Abhis.blog

ban interesting and good

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ban interesting and good from your vocabulary.

Using them means that you haven’t taken the effort to create a thoughtful response.

If someone (earnestly) asks you how your holiday was. Don’t say good. Describe it in detail, what you did, and more importantly, what you learnt.

If someone asks you for your opinion on a movie/TV/book, don’t say interesting. Take the time to explain the ideas.

If you resort to saying interesting and good, it means you haven’t thought it through yourself.

be slow

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

slow is smooth and smooth is fast

In rock climbing- The less effort you expend and the more precise you are with movement, the more effective you are.

When playing the guitar, you want to minimise the distance your fingers come off the fretboard. Minimise the travel time.

When writing to convey a point, you want to do it as succinctly as possible. Good writing is hard.

depersonalise ideas

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Evaluate ideas independently of who said them. Read books/blogs/tweets without caring about the history of the person saying them.

This skews your judgement. It will lead you to disregard the idea if you don’t like the person.

Take the idea at face value.

Don’t quote. If people ask you where you got your ideas, then of course you can point them to the book/person/resource.

Listen to music without knowing who the artist is. Consume art without caring who made it.

Do

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Don’t theorise- do

Don’t over plan. Go do and learn whilst doing

You learn in motion, not whilst stationary

Better to act your way into a new way of thinking, rather than think your way into a new way of acting

Learning by doing is the most concrete form of learning.

Don’t read about a topic. Read about a topic, then write something in your own words.

don't be intelligent

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Trade your intelligence for bewilderment

Wonder and curiosity are the best guides.

Ask the stupid questions

Be the dumbest person in the room.

Put yourself in intellectually uncomfortable situations.

Question the premise of the question.

Speak simply.

don't compete

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Don’t compete. Escape competition through authenticity.

Find a niche. Focus on your strengths

Don’t be the best. Be one of the only.

Work smart, not necessarily hard.

How can you get 80% of the results, by putting in 20% of the effort?

Focus on what you do, not what you say.

Operate within your circle of competence

Follow your genuine intellectual curiosity

Create a local net positive

don't follow your passion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Don’t follow your passion.

Have a day job 9-5 that brings you stability. Be really really good at. Specialise as a producer, so you can diversify as a consumer.

Then manically pursue your other interests/art in your free time.

You separate making an income from the act of creation.

This is the healthiest and happiest way to be a creative human being

Create for an audience of one. Yourself.

don't lie

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Always tell the truth. Then you have nothing to remember.

You are grounded in reality. Your internal thoughts match your external speech and actions. A vastly more peaceful way to live.

If someone asks for your opinion, rather than lying to make them feel good, you can tell them the truth (in a respectful way). This is way more valuable then telling a comforting lie.

form habits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Motivation is overrated. Habits are everything.

We don’t rise to the level of our expectation, we fall to the level of our training

Once a habit is formed, it feels wrong NOT to do it.

Future me : a checklist for habit

Meditation
Exercise
Some form of writing/journalling/self inquiry/conversation
A creative act : music/art
Walking/Sun exposure
Mediterranean diet / intermittent fasting
Limiting caffeine
Sleeping well
Reading/Learning
Ritualised meet-up/conversation/‘hanging out’

What gets measured gets managed

give up

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If something is not working after diligent effort. Quit.

Spend the time elsewhere. You only have about 4000 weeks in a life.

The etymology of decide is ’to sever/remove/cut away’. Decision making is about removing.

Have only a few priorities. Let go of the rest

If you scatter your attention too much, you accomplish nothing.

Sunlight on a log does nothing. But when you focus the light with a magnifying glass, it catches fire

make 100 crap things

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Perfect is the enemy of good

Make 100 crap things rather than focusing on one perfect thing. Quality comes through repetition and iteration.

Write 100 bad blog posts. Maybe one will be good.

Sing 100 bad songs. Maybe one will sound nice.

Sketch 100 bad drawings. Maybe one will look good.

Attempt 100 will be better than attempt 1. If not, make 100 more.

minimise

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Minimise

Own few things. Physically and mentally.

When something is not useful or beautiful, let go.

Constraints lead to creativity. More tools doesn’t mean better results. It is often paralysing.

Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford. (KEVIN KELLEY)

pay attention

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pay attention.

Focus is all you have. If you want to do anything meaningful with your life, develop the ability to focus. This leads to mastery.

Cut out distraction from your life. Minimise

Life is long but we waste most of it by paying attention to things that don’t matter. Write down your priorities.

Pay close attention to the contents of consciousness. There is something profound there.

Enshittification

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I came across the term ’enshittification’ coined by the great Cory Doctorow.

It’s the idea that things/platforms decay overtime. This is because the incentive structures we’ve created mean that you need to increase output with less input in order to maximise profits to shareholders. This leads to worse quality.

Craft

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Reading this beautiful long reads post on the value of sustained attention and craft in the age of AI

Mary Oliver writes that “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” I am learning to pay attention, to be devoted to these songs, this craft, this instrument. And this is formative. As screens fragment our attention, as AI pushes for speed and efficiency at the cost of our humanity, as the academy puts a pinch of incense on the altar of innovation, slowing down and revisiting a text again and again (whether sheet music, a book, a recording, a poem) is a revolutionary act. It turns you into a particular kind of reader, one attentive to the minute, to nuances, to how meaning can shift ever so slightly when this word is used rather than that.

Be more vocal

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I had a great conversation with a friend the other day and realised I need to be more vocal with my ’takes'.

When I leave my thoughts and opinions in my mind, and don’t choose to articulate them, they are fuzzy. It feels as if I could articulate them, when when I actually do try verbalise them, I realise that I don’t really know what I think.

When the words come out, they’re logically inconsistent, messy, factually incorrect.

One Hand Clapping

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A fantastic book that I think I need to read again to fully absorb. ‘Awe’ inducing in the way the best science books are. I can no way compress the book into a short blog post, but here are a few take aways.

The book opens with the conundrum, that if existence is all material, atoms and chemical reactions, then why does it feel like something ’to be’? Essentially pushing back against materialism/reductionism, and opening a bucketload of questions and threads.

Instrumental vs Metamorphic Writing

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I came across this fantastic distinction by Venkatesh Rao on different forms of writing. Particularly in dividing writing into instrumental and metamorphic.

Instrumental writing is that which is done for some end. To convey information, persuade, cajole, entertain, pillory etc. You have a goal for the writing. Examples include writing emails, reports, how to guides, scientific writing, journalism, news reports, business books, screenplays etc.

Metamorphic writing is that which ‘attempts to change the author in unpredictable ways’. They are about transforming the self. “If you don’t like, or are bored with, who you are right now, whether as a writer, or more generally as a person, you can write yourself into an unpredictable new version.” Examples include : journals, personal blogs, poetry, fiction, memoirs, research writing, spiritual texts etc.

The Drama

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Watched ’the Drama’ this afternoon.

I won’t give away ’the big twist’, although it happens fairly early on in the movie.

It starts off as a meet cute ’typical romance film’ and ends as a more realistic take on the two people sharing their intimate inner worlds with each other.

As pointed out by my sister after discussing it, it was ‘Emma’ (Zendaya) who was the most empathetic person in the movie. She was the one who always made the attempt to restart.

On Instrumentalism

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, I climbed Mount Snowdon in Wales, a 5 hour leisurely journey up the Pyg track and down the Miner’s track. Every year 600,000 people make their way up the slopes and summit the mountain; the busiest peak in Wales.

After reaching the summit, I came across a fantastic consequence of popularity of the hike, there was a queue to take a picture at the summit. Not a small queue either, probably a 20-30 minute wait time.