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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      The illusion of having "seen it all" is like the illusion of having found a "formula" for prime numbers that works up to some point. Of course the number of primes is infinite, but you can convince yourself you've seen them all if the next one is too far away for you to count to

      1 reply 2 retweets 39 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Half of all meditation techniques are about regaining the easy-to-surprise beginner mind so ordinary magic of life can surprise in delight you again. The other half of meditation techniques are to console yourself because the first half doesn't work as well as advertised 😆

      5 replies 9 retweets 98 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      But "beginner mind" idea is right in essence. Except you have to generate the surprise within yourself. Thanks to our enormous capacities for denial etc. some of the deepest reserves for mystery and surprise are within you. You just have to be willing to look foolish to tap them

      3 replies 3 retweets 56 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      People dimly recognize this and try to pick up new skills and brave early-learning-curve awkwardness as a way to inject freshness into life again. That's not quite right. If you're an advanced pianist, fumbling at tennis won't really help rediscover the surprisability of age 9.

      2 replies 5 retweets 32 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      What WILL help is to blow up things where you think you already know it all and find ways to go all fumbling and awkward again. So our notional pianist has to find a way to be a fumbling beginner *at the piano* again.

      4 replies 4 retweets 59 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Self-disruption basically. Trying to inject novelty into your life by learning unrelated new things is like trying to do 3 undergraduate degrees instead of 1 PhD. A series of degrees is a scripted series of self-disruptions. MS mind disrupts BS mind. PhD mind disrupts MS mind.

      1 reply 4 retweets 52 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Doesn't work very well, but the more informal, less scripted version of developing a sense for when you've plateaued in some activity and blowing it up at the right time, to make it new again, but WITHOUT losing the experience earned... that's the real skill of surprise-seeking

      3 replies 1 retweet 39 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Thank you for reading my long-winded justification for my writing mostly sucking this last year 😆

      4 replies 0 retweets 39 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Addendum: there is a big element of surrender in accessing surprisal latent in the universe, and it becomes harder to surrender with age because we become addicted to agency. Even when risks are low, we resist. Kids surprise more easily because they surrender more easily.

      8 replies 4 retweets 57 likes
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    10. Visakan Veerasamy‏ @visakanv 20 Mar 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      I suspect this thread is gonna get you some DMs offering you psychedelics

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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      Replying to @visakanv

      Psychedelics don’t really address this problem. They just make you care about it less. My limited experience plus observation of those who do a lot more suggests that (as with meditation) the effects are mostly wishful thinking. Unpopular opinion. You can’t cheat this problem.

      10:36 PM - 20 Mar 2019
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      • Jenssen 宅家 Raghav Kapoor Visakan Veerasamy
      2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 20 Mar 2019
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          Replying to @vgr @visakanv

          People do a lot of this stuff, act born again, then fall right back into the old patterns within a few months at most. If life were that easy, our bodies would have evolved to just make this stuff.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
        3. Visakan Veerasamy‏ @visakanv 20 Mar 2019
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          Replying to @vgr

          my theory: 1. this is true for the majority of people 2. the minority of people who would respond differently, look at (1) and most conclude that it's not worth experimenting with roughly akin to "many of the people who would make great parents don't have kids"

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        1. David Walker‏ @walkerdavide 20 Mar 2019
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          Replying to @vgr @visakanv

          And I respectfully disagree on this point. If you can manage your agency while doing these “things” you can find benefit well beyond the trip.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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