So, an acquaintance visited me yesterday. He called me and asked if he could bring his daughter... well, she is about the same age as Amiyah (a year old than Amiyah)... So I was like sure, Amiyah would love that. They came and around 4 pm, and let me tell you

Something I wish everyone knew: the bar's not as high as you think.

You can get that job, meet that person, start that company.

But because you think the bar's so high, you won't even try. Which is what makes the bar so low!

If there is one thing I have learned it is that people love bullshit. They buy bullshit stories from professional bullshit artists, accept bullshit philosophies, purchase bullshit how-to-books, vote for bullshitting politicians.

At first, I resisted believing this because it is illogical and dumb and frankly, doesn't reflect well on the human race of which I am a member (and thus have long been hopeful that it is more of a distinction than it actually turns out to be.)

But if you actually are interested in facts you begin to notice how little most people care for them. Sometimes it is because they are heard to learn and bullshit is so much more widely and easily available. Sometimes it is because facts make them uncomfortable about themselves.

Sometimes it is because just one tiny fact will upset a whole worldview that has grown as comfortable as an overstuffed chair. (Settling into such worldviews is a lot like settling into chairs like that because the longer you're there and the deeper you sink...

...the harder it is to hoist yourself up and out of your fat-assed intellectual laziness.) But I actually think the reason people have such an appetite for bullshit goes deeper, goes to an aspect of ourselves we just can't accept.

Convo between @tferriss & @naval on modern loneliness:

Naval: In India there's this concept of the extended family where you basically live with your tribe at all times, so when we were young, at our grandmother's place with my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my grandparents,

everyone was there, and it was a warm night so we went out to the backyard and put all these comforters and these little cots out and everyone would sleep in this giant pile with fifteen people underneath the stars...

it was amazing...so there's two things that were great about it: the noise level didn't bother you, if someone's foot was in your face it didn't bother you. When it's family and you're young it all just works and you feel very safe and very happy.

Another thing is that it reinforces how important the tribe is. Modern society gives us incredible flexibility in that we can get away from our crazy family members, we're not destined to die where we are born or to do what our parents did. So we have incredible freedom.

But coming with it is this tremendous loneliness that we try to cover up either through drugs, alcohol, partying, even trying to find a mission like putting people on mars. But the reality is that a lot of that loneliness comes from being disconnected from growing up in your

Try to imagine yourself as an older Republican. (Obviously you are white and you have a penis.) You have long believed R's to be the responsible ones, the moral ones, the ones who will do the right thing even when it's hard.

You remember your heroes: Eisenhower and Reagan, the Bush's? Right? You knew that they would "take care of us" while all the crazy tree huggers and hippies wanted to buy the world a Coke and and give all your money to poor people and immigrants!

...and how was THAT gonna teach them to pull themselves up by the boot straps and make something of themselves like YOU DID??
After all, this is the land of opportunity, RIGHT? Everyone has the same chance to be successful and PROSPEROUS, right???

You did it all with NO HELP--ALL BY YOURSELF, DIDN'T YOU. I mean, the G.I. Bill didn't do all that MUCH!
Rich people were taxed at 70%, and that was OK with you because you weren't one. *YET*

Just because the cost of living was MINISCULE compared to now, and you got a spiffy new job with a company car and paid health insurance, and a freaking house you BOUGHT ALL BY YOURSELF for 25 thousand freaking dollars,

I found myself unable to discuss or see people in a negative light
It was a strange place to be
A whole new realm that isolated me in some way
When I am among people and the topic goes in the direction of Mr. So and So did this evil thing to me or Mrs. Such and such said the

following things about me
I find my skin crawling and my defences up
I don't do this naturally, it just is.
When I am with my team and we're discussing stuff, I dodge all the unnecessary stuff
I don't want to know who is doing that bad thing or who is not performing up to par

I find it nauseating to say the least
Talking ill of people even when it ought to be discussed
A brother caught covid from his girlfriend
They were not married and ought not to be together that way
Someone pointed my attention to it and I felt somehow
Like the person wanted to

force-feed me poison
The person meant well and I should know what is going on but I really couldn't bear the heaviness of such talks
I understand that it is normal for people to share such talks and bond over it
I once worked as a personal assistant to a pastor who will pick a

person and talk about the person with his wife all the way from Lagos to Ibadan and will still chew the person like a bone all the way from Ibadan back to Lagos
He will keep digging out faults and misdeeds like a dog unearthing buried bones
It was a crazy habit I could barely