Hello reader,

I want to start by welcoming the 327 new curious minds who joined for the last 2 weeks.

A couple of my articles exploded on Hacker News which contributed to a lot of people subscribing to my newsletter. Thank you for being here!

Let me ask you this:

On a scale from 1 to 10, how smart do you think you are? How do you measure your intelligence?

Are you...

1) Extraordinary brilliant
2) Brilliantly bright
3) Brightly clever

Or, you're somewhere in the middle? - unexceptionally average.

Personally, I consider myself somewhere between knowing how to properly tie my shoes and how to hold a spoon without covering my walls with food. I'm kind of winging everything else.

But that's not troubling me. As long as I'm hungry for learning new stuff - i.e., being curious - I believe that I'll get by.

In my latest essay, I argue that curiosity is better than being smart. That even if you're not naturally gifted, you can get to the place you want to be.

Probably I wrote the article to feel better about my inferior intelligence. But who knows, you might find it useful.

• [NEW] Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown: From the writer of Essentialism, here comes Greg McKeown's second book - Effortless. Definitely not as inspiring as his first book, but there are pieces that are worth studying.

If you'd like access to the full summary + the whole library of book summaries on my site consider becoming a member.

Interesting books I recently added to my reading list (and hopefully will read at some point):

• The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions by Jason Hickel: In this short book, Jason Hickel explains that poverty is created. Created by no other than the rich world. Rich people are creating poor people. All reviews online related to The Devide describe the book as eye-opening.
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi: I'm just going to cite part of the overview: "What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with..."
• On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson: A collection of short essays that examine the concept of freedom through the lenses of art, climate, drugs, and sex. Sounds refreshing.

Interesting words from books and around the web:

• Alamort (adjective): Half dead of exhaustion.
• Cwtch (noun): More than a cuddle or a hug. When you give someone a cwtch, you figuratively give them a "safe place".
• Yonderly (adjective): Mentally or emotionally distant; absent-minded. By saying someone is being yonderly it’s because their mind is "over there" and not present.

David Hume

The 18th-century writer, David Hume, is one of the world's great philosophical voices. Born in Edinburgh in 1711, his key observation is that we are more influenced by our feelings than by reason.

Big Idea: Feeling, not reason

Normally people would think that you should train your mind so you can become a more reasonable person - more logical. And when reason guides you, you'll be unstoppable.

Hume argues otherwise. We are more motivated by our feelings than by any sound analysis or argument based on logic. After all, even if we have a decent job and live in a decent city, we can still feel miserable. Our mind can easily create a painful scene motivated by our feelings, despite any logical arguments that we should feel pleasure. Therefore, spending more time nurturing your emotions is the way to go.

From my desk:

• 20 Reasons To Quit Social Media: Recently being picked up by social media, in this list post, I provide 20 reasons why you should divorce social media. Yes, kind of a paradox. Post against social media gets viral on social media.

From around the web:

• How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably: "The first step in becoming great is recognizing that you’re likely not already great. In fact, it comes from recognizing that there is no such thing as greatness at a specific instance in time. Greatness is instead a reflection of a period of effort, since greatness in a single instance can be reduced to luck."
• Worksheet: On using the internet mindfully: I found this worksheet on using the internet mindfully great. In just 6 pages, you can create a strategy to actually use your internet connection for something productive, not let it use you.

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a German, troubling word that is a combination of the word Schaden, "damage, harm", and Freude, "joy".

Shortly, this means that you experience delight or satisfaction at another person’s misfortune or suffering. Researchers argue that people with low self-esteem "suffer" from this condition - feel good when others are experiencing pain.

Wondering what creats the results you want? 

It all starts with thinking first about the results you want.

Read this short poem by Walter D. Wintle: Thinking.

Thanks for reading!

Ivaylo Durmonski

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