Finding the Limit, Learning From Animals, and Working With Your Hands — 6 Ideas
Six ideas that I’ve been thinking about this past week
Here are six ideas I’ve been thinking about this past week that are helping me improve my body, mind, and spirit. I hope that they help you as well.
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1. The Importance of Finding “The Limit”
When we find the limit, we find who we are.
Many of us grow up without ever testing our abilities at the edge of the known and unknown. That dangerous place where one perfectly placed — or missed — step leads us to failure or the serendipity of success. Most of us choose not to seek this place because of the fear of losing our balance, of falling off. This defense mechanism actively disrupts our potential to understand our true capacity.
Instinctually though, we’re drawn to respect and admire those whose craft reflects this ability to live at the limit. Artists who are willing to say “no” to a night out drinking so that they can have more time in the studio. Musicians who forego a life of normalcy to tour for ten months out of the year. Athletes who arrive an hour early to practice and stay an hour late. The best condition themselves to find peace in the grey unknown between failure and greatness. They don’t listen to others. They seek this limit at all costs.
I am a fan of Formula 1 racing for this reason. The limit — in some cases, one-thousandth of a second — is what separates the driver who qualifies first and the driver who sits at the back of the grid. This mental and physical exploration of this thread line happens in real-time, at speeds of over 170 mph; a balancing act for the man in the cockpit between greatness and death.
Below; the active pursuit of the limit. Patrick Depailler in the Long Beach Grand Prix, 1978.
Whoever you are, whatever lights a fire under you in life, you have a responsibility to yourself to find that limit. To have the courage to fail and to try again. To seek the absolute furthest edge of your abilities and to feel that profound sense of equanimity that comes from living in that moment.
2. What We Can Learn From Animals
The human mind is a blessing and a curse. We’re burdened with conscious thought and the ability to reflect on our place and time in the world.
When physically, spiritually, and emotionally integrated, we can live in alignment with our nature. We are present, our work is fulfilling, and our bodies, minds, and relationships are healthy, giving us vitality and energy. When we’re disconnected from out nature, time speeds past us, we’re filled with a gnawing tension, and the daily fulfillment of life becomes a mirage.
In the West, we’re in the midst of a crisis of meaning. An internal psychological war. Life feels like a burden for many of us. Among young people in particular, rates of depression and anxiety, are at all-time highs. Our environment and technology have hijacked our minds, and driven the stakes of negative emotions and worry deep into our psyche. Because we can’t simply snap our fingers and escape this current paradigm, we have to learn to adapt. We have to come back to ourselves and our nature as human beings.
I could fill a hundred pages with reasons of “why” we’re currently in this psychological malaise, or I could share a simple practice to ground the often overthinking and worrying mind. To return. Pay close attention to animals.
These same cognitive trials do not burden animals. They simply are in the world. The bird doesn’t think about which branch it will land on. The cat doesn’t think about whether it’s eating its favorite food. When the sun is shining, the dog rests and sleeps on the warm grass.
When you observe the world and its creatures, you’ll be reminded of what it feels like to be in your nature. To be connected with the instinct inside of you that compels you toward a specific action or direction. This is how you find joy and meaning in work, exercise, and the general business of life.
Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, and thus neither melancholy nor bored.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
3. Writing As Music
This is beautiful writing advice from Gary Provost. A must-read for anyone who speaks or writes.
4. Working With Your Hands
There is something profoundly satisfying about working with your hands to create something tangible and real. My weekend projects are a form of meditation. A good audiobook, power tools, my dog, and sunshine. That is my definition of a perfect Saturday afternoon.
Before buying our first home, this feeling was a mystery to me. Not because I’d never worked outside or had a job doing manual labor. There was simply no need to own or use any tools save for what I could fit in a small bag. When we bought our 1936 bungalow in 2021, immediately I was thrust into the brand-new and intimidating world of DIY renovation. All I can say is thank god for YouTube.
It’s different when you’re working on your property, with your tools, and making mistakes that won’t cost you a stern lecture or an hour of pay.
With a majority of young people unable or unwilling to buy a cheap fixer-upper like we did, it makes me consider the consequences of having a generation with minimal practical hands-on skills. I know very few men (or women for that matter) over the age of 65 who don’t understand how to do basic appliance fixes, use a skillsaw, or repair a leaky faucet.
It’s not the most important thing to know until it is. And I’m glad I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to learn.
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5. The Consequences of AI
This video was created by OpenAI’s new “Sora” project. A text-to-video model that has, once again, proven that we’re in the midst of an exponential growth curve of world-changing AI tech.
I wouldn’t classify myself as an AI “doomer”. But I am profoundly worried about what this technology is going to do to us at a global level.
I made a short pros and cons list and I am interested to hear your thoughts.
Pros:
Will allow individuals to create in new mediums with much more ease without the constraints that many large media companies face
Will streamline large industries and companies that rely on skilled contractors or editors
Will allow for interactive educational experiences and give an added dimension to any field where video is predominately used
Cons:
This current iteration still feels “not quite real”
Will put a lot of very talented people who have spent years on their crafts out of work
AI has a political bias (just look at Google’s recent Gemini blunder)
This tech will be used extensively for propaganda and control, blurring the lines between fiction and reality
I’m sure I missed something in both of these categories. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
6. The Radical Individualism of Bill Burroughs
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.”
-Bill Burroughs
As always, thanks for reading
-Joe