#14 - Feeding Frenzy

Feeding Frenzy is a weekly round-up of reading, listening, or watching that is worth your time. These posts will act as a weekly boost of signal above the noise that you can chew on over the week!

Worth Listening

Jocko Podcast with Tim Ferriss - Darkness & How to Stay on the Path, Last Days of Life & What to Do, Back-up Plans, Misconceptions

”Get better at getting better” - Tim Ferriss

This was one of the first podcasts I listened to after finding Tim Ferriss' podcast and wanted to learn more about him. Initially, I was less interested in Tim because of the guests he had on the show, but over time my interest was piqued because he was successful but not famous by a standard measure. The Jocko Podcast explores the darkness, to put it mildly. Hosted by Jocko Willink, a former Navy Seal does not shy away from hard subjects. This particular episode adds a lot of texture to the story of Tim Ferriss, and one that I initially was taken aback by. Here was someone who could share about the darkness part of their life. He'd made it, but while in college, he almost went through with a plan to go lights out. The dark side of human experience is a heavy subject, but one we need to be more open about. Listening to this now, almost two years later, is a bit surreal. I had never expected to do a podcast myself or talking about many of the ideas Tim shares here. Some seeds have deep roots.

Tim if you come across this, you've made an order of magnitude impact on people's lives and for my journey as well. Both of Jocko and Tim are mentors from afar for me. I have a lot of respect for how they show up in the world. Please give this a listen and remember that even when we feel like we are at our lowest, we can always rise back up.

Also recommended is a blog from Tim with his thoughts on suicide.

Worth Reading

The Dark Psychology of Social Networks | The Atlantic

"Human beings evolved to gossip, preen, manipulate, and ostracize. We are easily lured into this new gladiatorial circus, even when we know that it can make us cruel and shallow."
"Citizens are now more connected to one another, on platforms that have been designed to make outrage contagious."

I've been thinking about the impact of social media quite a bit over the last month. This article captures many of the thoughts and lays them out thoroughly. These platforms are used what is most troubling on top of how the algorithms incentives these behaviors, only compound the issue. What we see is what watering down of content, which is reactionary knee jerk responses. Social media doesn't want us to have well-thought ideas. They want you to put your stream of conscious out in the world, basically what your monkey mind is feeling in the moment. I'm going to keep thinking and collecting information on this subject because I believe this is something that we need to be paying attention to in more detail.

The Age of Mutual Assured Cancellation | The City Journal

”We can convince ourselves that anything is newsworthy if it embarrasses the other side and generates enough clicks.”

This piece is looking at journalism and the ”cold war” that occurs with ”cancel culture.” Indeed this another case of how social media erodes from the inside. When people looking back into a persona past and find something that stinks, they point to it and say immediately begin to cause outrage. In many cases, rather than apologize, the accused get defensive and double down and return salvo find their or dirty laundry on the opposing side. Which in turn, we end up with Mutually Assured Cancellation. I find unfortunate instead of looking at someone's past and deciding they haven't grown since those decisions are entirely ridiculous. Those kinds of snap judgments are solely off base, especially when you look at early choices. Wouldn't it be better if we met that person asked them about those decisions rather than trying to sick them? Wouldn't the world be better if we looked at one another as works in progress? At the very least, we can start that most people are trying to be better until proven otherwise.

Worth Watching

3 Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed | TED

I listened to Ric Elias on The Drive with Peter Attia this week, and in the intro, he recommended this TED Talk. At just over five minutes, this video has tremendous bang for its buck!

Worth Pondering

"If you want to understand someone, figure out the narrative, they tell themselves about themselves.

If you want to change your behavior, change your narrative.

If you want to change someone else’s behavior, offer them a more compelling narrative, they can tell themselves." - Shane Parrish

This week is a wrap and plenty to chew over for this week! Feel free to let us know any thoughts and suggestions that may contribute to these posts. It may pop-up on Feeding Frenzy or develop into a full-fledged post of its own.

Stay curious, and have a great week!

Previous Feeding Frenzies: #1, #2 , #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13