Daily Aphorism #2: The World is Your Playroom.

[This is a continuing series of 100 Daily Aphorisms that I started writing on August 21, 2021].

There really are two kinds of people! One kind wrings their hands and frets about everything that might not be perfectly safe and happy, peering out at the threatening world through their blinds. The other kind sees the world as a big playroom, filled with opportunities to have adventures. For this second type of person, there are two kinds of adventures: either you try something and it is exciting/fun/inspiring or you try something and you fail, which is a learning experience, a foundation for future happy adventures.

What is the world for you, an ominous place or a cheerful playroom?

We are all looking at the same physical world, but we are seeing that world through two different lenses. To explore the world in a joyful way, it will takes a lot of work. It will take a lot of Vitamin Y, uttering “Yes” to get started. It will take grit, the willingness to get back up if knocked down. You’ll also need to understand antifragility: you will thrive in a world because it is filled with stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. Do you understand Nietzsche’s point that what doesn’t destroy you often makes you stronger?

If you are afraid to go out into the world as a joyful adventurer, my prescription for you is to go look in the mirror, think about your limited hours on the planet, and ask yourself how they will write your epitaph. Imagine that it reads: “Here lies _____ ______ , who was afraid to leave the house.” That epitaph should scare you far more than the world.

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Teachers Suing Woke Springfield Missouri Public School District

I keep hearing people claim that people like me are trying to prevent schools from "teaching history." Take a look at this federal complaint and the documents leaked to Christopher Rufo. Then ask whether these claimants are trying to prevent the schools from "teaching history"

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How to Avoid Getting in our own Way

I'm a longtime fan of Eric Barker's blog, "Barking up the Wrong Tree." He opens a recent blog post with this incredible story:

George was late again.

It was 1939 and math PhD student George Dantzig arrived to find he had already missed much of the lecture. The two homework problems were already up on the chalkboard. He scribbled them down.

But this day only got worse. When he got to work on the problems that night, he realized they were hard. Really hard. George was a super smart guy but these problems were insanely difficult. They took him days to complete. So now he was going to be late again, this time turning in his homework. Yeesh.

He delivered them to his professor, Jerzy Neyman, apologizing profusely. Neyman’s eyes went wide. George worried he was going to be in a lot of trouble. But that’s not why Neyman was reacting so strangely…

The two problems on the board hadn’t been homework at all — they were two issues in statistical theory that had been deemed “unsolvable” by the best mathematicians in the world. Far from being angry, Neyman was blown away.

Yeah, George was a genius. And, no, the lesson here is not “show up late.”

Point is, if George had known what he was up against, he never would have even tried. His amazing potential might never have been recognized.

Barker springs off this anecdote to offer five tips for getting more done. The title of his article: "How To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done – 5 Expert Tips."

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National Crisis of Smartphone-Inflicted Loneliness Hurting our Teenagers

Jonathan Haidt and Jean M. Twenge warn that we need to separate teenagers from their smartphones:

Teenage loneliness was relatively stable between 2000 and 2012, with fewer than 18 percent reporting high levels of loneliness. But in the six years after 2012, rates increased dramatically. They roughly doubled in Europe, Latin America and the English-speaking countries, and rose by about 50 percent in the East Asian countries . . . All young mammals play, especially those that live in groups like dogs, chimpanzees and humans. All such mammals need tens of thousands of social interactions to become socially competent adults. In 2012 it was possible to believe that teens would get those interactions via their smartphones — far more of them, perhaps. But as data accumulates that teenage mental health has changed for the worse since 2012, it now appears that electronically mediated social interactions are like empty calories. Just imagine what teenagers’ health would be like today if we had taken 50 percent of the most nutritious food out of their diets in 2012 and replaced those calories with sugar. So what can we do? We can’t turn back time to the pre-smartphone era, nor would we want to, given the many benefits of the technology. But we can take some reasonable steps to help teens get more of what they need.

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