Sign up to get the Sloww Sunday newsletter via email for free:👇
Sloww Sunday Newsletter 076 (Sept 12, 2021) — Theories of Everything, Spirituality + Critical Thinking, Paradoxes, & More
Happy Sunday!
Here’s the latest from Sloww along with the most interesting things I discovered last week.
To respect your time and attention, every newsletter can be read in under 5 minutes. If you enjoy it, please take 5 seconds to share it with some friends or family. 🙏
New News
💬 The new online community—which I’ve started referring to as the “Sloww Society”—is coming together nicely! It’s built on one of the latest and greatest community software solutions (Circle), so it’s easy on the eyes with minimalist design and easy to use with intuitive navigation. If all the setup continues to go smoothly, it will be launching to Premium members by next week’s newsletter.
“I think what I’m most excited for is also maybe the simplest thing and what I keep hearing referenced these days – ‘find your people’. There’s something special about Sloww and those it attracts. I’d love to simply get to know who all exists in this community, why they’re drawn to it, and what they’re up to / thinking about.” — David W.
Sloww Stuff
🧭 A Mini Guide to Life Purpose
Getting Started with Life Purpose & Meaning (for Heroic Humans)
I had an Existential Crisis! (+7 Ways to Positively Overcome It)
10 Deep Thoughts to Start Your Hero’s Journey to Finding Life Purpose
What is a Talent Stack? (& How I’m Thinking about My Unique Stack)
Edit Your Purpose: The Story of the Cracked Pot (Short Story)
🔒Life Purpose Search Synthesis: I Googled “Life Purpose” & Read 100+ Articles (Literally)
🔒Ikigai 2.0 eBook: A Step-by-Step Guidebook & Workbook to Finding Life Purpose & Making Money Meaningfully (also available for individual sale here)
Modern Knowledge
🌌 Theories of Everything (and more!)
(YouTube)
I just discovered a new YouTube channel that you may also enjoy. It’s called “Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal.” Curt says he is exploring theoretical physics, consciousness, free will, and God. And, he has some epic-length podcasts (anywhere from 1-6 hours) with some big names including: Stephen Wolfram, Iain McGilchrist, John Vervaeke, Donald Hoffman, Thomas Campbell, Rupert Spira, and many more.
Timeless Wisdom
🤔 The Missing Ingredient in Spirituality is Critical Thinking
(14 mins | Medium)
This is an excellent read by Jules Evans talking to Rick Archer. Rick had a troubled youth but emerged to become a leading teacher of Transcendental Meditation. In 2009, he founded “Buddha At The Gas Pump” and has interviewed an astounding 600+ spiritual teachers! It’s fascinating to hear a perspective on how spirituality has changed over the last 50 years. If you just want the highlights, I published a short Twitter thread.
“The missing ingredient is critical thinking. Developing critical thinking skills is important on the spiritual path. Many traditional teachers such as the Buddha and Shankara emphasized this, and themselves were sharp, precise critical thinkers … Experiencing subtler levels of creation requires a refined ability to discern reality from unreality. Failing to develop that ability can result in getting lost in imaginary realms and fanciful thinking, as we are now witnessing.” — Rick Archer
Mind Expanding
🤯 Paradoxes That No One Can Solve
(12 mins | YouTube)
I’m fascinated by paradoxes. It’s a paradox to me that paradoxes are uncommon knowledge since they seem to be such a common part of life. This video is a nice overview of a few different types of paradoxes along with some classic examples. Here’s a “simple” one as a teaser:
“‘This statement is false.’ This four-word statement implodes all logic. If the statement is true, then the statement is false. But if the statement is false, then the statement is true. For the statement’s claim that it is false to be true necessitates it being false and vice versa ad infinitum.”
“The ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ‘ought to be.'” — Richard Feynman
🤔 Deep Thought
You are 1 human with 1% of history.
It’s estimated that 108,000,000,000 humans have ever lived on Earth. You are 1.
Recorded human history dates back ~5,400 years. Your average lifespan is ~80 (1%).
This feeling of insignificance provides freedom from fear to do something significant.
(PS: This was a note-to-self I saved during my existential crisis in 2015-16. It helped give me a paradigm shift in perspective that pushed me to pursue Sloww).
💭 Wise Words
“Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, ‘I’ll get back on track tomorrow,’ try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoon, evening. If you blow one quarter, you get back on track for the next quarter. Fail small, not big.” — Gretchen Rubin
Sharing: If you enjoyed this issue, please help grow Sloww by sending this post to some friends or family who could benefit from it or by sharing it on social media. Anyone can subscribe for free here.
Support: Sloww is a one-human labor of love. If you’re interested in supporting my work, there are several financial and non-financial ways to support.
Feedback: Have something you want to say, or just want to say hi? It’s always much appreciated. Just send me an email or reach out socially.
Have a conscious week!
Kyle Kowalski
Synthesizer & Solopreneur, Sloww
Leave a Reply