Principles

Here are some things I believe. I express these ideas through quotes when I can because a creator's body of work puts its weight behind a quote. I find these principles useful in making decisions; alternatively, I try to mold my life after these principles.

• “Very often a man's whole life alters course because of a moment's hesitation” - Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow
• Fear is your compass: do it now
• “Let’s find out!” - Francisco d’Anconia
• “Competition is for losers” - Peter Thiel. Do not go gently into that Girardian night
• Ours is the age of memes: one novel idea is worth lifetimes of effort
• The best adventures are brewed from a pot of nothing; there's a correlation between lifelong happiness and saying "yes"; unhappiness is largely a function of regret and saying "no"
• “There is no top, there are always further heights to reach” - Jascha Heifetz, 🎻🐐
• To understand anything, recursively ask Why?" and pursue the answers with Olympian focus and childlike creativity. There's always one more abstraction that you need to pierce.
• “Chips on shoulders put chips in pockets” - Josh Wolfe
• “The best things in life occur where the efficient market hypothesis is wrong” - Nat Friedman
• Taste is like a seed. It's innate - and people rarely let it bloom. But a chosen few have an inner Ziggy Stardust. Coax it out into the sunlight.
• Consciousness is an emergent property of complexity and time-relative to the observer
• If you won’t die for anything, you’ll never truly live. And, be friends with people who are alive