“Know what you will stand for and, more important, what you won’t stand for. State your flat-ass rules and stick to them.”
General Mattis
I’ve come across so much great content this week and am struggling with what to focus on. The above quote is from Ryan Holiday’s 18 Things I Stole From Some of History’s Greatest Leaders, which was excellent. If all I do is get you to read that post, then this week will be a huge success.
Noah Smith re-posted a piece about the “Shouting Class” of angry people who do most of the posting online. It’s a great reminder of why Twitter is not a good gauge of public opinion.
Ramit Sethi returned to the Tim Ferriss podcast to talk about couples and personal finance and it sparked a great conversation with Anne about how we talk about our future dreams.
Arnold Schwarzenegger turned 74 and made a very specific birthday wish: “Do one thing every month this year, not for yourself, but for others. Once every month, instead of just thinking about ‘me,’ think about ‘we.’ Just give back once a month. That would be the greatest gift.”
Then, my high school lacrosse coach (whose email I still need to respond to!), sent me this about his trip to the West Coast: “Riding along in the Yosemite Valley, staring up at those magnificent sheer granite walls or walking among the living Redwood giants, was awe inspiring and humbling! There’s so much going on in this world today that it’s easy to lose sight of what’s good. Visiting these parks helped me refocus on the good!”
Focusing on the good
There is a phenomenon I came across this week called Availability Bias, which states that the more examples of something you see, the more likely you are to believe that thing is common. It applies to a lot of things, but it’s particularly relevant when it comes to the media. It explains why child-abductions, shark attacks and lightning strikes are all things we fear, despite them being extremely rare. The salience of those headlines makes them loom much larger than the risk of them actually happening would dictate.
Availability bias is why many people are struggling to feel good about the mask-less and sociable summer we’re having. There’s this Delta variant to worry about. Large swaths of the country aren’t vaccinated and those communities are suffering. We’ve got a headline piece in The Atlantic titled Delta Is Ruining the Summer, And It’s Anti-vaxxers’ Fault. The COVID tracker has regained its spot on the New York Times’ homepage. And the tone is changing in conversations I’m having, about wearing masks, the possibility of shutdowns, and the danger of this new variant.
But in many ways this makes no sense. In much of the country, we are far, far safer than we’ve been at any point since March 2020. Americans are able to travel freely this summer, something many countries still cannot claim. I’m skeptical of tossing around stats, but it sounds like COVID breakthrough cases for vaccinated people are extremely rare (125,000 out of 164 million) and deaths even rarer (1,500 out of 164 million). Vaccinations are working as intended. That doesn’t mean we all need to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the changing COVID landscape. But it seems like, in the words of my wise coach, there’s a lot of good for us to shift our focus to.
If we’re not careful, the “Shouting Class,” as Noah Smith puts it – the people most vocal online, the talking heads on cable news – can overwhelm otherwise good things with negativity. Think of Simone Biles, whose decision to drop out of the Olympics has been dominated by one single debate – whether she’s a quitter or a mental-health hero – and distracted from her greatness (and the greatness of her teammates). Why does she have to be anything other than an awe-inspiring athlete? Look at the outrageous things she can make her body do! Just because the dumb debate is happening doesn’t mean we have to get sucked into it.
Remember that, no matter how “accurate” you believe the media to be, they still need to pick and choose what they cover. They have strong incentives to let the negativity float to the surface and keep the good stuff down below. Spend some time looking for the “Redwoods,” those awe-inspiring reminders of the greatness out there that are hiding in plain sight.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
The Great Resignation – Chris Guillebeau
“By the way, here’s a fun fact: if anyone tells you that walking away from a job is a bad idea, or tries to make you feel bad for not being “responsible,” it says much more about them than you. The sky is not falling. The world might end from the next pandemic or nuclear war, but it won’t end from you quitting your job.”
The Master’s Trap Part Three – Anne Helen Petersen
“79% of Black graduate students and 72% of Hispanic grad students take on student debt — compared to 56% of white grad students. Black and Hispanic borrowers borrow more, and are more likely to have undergraduate debt. The median total federal debt for Black graduate students in 2015-2016 was $76,750 — compared to $49,445 for Hispanic graduate students and $44,694 for white graduate students.”
For Decades, Versailles Restaurant Has Been a Hub for Cuban Protests – Christina Morales, New York Times
“One of the draws of Versailles is that even though people are protesting serious things: human rights in Cuba, abuses, democracy, there’s also a sense of celebration.”