Sunday Seven No. 009
The Book of Life, Psychedelics, and Jungle Beats
Hey Friends 👋🏼
Here is your weekly Sunday Seven, 7 things I’ve learned and loved this week.
This week’s edition has plenty of highly recommended reading material for your perusal, psychedelic electronic music from Argentina, plus a photo from my neighborhood photography tour.
Last week’s email had a 65% open rate. The top links were AI Gahaku and my brief guide on how to reduce screentime by making your iPhone ugly.
Let’s jump in…
1️⃣ READING — Marc Andreesen’s interview (read, 28min) in The Observer Effect, a newly launched publication that “studies interesting people and institutions and tries to understand how they work.” If you’re not familiar with Marc, I recommend taking a few minutes to learn about him on Wikipedia. He is an influential Silicon Valley legend, a pioneer of the early internet, author, and famed investor. He recently wrote It’s Time to Build, a widely shared and highly influential call to action. The broad interview covers his views on productivity, process, books, technology, and learning.
2️⃣ THERAPY — How Psychedelic Drugs May Revolutionize Mental Health Care (read, 20min). Psychedelic research and medicine is an area I’ve been exploring and highly curious about. I predict we are going to see psychedelic drugs become widely legalized and mainstream by 2025. This article is a must-read and an excellent introduction to the recent progress being made in this area. Here are a few numbers along with my top highlight:
80% of cancer patients who experienced reduced anxiety and fear of death a minimum of six months after a single psilocybin treatment.
133 clinics in the U.S. legally provide ketamine treatments for depression and other psychiatric conditions. The total is growing fast.
67% of “drug-naive” patients in a study at Johns Hopkins rated their first time using psilocybin among the top five most meaningful experiences of their lifetime. And 79% said it increased their well-being or life satisfaction.
“A brain on psychedelics tends to be more childlike, playful, imaginative, and creative—and less judgmental. Think of taking psychedelics like rebooting a computer to clear out glitches, except when the computer restarts, it has a new outlook on life. You see compassion, understanding, and a connectivity toward mutual caretaking. This sense that we’re all in this together.”
If you are curious about psychedelic therapy I recommend reading Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. The 65-year old author self-experiments with psilocybin and documents his experience. You can also start by listening to Pollan’s interview with Tim Ferriss (listen, 1h40m).
3️⃣ LEARNING — The Book of Life* is my new favorite bookmark. It’s not an actual book but rather a curation of helpful ideas related to emotional life. The collection of articles from various authors covers Relationships (finding love, heartbreak, parenting), Work (purpose, success, utopia), Self-Knowledge (fulfillment, insecurity, childhood), Sociability (virtues, confidence, friendship), Calm (anxiety, serenity, perspective), and Leisure (culture, philosophy, literature). I first discovered The Book of Life from the article On Asking People What They Do? (read, 8min) which I was originally going to share with you before discovering the treasure trove of the entire collection. Here are some of my highlights from the article, which is worth your time.
“We tend not to be responsible for where we are from. To try to position someone by their area of origin is to assume that personal identity is formed first and foremost by membership of a geographical community”
“It turns out that in being asked what we do, we are not being asked what we do, we’re being asked what we are worth – and more precisely, whether or not we are worth knowing.”
“We might do well to ask all new acquaintances not so much what they do but – more richly – what they happen to have been thinking about recently.”
*Not to be confused with Jiddu Krishnamurti’s book of the same title.
4️⃣ PRODUCTIVITY — Focusmate is a virtual coworking tool that helps you get things done. They pair you up with an accountability partner for 50-minute quiet working sessions over video. It’s free for up to 3 sessions per week. Focusmate was recommended to me by smart people and it seems like they’ve been thoughtful about their community guidelines so I’m excited to give it a try this week.
5️⃣ PHOTOGRAPHY — I went on a self-guided tour of Toronto’s Rosedale neighborhood to take a few shots of the beautiful architecture. While most of the photos did not turn out, I did capture this graceful and dreamy sunroom — a later addition to the 18th-century home. Shot on a Fujifilm X-T10 and edited on iPhoto.
6️⃣ MUSIC — La Memoria del Viento (The Memory of the Wind) by Argentine musician Lagartijeando aka Mati Zundel (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music). His signature psychedelic electronic tracks blend everything from traditional folk from the Bolivian altiplano to the jungle beats of Brazil.
7️⃣ QUOTE —
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” — Martha Graham
Last Words
Do you like the current format of the newsletter? Or would you prefer one longer deep-dive into a specific topic along with links? I am thinking of a few different directions this nascent newsletter can take and would love to hear what you think.
Next week I’m headed to Lake Nipissing and will be sharing photos of the road trip plus a surprise with you on Sunday.
As always, if you’re enjoying reading Sunday Seven, I would really appreciate it if you shared it with friends who you think would like it too.
Until next Sunday,
Yashar