This week, a personal reflection on patience, purpose, and the tension between internal and external metrics.

The last post, Depth Takes Time, was an invitation to push against the modern instinct of instant gratification and take the time to go deep.

The anecdote from Popper’s intellectual journey that prompted that reflection also made me think about patience and the purpose of writing.

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This week, a personal story on being stuck consuming without creating, and finding a way out by… consuming more?!

The past few weeks have been frustrating.

I had that rare kind of time off when the kids are at school. In the lead-up to it, I dreamed of getting so much done. Live like someone with the luxury of working without having to work. Write, read, code, train.

But when the time came, I couldn’t get started on anything. All those shiny ideas had lost their sparkle. Absolutely no gumption.

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This week, a few thoughts on the message behind Netflix and Sony Animations’ movie K-Pop Demon Hunter.

My daughter is currently obsessed with K-Pop Demon Hunters. She’s singing the songs and doing the moves. The soundtrack plays on our car trips and the movie is a companion for pizza night on the couch.

So, I’ve had plenty of time to look at the movie from different angles. There’s something not quite right about the story — and it’s not the band jumping off a plane and landing without a parachute!

The movie is good fun. I love curling up on the couch and watching it together.

What doesn’t sit well with me is the assumption underlying the characters’ journey — or lack thereof.

Their final victory is unearned.

There’s no training, no mentoring, and no trying and failing. There’s no real growth, it’s mostly “believe in yourself”.

The protagonist, Rumi, and her friends Zoey and Mira are a K-Pop trio beloved by fans and dominating the charts. The girls double as demon hunters, killing off those demons that make it into our world hungry for human souls. Through their music and the emotions it creates in their fans’ hearts, they are about to seal a barrier that will keep demons off our world once and for all.

But Rumi has a secret. She is part demon herself. She’s been hiding this from everyone, including Zoey and Mira.

Rumi hopes that their new song, Golden, will seal the barrier, removing her demon marks and letting her finally share her whole self with her friends. But five demons form a boy band and hijack the fans beat by beat.

With this premise, it could have been an inspiring growth story.

As the evil demon boy band took over, Rumi’s resentment could have unleashed her inner demon — with tragic consequences. After this setback, her friends could have come together to tell her that they don’t care whether she’s demon or human. Help her understand that it’s her actions that define who she is, not the marks on her skin. By harnessing her demon powers, Rumi could have led the team in an epic battle against the villain, showing that people’s differences can be put to work in synergy. They could have finally sealed the barrier with a song celebrating collaboration and acceptance.

Instead we got:

[Rumy] I was a ghost, I was alone
Eoduwojin apgilsoge (Hah)
Given the throne, I didn’t know how to believe (Hah)
I was the queen that I’m meant to be (Ah)

[Zoey] I lived two lives, tried to play both sides
But I couldn’t find my own place (Oh, oh)
[Mira] Called a problem child, 'cause I got too wild
But now that’s how I’m getting paid, kkeuteopsi on stage

[All] I’m done hidin’, now I’m shinin’ Like I’m born to be

The message: I’m perfect already. I don’t need to change. Watch me shine.

That might be okay as a starting point. Sure, we’re all inherently valuable. But that alone isn’t enough.

We also need to work on ourselves. We need to improve, train, seek mastery.

Take Rumi’s friend Mira who was not accepted because “too wild,” but now earns a living off that untamed personality. That’s not how it works!

The talents and oddities that make us unique are only raw clay. To become valuable, they need to be worked. It takes countless rotations on the pottery wheel to transform a lump of clay into a beautiful vase.

But the movie doesn’t show any of this crucial work.

After Rumi’s secret is revealed, the evil demon boy band performs in a concert and begins to steal the souls of the audience, including Rumi’s friends. Rumi shows up and sings “I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back. But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass. The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony. My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like.” This awakens Zoey and Mira, and together they save the day. Done.

Granted, they do sing a song about working together and accepting each other — “We listened to the demons, we let them get between us. But none of us are out here on our own. […] Dive in the fire, and I’ll be right here by your side.”

But that little growth was not earned. It just happened. There was no real effort involved.

Now, compare Rumi with Disney’s 1997 Hercules.

Hercules, too, is born with an incredible power and struggles to keep it hidden.

He eventually embraces it, but to do so needs to go on a journey, train hard under Philoctetes.

