Sunday Seven No. 005
How to Read a Book, Sonos 5, and Ansumana
Hey everyone,
Here is your weekly dose of Sunday Seven, what I’ve learned and loved this week.
Last week’s post had a 75% open rate. The most clicked links were The Egg (read 5min) and How The Economic Machine Works (watch 31min)
New to Sunday Seven? Welcome. You can view the archives here.
Enjoy!
No. 005
OVERCONFIDENCE - The mother of all psychological biases. I am certainly not exempt. A few helpful questions to ask ourselves to guard against this bias. From the Behavioral Scientist article Epistemic Humility (read 6min):
Consider the reasons that you may be wrong.
What are the reasons to think this claim may be mistaken?
Under what conditions would this be wrong?
Such questions are difficult because we are much more used to searching for reasons we are right. But thinking through the ways in which we can fail helps reduce overconfidence.
UNCERTAINTY - Two relevant quotes from highly unrelated sources.
From Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, a book on feminism, and her essay Woolf’s Darkness. She quotes the 20th-century English writer Virgina Woolf:
“The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.” It’s an extraordinatory delcaration, asserting that the unkown need not be turned into the known through false divination or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing — as that “I think” indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.
From Howard Marks’ most recent memo, cautioning investors on the uncertain times ahead. He shares a few quotes on uncertainty about the future, including this one by Ian E. Wilson (former Chairman of GE):
No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.
READING - How to Read a Book. A simple framework for how to read at different levels. I stopped actively learning how to read at the elementary level and any learning since then has been completely passive. I assume this is true for most people. I picked up this book to become a better comparative reader. Before reading it, I suggest checking out Farnham Street’s excellent synopsis.
TRAPPED IN IRAN - Journalist Nicolas Pelham’s story of being held by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard did not have the ending I expected (read 47min).
I just wanted to share my photographs of swinging Tehran: the music, the wedding and the warm joyful nights out.
PRODUCTIVITY - I am loving Pocket. I use it to keep track of anything interesting on the internet. Here’s how I use it for Sunday Seven:
If I watch/read/listen immediately and love it, I use the Chrome extension or Pocket app to save and tag the link.
If I come across something and want to consume the content later, I simply save to Pocket without a tag. This goes into my Pocket home. Whatever is worth saving then gets tagged and archived.
For example, this week's saves were tagged seven_2020.05.17. When I sit down to write Sunday Seven all I have to do is open Pocket.
DOMESTIC CHALLENGE - This week I started a 28-day challenge with my girlfriend. The prize is a new Sonos 5 speaker. Here’s the scoop. We have to complete at least 30min of strenuous exercise each day. We get one rest day a week. Two things that make it a near certainty we’ll hit this goal:
Accountability. No one wants to be the loser that makes us miss the prize.
Top of mind. There is the tracker on the fridge. Not pretty, but effective.
The prize is big enough relative to the effort.
We have a guilt-free budget for these purchases (Personal Finance, April 19), but we love the competition and added motivation to hit our physical health goals.
MUSIC - I’ve been enjoying Ansumana by Susso, a project between Gambians Yusupha and Ansumana Suso, Jabou Kuyateh, and UK producer Huw Bennett.
Final Words
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Until next week,
Yashar