Other people!

They'll tell you what to do, how to feel, before you know it, you're pouring your life out in search of something other people told you to go look for. Soon, you're lost in the search of what's not yours in the first place.

The irony of the world we live in.

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

https://t.co/Uejb3Ng30u

The reason to try a new approach to things is because you have demonstrated proof that existing approaches are not working.

let's unpack:

1. what counts as proof?

2. what counts as failure?

3. not working for whom?

4. not working towards what end?

what counts as proof? and what counts as failure?

in order to answer this one needs to understand a thing well enough to know what success looks like and to know what failure modes exist.

A thing can fail by succumbing to a known failure mode, or failing in a new way. New failure modes commonly emerge from new contexts. Or they may be due to new developments in an existing context.

proof of failure means you have observed (rather than concluded via hearsay or via abstract reasoning) failure in a known mode or new mode. in order to obtain this proof, a relatively close distance or even insider perspective is usually necessary.

failure modes are specific to the thing being examined but there are some very common patterns. here's a couple of the most common patterns:

[🔞 hopekook, rimming] happy vday if you celebrate it, last night i fell asleep thinking about a horny hopekook date where they set aside time to cuddle and watch something soothing and mindless. jk chooses a nature documentary, more for background ambiance than anything else.

they start out with hobi laying crosswise on the couch, and jk crawls between his legs, rests his head on hobi's sternum. he likes to cuddle like that because he can hear hobi's heartbeat. also hobi will usually skritch his scalp when they're in this position.

he's doing that now, running his fingers from jk's forehead to the nape of his neck, but then he scoops along jk's ear instead. fingertips smoothing along the shell curve and then gently tugging on his earlobe. he keeps doing it, repetitive. the apartment is warm.

and quiet, too, except for the doc in the bg and the soft sounds of their breathing. hobi's fingertips keep tugging easily, gently on his ear lobe and all of a sudden jk realizes he's getting hard. he doesn't pay it much mind, one or both of them often do when they cuddle, even

if it's just a cuddle session & not anything further. but then hobi moves his leg, feels it, laughs softly, & moves his leg again - this time, deliberately. jk smiles, rubbing his mouth against hobi's sweatshirt. he rolls his hips, real slow like, and feels hobi's dick, too.