And, cherry on top of the cake, in the end Hercules realizes that what makes him special is not his power, but his compassion and ability to sacrifice himself for others. That’s what makes him a hero.

Same starting point. Same happy ending. Very different journey.

As I said at the start, maybe I’ve just seen K-Pop Demon Hunters too many times and needed something to fixate on. Or maybe it’s just that I grew up on Goku and Krillin training with Master Roshi, whose maxim was “Work hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty!” But I just can’t get past the fact that the movie doesn’t really show the girls struggling to surpass their obstacles.

As a kid, watching Dragonball and Hercules showed me the value of working hard for what you want to achieve.

As a parent, I worry K-Pop Demon Hunters will show my kids that they can expect things to work out for them as long as they’re their true selves.

But let’s be real. There was plenty of TV that could have sent the wrong message when I was growing up, too. Like Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh, who kept drawing the right card at the right time by believing in “the Heart of the Cards.”

In the end, it’s up to us parents to share – by showing, not telling – good values with our kids.

If we take part in what they are interested in and share it together, then a movie like K-Pop Demon Hunters goes beyond being an enjoyable flick and becomes an opportunity to talk about what it takes to fight our own demons.

In this post, thoughts on P(Doom), a couple of book series I’ve been enjoying, and how to run Game Boy games on iOS.

P(Doom)? P(Archive) = 1

I have a paid subscription to Sam Harris’ podcast Making Sense, so you’d think I’d get the most out of my money and listen to every episode.

Yet when guest Paul Bloom asked Sam what his P(Doom) is, and they both agree it ought to be in the double digits, I archived the podcast and moved on.

There is only one correct answer to the P(Doom) question: I don’t know.

The future is unpredictable. Any domain where humans are involved is affected by human creativity and our capacity for generating new ideas, whether good or bad. This impact of creativity makes the future unpredictable.

The progress of LLM and AGI research — two different fields that Sam and his guests often conflate — cannot be separated from the unpredictable people involved in it. But it’s not just the builders and researchers that affect the future of AI. We cannot predict future memes which may shift public opinion in favor of or against these technologies and therefore affect policy, like it unfortunately happened for nuclear energy.

I realize this may come across as arrogant and close-minded. Isn’t progress all about taking interlocutors seriously, understanding their ideas, and then criticizing them?

Fair point. But one can only listen to so many conversations based on the same misconceptions. I’ve heard enough P(Doom) conversations to last me a good while, and given the reality of limited time and attention, I’d rather listen to something else.

Speaking of listening to something else, here are two recommendations for book series that are great on audiobook.

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This week, I share a selection of articles connected by a common thread: how emotion-driven policy and unaccountable managerial elites threaten real progress. Plus, some highlights from my recent reading.

Selected Articles

In Mythbusting MAHA: A Reality Check on Glyphosate, Emily Bass from The Breakthrough Institute explains why the looming possibility of a ban on the glyphosate, a key ingredient in herbicides, would be devastating.

Banning or restricting glyphosate use in the U.S. will either force producers to incur higher costs by turning to alternatives or worsen the environmental impacts of agriculture.

For some additional background on glyphosate misconceptions see Glyphosate and Behavioral Economics: How misinformation spread over one of the safest herbicides becoming known as one of the most harmful, by on sketpoid.com.

My understanding of the debate over glyphosate is that it’s rooted in bad data and amplified by emotionally charged messaging—and therein lies the problem.

What is the explanation for banning a compound that “has lower toxicity to humans than 94% of all alternative herbicides”? Moreover, what would the consequences of this ban be? What will happen to crop yield? Which herbicides will farmers resort to?

But the self-defeating pressure against crop abundance does not come only from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA movement. As warns in Cornpreneurs Save Us From Davos Elites, under the guise of caring for the environment, the World Economic Forum is pushing for replacing meat production with bugs.

Despite this abundance [of corn for animal feeding], the Davos crowd would have us believe that our survival hinges on swapping steaks and burgers for worms and insects. Under the banner of “sustainability,” they propose shuttering our Texas Roadhouses, Dickey’s Barbecue Pits, and Chick-fil-As to make way for bug burgers.

I’ve got nothing against bug burgers. In fact, I wouldn’t mind trying one. But I worry about being forced to eat one because someone has a stake in propping it up while kneecapping alternatives.

Who knows—if we let agricultural entrepreneurs innovate freely, with respect for the environment but without red tape, and let people choose what to put in their patties, bug burgers might become the new fancy meal.

