Rational Creatives #012
A few days into my intellectual keto experiment
Hey there,
Welcome to another edition of Rational Creatives, the only newsletter in the web that helps you combine Charlie Munger’s rationality with Pablo Picasso’s creativity and become an unstoppable creator.
Let’s dive right into it.
Intellectual Keto: first couple days
Last Sunday I announced I was going on an intellectual keto diet. A few days later, I started. Even though it hasn't been even a week since then, I'm already feeling different.
Now that I've limited by use of Twitter to only 45 min per day, I feel liberated. It might sound like I'm exaggerating, but during the last couple of months I felt trapped. I felt out of control. I felt like I was at the mercy of my Twitter feed. Don't get me wrong, though. Twitter is an amazing place and a wonderful tool. But it's also filled with a lot of noise and shiny distractions. If it’s not used with intention, things can't get nasty very quickly.
On a similar note, I feel like FOMO is slowly fading away and I'm pretty sure it won't be long until JOMO shows up. However, I suspect I might have a predisposition for JOMO (I've enjoyed it intermittently throughout the years), so be skeptical about this.
Since my use of Twitter has decreased considerably, I've been able to spend more time reading blog posts and dense books (more on that later). I realized that blog posts and, especially, books are easier to escape from than social media. If a book is boring, I can just skip the chapter or find a new book or just stop reading. This is extremely difficult to do on Twitter and other social media sites. There, you can scroll down your feed forever until you find something worth paying attention to. And once you do, the potential for (unhealthy) rabbit holes is endless. This is one of the reasons it's so easy to overconsume content from social media vs. overconsume content from a book.
Another big difference between the content from social media and the content from the books I'm reading is their density. On social, the things people discuss tend to be shallow (lack of depth) or trendy (lack of longevity). While in my reading, I'm grappling with timeless, difficult subjects: randomness and uncertainty, the dangers of scientific illiteracy, the value of philosophy. Certainly, high-density content is much harder to consume — it requires focus, more chewing and longer digesting. But it's also far more enriching, rewarding and stimulating than its low-density counterpart.
Besides the 45 min Twitter limit, I came up with another useful rule to make the most out of my mornings: no Twitter until 11 am. I've been able to stick to this rule and it's helped me get more reading done early in the morning. However, I'm still not devoting enough time to writing every day. I'm definitely consuming more wholesome, timeless content than before but I'm still consuming more than I am creating. Now, it's crystal clear that I need to set a daily writing schedule for myself and stick to it religiously.
Finally, two rules that have been hard to follow: reading blog posts that are at least 5 years old, and keeping a record of all the contents I consume. To be fair, I haven't been actively looking for old blog posts the same way I have with books. Most of the blog posts I read this week were articles I found through other people, while doing research for an essay or decluttering my web browser (I had almost 500 open browser tabs and am now cleaning up my mess). My first impression, though, is that finding great, old blog posts could be tricky. But I could be wrong.
Keeping a record of the things I consume (deep sigh)… That I haven't even tried. Initially, I thought it could a good way to hold myself accountable and make sure I was following all the other rules. But now it seems like it's too much work. I guess I have to find a way to make it seamless and easy, or eventually get rid of it. Will do my best to at least give it a try.
Books I’m reading
In case you are curious, these are the books I chose to get started with my intellectual keto:
The Information Diet by Clay Johnson: Since this whole experiment is an attempt to improve my information diet, I figured this book could provide some context + useful advice.
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant: I’ve loved philosophy since I was in high school, but I couldn’t remember when was the last time I read a book on the subject. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to go back to it (and finally read one of Will Durant’s books). So far I’ve just read the preface and the first chapter, which is dedicated to my all-time favorite philosopher — Socrates. It’s a profound, beautiful book.
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan: I’m fascinated by the scientific method and the way great scientists think. On top of that, I’m a big fan of Carl Sagan. My goal with this book is to get a better understanding of the scientific method and, hopefully, refine my BS detector.
Fooled by Randomness by NN Taleb: Ever since I read The Biggest Bluff a few months ago, I’ve been meaning to learn more about randomness and uncertainty. This book, which is Taleb’s first work on the subject, seemed like the perfect introduction. So far it’s been a delight.
A Technique For Producing Ideas by James Webb Young: Creative work can be messy. So having a step-by-step framework for coming up with new, useful ideas at will can make everything much easier. Apparently, Mr. Webb knew a thing or two about that.
Weekly Gems
On Friday, I started cleaning up my browser and closing old open tabs. Good news is that there was a bunch of interesting and useful stuff within the mess. Most of the gems I’ll share below come from there. Many of them aren’t necessarily recent, but rest assured they are all highly valuable:
Learn In Public by SWYX. This essay was my first encounter with the “learning in public” philosophy, and an absolute game changer. This read gave me the final push to stop lurking and start putting my work out there.
Almost 6 months ago (damn, time flies!), David Perell wrote a Mid-Year Review where he reflects on different aspects of his work, projects and endeavors. This piece allows you to see the world through David’s eyes and have a better understanding of what it means (and takes) to be a successful online creator. What I found most interesting, though, was the 12 Problems section, where he shares 12 thought-provoking questions he’s pondering and trying to solve for. Out of the 12, these were favorites:
How can I run an innovative, operationally efficient company without increasing stress and sacrificing creativity?
How can I monetize a low-stress life where I get to explore ideas for a living?
How can I push myself and reflect on my weaknesses without descending into self-loathing?
How can I learn to enjoy activities as ends, not means?
How can I grow my audience while avoiding fame and maintaining privacy?
How can I grow my audience while avoiding fame and maintaining privacy?
Nat Eliason is one of the finest bloggers I’ve discovered this year. His site is a dream come true for anyone who likes to read well-written essays on a wide range of topics. The first article I read by him was How to Start a Blog that Changes Your Life. When he published it back in July, I was setting up my blog and his different perspectives where incredibly helpful.
Almost 12 years ago, the legendary Ryan Holiday wrote this great blog post called The Canvas Strategy. Reflecting back on his first professional years, he reformulates a decent piece of advice he was given back then and transforms it into a beautiful directive: Find canvases for other people to paint on. Although he thought of it as career advice, I think you could also apply it to audience-building. In any case, I highly recommend you check it out (plus, it’s keto friendly).
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