Weekly Wednesday Wisdom #5

The First Edition of 2023.

Happy New Year fellow friends and lovers of wisdom,

I’ve got a surprising amount of ground to cover so let’s hop to it!

What am I reading?

Discipline Is Destiny continues. I remark that one of the longest sections features Queen Elizabeth II, which in light of her recent passing, serves as a lovely tribute despite my relative indifference to the royal family. Ryan Holiday’s formula, structure, process and writing is inspiring while contrasting exemplars of virtue with antitheses from history. I particularly enjoy the poetic license with which he divides the book into three sections: the exterior (the body), the inner domain (the temperament), and the magisterial (the soul).

I also finished 5000 Words Per Hour, a quick little read on how to massively increase output. The good news is that I already practice something similar in my journaling practice. A great reminder nonetheless of the creative principle across disciplines that production and revision (or performance and practice in the context of music) are best kept separate; this requires constant vigilance to do so. Another reminder to seriously try dictation, and start tracking output of writing sessions (thankfully that’s somewhat covered in my journaling at new.750words.com - though my journaling isn’t particularly goal-directed)

What am I listening to?

Building A Second Brain - This was recommended as a primer to developing a personal knowledge management system which remains likely one of my bottlenecks to prolific writing. He has plenty of fun four letter acronyms like CODE (Collect, Organize, Distill and Express) and PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives). While I still have a bit to go, one key insight is taking notes based on actionability and relevance. This is also in alignment with my developing theme for this year on systems, workflow and output.

David Deida, author of The Way Of The Superior Man and many other books – absolutely remarkable that one can write several books and go on to have a lifetime career of teaching addressing essentially two things – the masculine, the feminine and all of its permutations.

What am I watching?

I finished watching a Lex Fridman and John Vervaeke podcast. I believe it was Lex’s first meeting with John. As an observer somewhat more familiar with the guest than the host, it was fascinating to watch the freshness and earnestness of Lex’s inquiry.

I also watched a session at the end of the year Sebastian Marshall from www.ultraworking.com speak on industrial philosophy (as contrasted with academic philosophy). Philosopher-in-residence for January at the Stoa – www.stoa.ca - I signed up for their Pentathlon – also in alignment with my ruminations and intentions for this year's theme around workflow, systems and output.

What am I thinking about?

Some observations:

• January and Janus, the Roman Two-faced “god of all beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and ending.” One face looking forward, the other backward. An opportunity to reflect upon the past and envision the future as is not uncommon among this time for those into personal growth. Sort of hidden in plain sight baked into the Gregorian calendar.

• Remarking upon the ritual of Christmas and its inherent symbolism – the connections with Saturnalia; a decorated evergreen tree – evergreen as undying through winter – a time of darkness and the least light, the nature of ornaments – often pretty and shiny: balls, lights, garlands, a star at the highest point – a symbol of potential, of light in the darkness, of divinity; wrapped gifts at the bottom of the tree for loved ones. Expressing love, care and thoughtfulness – near the roots of the tree. The verticality of contrast between the gifts hidden in wrapping paper at the bottom and the star at the top – the apex, the brightest.

• The parallels between the Buddhist practice of noting – becoming aware of the beginnings and endings of events as an exercise in mindfulness of anicca, impermanence. How a past year review is like noting the end of a breath.

Reflections on Wisdom as inspired by the title of this newsletter.

What is wisdom?

• Vervaeke’s recursive loops: how rationality and intelligence are very weakly correlated; that rationality is intelligence turned upon itself to address systematic cognitive biases biologically inherent due to trade-offs in accuracy and speed as a function of evolution. Wisdom construed as a second order loop of rationality turned upon itself in order to become more rational.

• Vervaeke’s connections between insight and wisdom. Provoking insight cascades, reframing problems, implicit and explicit learning, opponent processing. 

• Sophia versus phronesis. Phronesis – practical wisdom. Phronesis as analogous to the concept of rectitude in feudal Japan roughly understood as doing the right thing at the right time. Whereas “phronesis is about making the best decision under the particular circumstances." (Trowbridge and Ferrari, "Sophia and Phronesis in Psychology, Philosophy, and Traditional Wisdom," Research In Human Development, 2011)

• Wisdom features chiefly in Stoicism as the last of the cardinal virtues. Some semantic distinctions between phronesis as one of the four cardinal virtues and wisdom as the sum of all four cardinal virtues working in concert. (ibid)

• Also features prominently in Buddhism – as pañña (in Pali; prajñā in Sanskrit); Cultivating panna through vipassana or insight meditation is what supposedly leads to enlightenment according to some paths – described in Buddhist texts as “the understanding of the true nature of phenomena.” Sounds pretty wise to me.

• Perhaps wisdom is a dance between yin and yang along the sinusoidal edge between the two as depicted in the taijitu symbol, of knowing when to speak or act; and just as importantly when not. The Taoist concept of wu wei – non-doing, of effortlessness. “Nature does not hurry but everything is accomplished.”

• As the Serenity Prayer goes: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

• “Wisdom is a practice that reflects the developmental process by which individuals increase in self-knowledge, self-integration, nonattachment, self-transcendence, and compassion, as well as a deeper understanding of life. This practice involves better self regulation and ethical choices, resulting in greater good for oneself and others.” (ibid)

What am I working on?

An annual review. New year’s intentions. Systems. Output. One Thing At A Time. Workflow. Leveling up my copywriting and freelancing through Kevin Rogers Copy Chief community (www.copychief.com) and Escape Velocity program. Reading. Practicing. Meditation. Tai Chi. Yoga. 

Learning to use a Christmas gift – the Foci – www.foci.ai. I’m still in the beginning stages though its promise is attractive. I have some inklings about testing how it functions while meditating – an off-label usage experiment I would be interested in conducting.

That’s all for this week folks.

I’ll love and leave you with Vervaeke’s words from the above podcast interview.

“Flow wisely”

Tai