Martial arts, solo sport and criticism as checks on an inflated ego; early success eroding hunger.
Where it comes up 10
Within this theme 59
Concepts 12
- The Intrusive Author
Writers whose presence you can't escape, like Martin Amis 'ringing a bell, kicking over the furniture', tapping your shoulder to ask whether you saw what they did.
- The devil within
Alan Watts's framing, picked up by both speakers, that the oppositional force resisting our change is ourselves: we are both the fixer and the problem, so the task is to befriend the devil…
- Beginner's Humility
From martial arts: accept that you are terrible because you have no experience; a year of practice makes you a year better. Combat and solo sports remove excuses and check the ego.
- The Open Vault
Tamir's metaphor. One side of a vault has an intricate lock that could take 20 years of cryptography to crack, while the other side stands wide open. We fiddle with the code because that…
- Mental Ponzi scheme
Tamir's phrase, which Colin adopts, for hierarchies in religion, philosophy and self-awareness groups. Climbing them means hitting more checklists and keeping up more appearances, so the…
- Personal development hamster wheel
Ian's term for getting stuck consuming self-help, which presumes you're broken and widens the chasm between where you are and where you want to be.
- Cancel culture
Sheela says we are so quick to judge, define and cancel that love itself has been given a dark side. Tamir sums it up: 'we even put love in cancel culture'. It returns when they discuss the…
- Perfectionism
Tamir admits waiting until work is perfect; weeks become months become years without output. Grant says get over it: open mics, writing badly every day.
- Righteous Indignation
Tamir admits that triggers and anger can feel valuable, like safe havens. We cling to righteous indignation and don't want to let it go.
- Internal Jester and King
Tamir's reading of Watts: as you grow older and wiser, your inner king and inner jester draw closer until they become one, so you can laugh at your own misfortune sooner.
- Self-sabotage
Tamir calls people 'professional self-saboteurs' with a 'PhD in self-sabotage'; Ian frames modern distraction as a 'supermarket of sabotage'.
- Duality
Ian argues we constantly create separation (me vs. the Bugatti owner, one religion vs. another), and that spiritual growth means dissolving the beliefs about why we're different.
People 5
- Alan Watts
British-American popularizer of Eastern philosophy; Tamir cites his lecture on the court jester about taking life sincerely rather than seriously.
- Conor McGregor
Tamir's example of how success and ego erode hunger: monk-like dedication early on, then whiskey and losses.
- Mike Tyson
Logan watched the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight ('because I hate myself'). It was a huge deal and forgotten days later, his example of ever-shorter news cycles.
- Vladimir Putin
Colin's example of 'pretentious nonsense': sitting at one end of a long table with his generals at the far end to project omnipotence.
- Donald Trump
Mentioned in passing by Ian among the political stressors layered on top of unresolved childhood wounds.
Quotes 13
When the moment is there to be in love, I didn't waste it with too much mental masturbation. I don't doubt, which saves me from negativity. And we are so prone to judge and define and cancel things out. Suddenly now being in love has a darker side.
You would be checked and blinded by it at every turn by what you are pleased to call your personality.
You feel like your trigger is valuable and you don't want to let them go. They're like infinity stones of trauma or something that you're holding in your gauntlet.
If you get addicted to self-help you're going to look at the mirror every day and realize you're not good enough.
The three most important words I ever learned was 'I don't know.'
Who do you think the devil is? The devil is also you. You are both the fixer and the problem.
If you get something great sometimes, just shut up about it. You don't have to jump on social media and tell the whole planet.
No matter how lofty people feel, whether it's a politician or a religious person, the fact is you're still a human being. You haven't changed the DNA of the human race at all.
We're warring over different things we believe in, and I'm thinking, guys, you're warring over grief. Like what the hell is going on?
I don't need their approval. I don't give them the honor of approval. I'm a bit of arrogant woman. And it's their problem. They have a problem with me, they have to live with it, not me.
That was a nice thing to learn from the martial arts: it's okay to be terrible, because you don't have any experience.
Something dies in you, and you can use that to dissolve that ego and destroy it and build something new. Of course the ego always regenerates in a new terrible devil, but going through it is useful.
Are we proving ourselves to other people or are we proving ourselves to the version of us yesterday? Who are we trying to win against? We already know we're a badass. Why do we have to prove it?
Insights 15
- Doubt, not love, creates love's dark side
To Sheela, love has no dark side of its own. The darkness comes from a culture that judges, defines and cancels, and from entering relationships full of doubt, which guarantees there is no…
- Fiction teaches you to value people without status
A narrator who shows you a character's trials makes you respect someone with no Bugatti, six-pack, or partner; extend that to people you rank below you and you realize you're not as low as…
- The best authors are invisible
Great prose doesn't tap your shoulder to show off; with a light touch, meaning lurks beneath the sentences rather than on the page.
