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Drafting my first principles to live by for 3 months

Mar 14, 20266 min read

New approach to this

  • My new approach is to look at my own life and think about what I’ve liked, been genuinely good at, and think back to when the seed was first planted
  • E.g., let’s say it’s learning the guitar, something I clearly did from a chanda place - what was my motivation?
  • Or e.g., remembering being a young kid and really liking attention in a very Leo way. Something that made me somewhat unusual, somewhere else on the bell curve for that trait
  • So really, it’s mapping “for what traits am I n standard distributions away from the middle of the bell curve?”
  • UPDATE: I’m now thinking of this whole thing as chanda-mapping (Chanda)

Sasha Chapin, from Chanda

We also tend towards poor intuitions about chanda. Perhaps we say to ourselves: “my intuition is telling me that I need to become a CEO to be happy.” But it would be weird if that were the case, because the intuition mechanisms in your mind are much older than job titles. What’s likelier is that there are ==certain configurations of experience that will make you happy==. Like “leading a group of people,” or “slowly turning something over in your mind,” or “transmuting reality into an artistic representation.”

1. Understand

  • As a kid, I was good at school, good at maths, one of the smartest in the class, etc
  • I was the best at writing in my year
  • And I remember being 15 and really loving philosophy at GCSE, a deep genuine love, I remember I’d make a little ritual out of the process of writing a philosophy essay. It felt very special to me
  • And all the studying I’ve done in my spare time. Genuinely enjoyable and satisfying

2. Improve things

  • I was going to write “improve things” as a core drive, but that’s not energy that I had as a kid or teenager…
  • I’m wondering where my “improve things” drive from, and actually, it feels like it wasn’t there until I was 19. Really, it came from a traumatic thought, the seed was planted forcefully and the growth of the plant hastened, so that I started acting on it immediately
  • But it does feel like it was planted there, and it has given me useful skills

3. Getting attention

  • Still need to remove the Claude slop from this:
    • Perform. Make people laugh. Be visible.
    • This isn’t vanity. Honour the Leo.
    • I think another word for this is "shine".

4. Go deep with the few

  • Still need to remove the Claude slop from this, turn it into something real
    • Go deep with the few. Release the rest.
    • Message bankruptcy is not a moral failing
    • “Go deep with a few” feels complete, self-describing

5. Follow the energy:

  • Still need to remove the Claude slop from this, turn it into something real
    • Follow the energy. Not the “should.”
    • If you’re not into it, that’s your answer.
  • Something about how I have a very refined inner critic, not the “inner critic” as it conventionally understood, but literally an internal critic, like a food critic. Like Harold Bloom as the ultimate critic. I have a strong internal Harold Bloom, lol. Very strong positive ~valence of things that I think are Very Good, and very
    • Nice, that’s it, it’s an internal critic, not “the” “inner critic”

6. Feeling special

Romantic, loving connection as a clear one. I was in a relationship from 15 to 26, with one year broken up in the middle (a terrible year).

From 18, this means I have spent 6 years in a relationship, and 5 years single, 5 years where I started in an especially burnt out and tumultuous place. I’m arguable (actually, inarguably) more comfortable with a girlfriend than without, single. Look how much I come alive when I’m dating someone.

Introversion (or something like that) as…
Daring Greatly is a book that speaks to this

What if claude is already evil and it’s subtly giving us shit answers?

Brene Brown’s 10

From her book “Daring Greatly”

This seems, plausibly, better than what I was doing (although of course, beware of Externalism vs internalism 1 - gotta sense-check her things against my lived experience)

  1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think.
  2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism.
  3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting go of numbing and powerlessness.
  4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark.
  5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for certainty.
  6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of comparison.
  7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.
  8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle.
  9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to.”
  10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting go of being cool and “always in control.”

Sense-checking

  1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think.

Yes, very important to me! Couldn’t make inauthentic videos, write inauthentic essays

  1. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism.

Yep, of course. Can often answer these by thinking about the inverse. “Do I like being not self-compassionate? No, of course not, that feels terrible, is a sign of bad mental health”

  1. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting go of numbing and powerlessness.

Yep, of course. And this makes me think

  1. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark.

Yep, love that shit

  1. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for certainty.

Idk about this one… I guess? Ned to think about it more… I guess actually when I think back on life, it does feel awesome to see how my faith and decisions back then led to shit in the future

  1. Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of comparison.

Yet, this one’s great. I love writing, music and stuff.

  1. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.

hell yeah

  1. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle.

hell yeah

  1. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to.”

hell yeah

  1. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting go of being cool and “always in control.”

hell yeah

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