as I have for that week. It might be 1. It might be 10.
This week, it’s 2.
We hold two truths at once and identify one of the great meta skills of the next century.
With love,
Chris
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Here’s this week’s antifragile 🔥:
✌🏻 Holding two truths at once
💻 What a computer makes possible
1.) ✌🏻 Holding two truths at once
…the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the “impossible,” come true.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
If you were to rate your life on a scale of 1 to 10, what would it be?
I’d probably give mine a 9/10.
I count incredible people among those closest to me. I live in a place I love. I love my work. I’m healthy. My family’s healthy.
There are things I want to adjust, sure. But overall?
Amazing life.
9/10.
But try this reframe on for size.
What if the life you think is a 9… is actually a 2?
Not because things are bad.
But because you simply don’t know what you don’t know.
The reality is that we’re all blind to the lives we never lived. The opportunities we never saw. The paths we never considered. There are infinite alternate versions of our lives sitting just outside our purview.
Which means it’s entirely possible for a bizarro universe Chris to be sitting in front of his parallel universe TV, chuckling to himself that this schmuck thinks his life is a 9 when it’s actually a 2.
But there’s a trap here.
Follow this 2/10 idea too far, and it’s easy to feel deflated. Like you’re missing out on some unimaginable version of life that’s far better than the one you’re currently living. A twisting of the existential knife.
I really should have been a rock star, see! Crippling drug addiction and no privacy would have definitely been a real 9/10!
Which is why there’s an essential second part to this experiment. Really, the only way to hold this thought without it turning toxic.
You have to believe two things at the same time.
Belief #1: Your life might be a 2/10 and you just don’t realize it.
Belief #2: Your life is also a 10/10 right now exactly as it is.
You can be missing out on things that would elevate your life experience 100-fold…and also feel utter ecstasy with your life as it stands in this very moment.
Both can be true. (It’s your brain after all, you call the shots)
Holding the first keeps you curious and open to change. You become aware that there are still entire universes of possibility you haven’t discovered yet.
Holding the second keeps you grounded. Grateful. Present. Fully satisfied with the exact life you’re living right now.
Thinking my life is a 9/10, in a way, gives the worst of both worlds. I’m disincentivized to consider drastically different paths, while perceiving my day-to-day as imperfect.
But with 2/10 & 10/10, I get the best of both worlds.
Imperfection and Perfection.
Ambition and Satisfaction.
I’ll take that cake and eat it too, thank you very much.
Thanks to Jenna for the idea!
2.) 💻 what a computer makes possible
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks that were completely unnecessary to do before.
I believe one of the great meta-skills of the next century will be understanding what otherworldly abilities of AI are completely useless to us and should actually be ignored.
Yes, you can technically create a formatted PDF of quotations you imported via API from your Kindle highlight database on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which can then be exported to your reMarkable tablet, on which you can take notes on said quotations…
…or you could just sit down right now and start f*cking writing.
Yes, you can prompt an AI to generate 47 variations of the perfect business idea, ask it to analyze market size, competitive positioning, pricing strategy, and long-term brand narrative, then have it summarize everything into a tidy one-page strategy document…
…or you could just go talk to ten actual humans and find out if anyone gives a shit.
To be able to pick your head up above the fog of the modern rush, rub the crust from your eyes, and say, “Wait…why am I doing this again? What am I actually trying to do here?”
The real skill will be remembering the thing—the thing that actually brings you meaning or value—you were trying to do in the first place.
Thanks to Jason for reminding me of the quote!
Just one thing for you this week—
Forget the 2/10. Why is your life—and everyone in it—a 10/10, right now?
With love,
Chris
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Point 1 reminded me of the Copenhagen Interpretation, which perhaps we’ve discussed. E.g. “reality” is contingent on the means by which we observe/measure it.