Running a four-minute mile is hard. Being happy is hard. But these are distinct types of “hard,” and remembering that truth is vital.

The first type of hard is Never Done Before (NDB). Even for the most adventurous, the most risk-loving, and the most challenge-oriented, unique difficulty accompanies first attempts. For as much as you may believe in yourself, and as much as you may possess a rich resume of success, an inner voice of doubt (IVD) whispering Yea, but you may not be able to do this will be waiting for you upon an NDB undertaking. There are some near-universal NDBs, like running a four-minute mile, but every individual’s complete NDB list remains unique. This helps explain why the same activity can be so easy for one person (non-NDB) and so arduous for another (NDB).

Another type of hard is Please, Do That Again (PDTA). Unlike NDB, you have indeed successfully done That. Yet, you remain skeptical about your abilities since you lack understanding regarding how triumph occurred – you feel “lucky.” Thus, a replication crisis grips you such that if you are asked to perform That again, IVD will appear whispering essentially the same message it gives for NDB.

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There is seeing X.

There is also seeing X AND seeing how others see X. In this modern version of witnessing, truth is more easily obscured. Do you not like X, or is that you just don’t like the way others view X? 

There are limits to animus in clearly seeing X, even if X is loathsome, that are easily exceeded when one is reacting no longer to merely X itself, but to the people who view X differently (a.k.a. more favorably).

This excess animus is possible because responding viciously to opinions is more acceptable, more justified than when responding to an actual individual’s actual actions. Furthermore, the clarity of only seeing X as X necessarily involves understanding, which leads to some level of compassion, which blunts hatred.

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A risk inherent in the perform-better-each-day (PBED) mentality is that one may well be tempted to coast upon realizing he’s massively outperforming at, say, the halfway mark. The temptation is two-fold:

1. Trying hard is hard, so if giving anything less than will keep PBEB intact, comfort AND success can be achieved with easy effort.
2. Outperforming too greatly jeopardizes the entire PBED enterprise. Marginal improvements are absorbable, Carl Lewis-leaps are not.

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PBED tends to ignore the non-linear nature of progress. When detached from the tidy narrative society tells itself about a neat work-in-work-out process of progress, a reality is revealed where seemingly no progress, despite great practice, is made for long stretches. Then, as if by magic, massive gains are suddenly achieved. Of course, we will still fight to cram this genre of progress into a narrative … and this will be a mistake. The lesson: randomness plays a larger role in progress than any of us feel comfortable admitting.

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Your 100% is absolutely contingent on the context, some of which you can comprehend, most of which you cannot.

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is not telling people that you are fasting.

Sharing your willingness to either be (a) very kind (think volunteer work) or (b) do challenging things (i.e., fasting) are bankable ways to gain “social credibility.” While it’s completely natural to covet esteem, being overly driven by this desire is to remove a pureness in the activity. Are you doing this because you want to do it, or because you think other people will be impressed?

The less external validation you need, the greater the inner peace you will have.

The men had built up a backlog of shared experiences that offset the vast differences between them.

Nevertheless, there was a remarkable absence of discouragement. All the men were in a state of dazed fatigue, and nobody paused to reflect on the terrible consequences of losing their ship. Nor were they upset by the fact they were now camped on a piece of ice perhaps 6 feet thick. It was a haven compared with the nightmare of labor and uncertainty of the last few days on Endurance. It was quite enough to be alive – and they were merely doing what they had to do to stay that way.

There was even a trace of mild exhilaration in their attitude. At least, they had a clear-cut task ahead of them. The nine months of indecision, of speculation about what might happen, of aimless drifting with the pack were over. Now they simply had to get themselves out, however appalling difficult that might be.

From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed.

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You haven’t gotten enough respect. At least not from me. At least not until now.

I have rather enjoyed this simplified quarantine life. I play guitar, read, write, cook, go on long walks, and work out. While it’s true I am an extreme extrovert, no part of me has been longing for human interaction.

On weekends, I break the routine a bit and watch a movie or two. I’m not one who often opts into “classics,” but the fact that I had never seen The Godfather seemed like an oversight worth correcting. And so I did. The film and its sequel were most notable not for their celebrated cinematic landmarks, but because they made me think of you.

I, like any high school graduate, “studied” history. I, like any member of any family, heard stories of what had to happen for me to be comfortable. So I know the tales of the immigrant life, the poor life, the making-something-better-of-my-life life and how you embody all of them. Still, I never really felt the meaning or achievement of it all. Perhaps this is an inevitable failing of trying to understand anything that is so distant from one’s own existence.

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is that you may have to live a truly different life, not merely reside as a fascinating outlier on the inside (which is probably superior).

You’ll both cherish your uniqueness, but also still long for normal things; your uniqueness will leave that longing unrequited. Or so you’ll think. Is this thinking an honest assessment or a self-pitying excuse?

Or perhaps the longing itself is the false, manufactured result of existing in a world where the insider ethic is broadcast with great force and regularity such that it’s easy to think you want things you don’t truly want.

Regardless, you’ll at once craft the ability to live in a fundamentally different way AND leave open the possibility that it doesn’t have to be this way. If that possibility is treated as an option, nothing more, then it’s fine. If veers too strongly into “preference,” the tranquility of alternate existence will be corrupted. Then again, if it’s not at least a little corrupted, who would ever opt in to possibility if and when possibility emerges?

is the smuggest way to say, “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

In isolation, it’s tempting to think you have it all figured out. That’s right, you’ve got the answers, the philosophy, the explanations, and even the tidy rationalizations to sweep away points of confusion. It’s all quite comfortable. Knowledge of confirmation bias provides nonexistent inoculation against this pathology.

You never have to be isolated, of course – there’s infinite information out there just begging for consumption. But the tricky stuff is not easily changed through dissenting voices and long hours in the library, because the tricky stuff is not a matter of facts per se. Rather, the tricky stuff is another way of saying “life philosophy” which is another way of saying the stuff you really, really want to get right but to which objective answers are fleeting.

And so, you sort through aphorisms and religions (and a whole lot in between) searching for what feels right. Toss in your experiences and the hard-won lessons of youth, and the tricky stuff may not feel that tricky anymore. It’s at this juncture where people trend toward being stuck in their ways, an isolation where new information is easily dismissed.

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