- Being terrible is the price of entry
In any discipline the beginner must accept being bad; after a year of practice you see beginners and realize how far you've come.
- Public forgiveness is selective
Tamir argues that society has a system of penalties, and once paid you should be allowed to move on. Yet some people, like Mike Tyson, are embraced while others, like Sheela, are kept…
- Self-help can widen the gap it means to close
Even a book telling you it's okay not to be enough creates a new struggle to feel okay; self-help is a tool, but stuck in it you keep measuring the chasm between where you are and where you…
- Self-improvement hierarchies breed sophisticated fakes
The higher you climb any belief system's checklist hierarchy, the more you need to keep up appearances, so those at the top are often the most out of touch with who they are. It works like…
- Unanimous agreement is suspicious
A culture where everyone piles on agreement hides honest disapproval; growth as an artist requires welcoming criticism, even when it hurts the ego.
- Control can be grief in disguise
Rigid structure, narrow-mindedness and a need to control everything can be a child's defense against grief that hasn't been dealt with internally.
- Early success erodes the hunger
Passion is hard to sustain, especially after early success. Fighters and pop stars told they're the best stop producing what made them great.
- Religious war is trauma at scale
Wars over religion are the ego shielding people from facing the truth of death. Facing it risks a downward spiral but carries the seed of something new, if you're brave enough to jump.
- Self-help readers overrate their self-awareness
In the self-development world, people feel self-aware after a few books, and those same people are the clients. Tamir calls it a recursive snake eating its own tail: the blind spot is by…
- We distrust answers that seem too easy
Returning to the self can feel suspiciously easy, so we invent mountains to summit or demand total destruction before rebirth. We pick the 20-year lock over the open door because effort…
- Understanding everything is a futile task
The sages agree that trying to understand everything is futile. Tamir calls his own wish to analyze and know everything 'an immaturity', and calls the unknown 'a feature, not a bug' of the…
- You can't wake others up
You can support people in waking up, but you can't do it for them. They have to run into the wall themselves, and trying to force it is like saving a fish from drowning.
Practices 4
- Go to an open mic
To get over perfectionism, go to amateur poetry readings or sign up for an open mic, read whatever you can, and listen to others who try and are proud of their efforts.
- Take a beginner's class
Join a martial arts or other class where you have no skills, to learn humility and see incremental progress.
- Say 'I don't know'
When you don't know something, such as who Alan Watts is, say so instead of pretending. Colin calls 'I don't know' the three most important words he ever learned.
- Talk to your younger self
When old anger flares, Mia addresses her teenage self directly ('Mia, I hear you, I get it') and asks who she is really trying to prove herself to.
Stories 9
- Lucid dream in the grocery store
Seeing a broken clock, Samantha realized she was dreaming and began knocking things off the shelves. Someone hooded her and drove her in a van to a Dumbledore-like figure, who said 'you…
- Conor McGregor lost the fire
Tamir recounts McGregor's masterful win over Eddie Alvarez at Madison Square Garden and his monk-like early interviews, then money from the Mayweather fight, whiskey and loss after loss…
- Gym influencer in London
At a London gym a man filming his muscles yelled at Colin for walking past his camera. Colin told him the gym is for everybody and he should film at home. Colin reads it as people feeling…
- Alan Watts: the devil is also you
Tamir's paraphrase of Watts: you privately declare 90 days free of a bad habit to keep the devil away, then wonder why resistance peaks the next day. Who do you think the devil is? You are…
- Eight years of aikido in Budapest
Grant trained aikido for eight years in Budapest, plus other arts. Even a forward roll is clumsy at 24; a basic boxing jab turns out complicated. Seeing beginners after a year, and advanced…
- Kingsley Amis couldn't read his son
Kingsley Amis refused to read Martin Amis's books. Many said he was jealous of his son's sales, but Kingsley said reading Martin felt like having him in the room ringing a bell and kicking…
- Angry teen chasing rejection
In high school Mia was furious at her mother for 'giving up' and being 'weak'. Raised by an emotionally shut-down father, she did eight school plays, modeled and went to constant auditions…
- Illness that broke Tamir's ego
Tamir had ill health for a while and had to drop out of university; looking in the mirror he realized he wasn't 'all that' and didn't like that person. Something died in him through…
- Muay Thai, soccer and tennis
Tamir did Muay Thai for years and played soccer, where you can blame the ref, the pass or the ball. Now in tennis and especially fighting, there is no one else to blame, which keeps the ego…
Films, music and art 1
- Alan Watts's court jester lecture
Watts on why kings kept a court jester: to remind the king of his own mortality and that things are not as they seem. Tamir links it to Tyler's point that tragedy becomes comedy faster as…