Life Outside of Software
Why You Should Buy More Things, How to Be Humble, and What It’s Like to Parent in South Korea
Plus how to Amp Up your business and more haunting historical fiction
1. Buying Experiences Probably Doesn’t Make You Happier than Buying Possessions — If I lean one way in the material versus experience camp, I’ve always lean materials. I love a well chosen item and I’ve always felt guilty for it. If I’d thought of any of the well chosen points in this article, I’d feel vindicated. I didn’t so instead I’m just in awe of the thought process at work here.
This brings us to a somewhat awkward question: does it even make sense to differentiate material and experiential purchases, given that every possession is an experience?
2. Epistemic Humility and Social Justice — My good friend wrote this. I bookmarked it for later, forgot about it, and read it as if reading a stranger’s work. I’m glad I did. A thoughtful, compassionate critique of our arrogance. I needed this one.
Humans are irrational. We can be most commonly found in our natural habitat: backfilling reason to achieve a desired result.
3. What Comes After Chrome — Neil and I wrote about a world post Google (we missed the rise of ChatGPT). Here is a world post Chrome. I’m living in this world, an ardent Arc user, and love it. The author is impressive as the article: helped created the first web browser at Netscape, built Chrome OS, worked at Neeva, and now is reinventing the browser (again) at Arc.
To me, that’s about evolving the browser into a home for all that I do on the internet that I can access from anywhere, feels like it has been tailored especially for me, and where it’s seamless to use apps in concert with one another.
5. What It’s Like to Parent in South Korea — I’ve been cranking through these articles for months. Parenting is a unique experience that cross cuts so many cultural experiences. An absolutely riveting lens through which to view a culture.
Seoul is a great city for little ones. People all over South Korea love children. My daughter will yell Annyeonghaseyo!, meaning “Hello!”, to any and all strangers and they adore it. She earns smiles and responses every time, and people are always giving her treats or free ice cream cones when we’re out and about. At grocery stores and malls, there are also play zones, Chuck E. Cheese-style, where you can drop your kid off with babysitters, for free, while you shop.
5. Amp It Up — I cannot get away from the riveting and simple formula in this article. To change your business, increase the tempo, raise the standards, and narrow the focus. I’m thinking constantly about these 3 as I go about my day to day work.
Move faster by focusing more. A company isn’t focused enough unless it’s heartbroken about the projects it’s rejecting
Books I’m Reading
- The Ghost Bride — I’m on a roll when it comes to choosing haunting historical fiction novels. So far, this is one of my favorites in a long time. A gripping mix of cultural exploration, forbidden romance, and the supernatural. It feels like a thrilling mix of relatable and out of this world.
- Harvest of Empire — With Wide Sargasso Sea done, I’m now cranking through this in earnest. My takeaway so far is an appreciation for the downplaying of Latin American territory in US wealth. I knew that Spain gained great wealth from Latin America, but I failed to understand just how much the United States did as well.
- Democracy in America — Neil and I continue to be surprised by the insights in here. The one that’s got me right now is the idea of the jury as a political entity. Tocqueville argues that we “practice” democracy in the jury and thus it’s critical to the health of our government.