Related, and again from Brian Dunning: The Effects of Mandated GMO Labeling: We have good evidence for what to expect from mandated labeling of GMO foods, and it’s not good.

The articles above illustrate the danger posed by policy driven by emotion and shallow data analysis.

But errors are inevitable and we are bound to make mistakes. The real problem occurs when we as a society cannot learn from our mistakes nor try alternative experiments.

This breakdown in error correction happens when unelected technocrats and managers are in charge of more and more policy making. They’re not accountable to the people whose lives they affect, and they’re insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

explains this clearly in his talk Managerial Bureaucracy’s Threat to Democracy and Humanity

I hope you’ll find these posts thought provoking.

Progress depends on criticism, competition, and course correction. Without those, even good intentions will not translate into good policy.

Let me know what you think.

Book Highlights

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I’ve felt this most recently while listening to ’s four part commentary on AI 2027. How come these regulation heavy, anti-human, one-sided ideas keep getting traction? Why do I have to pay absurd energy bills every month because of policies driven by emotions and lobbyists rather than a drive for improvement? Why are so many resources wasted on self-defeating avenues that are based on a misunderstanding of knowledge and progress?

Of course, I could be wrong in my assessment of those ideas, but my point stands even if you hold diametrically opposite views and you are frustrated about our lack of progress on carbon emissions and AI alignment.

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Parents know this all too well. Siblings have a knack for getting into the most vicious fights right after your most stressful work days. It’s like they can smell it on you and decide to make it even worse.

When that happens, who can blame you for yelling at them? Or for putting them in front of a screen? After all, don’t you deserve some peace after a day of headaches at work?

But it’s in those moments that we are needed the most. That’s when we should leave the “self” out of “self-care” and step up.

That’s what author Gretchen Rubin’s dad used to do.

In a recent conversation on The Art of Manliness Podcast, Gretchen and host talked about parenting and the positive role a calming presence plays in family dynamics.

In my own family growing up, my father was just this very calm, unflappable, cheerful, enthusiastic person. Like whatever you want to do, that’s great.

And I realized much later in life how much I had taken that for granted and how much his attitude really did act as a buffer for other people’s agitations or, you know… he could kind of absorb it and let everybody kind of calm down, or reach equilibrium.

And it’s only with much greater maturity that I was like, “that’s a lot of work!”

I always thought, “that’s just his nature.” But now I’m like, “that’s not easy for anyone.”

That’s how he’s choosing to be.

And I realized how valuable it was and probably how much energy it took to be always that person in the system that was able to be like, “let’s just chill out here. Let’s have a sense of humor about it.”

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Why do we procrastinate? A recent incident at home reminded me just how much fear is often behind it—and how unnecessary that fear often is.

For a long time, I’ve been hearing a vibrating noise coming from one of our taps. Our house is an old build and I dreaded the possibility of the noise being an issue in the pipes that would have required stripping walls open and so on.

And so… I procrastinated.

I knew I had to get onto it, but could not make myself call the plumber. There was always something else to do in the moment. “Oh, I’ll get to it tomorrow,” I’d say.

Then, on ANZAC Day, I was reminded of something that put my fears in sharp perspective.

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It always baffles me how these “tutorials” get traction. How likely is it that someone who found an edge in real estate investing, crypto trading, or any other relatively zero-sum game, decided to share it with the world? Besides, an edge usually relies on an asymmetry of information—level the playing field and the edge is gone. But even without this chain of reasoning, you only have to watch one of those videos to understand they’re, at best, clickbait.

Yet, there’s a seemingly endless stream of those videos. I guess it goes to show how so many of us strive to do better, and how alluring it is to look for a shortcut there. “If only I knew the secret…”

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My son attended a soccer—or football if you are in Europe—camp during Easter break and came home with a trophy.

It wasn’t because he scored the most goals, or ran the fastest, or did the most saves.

The soccer school awarded something even more important than athletic prowess.

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Upcoming consolidation

It’s been four weeks since I returned to publishing after taking a break in June last year.

But while I might not have been publishing, I never stopped writing. It’s just that what I wrote were rough notes to myself, in a sort of Zettelkasten system.

Writing those notes is much easier than publishing here. Obviously, there’s no editing or proofreading involved. But the friction I experience is also related to my odd setup, with giolodi.com being the “real” site and this Substack a mirror I use to send out the newsletter and offer additional posts to paid supporters.

The reason for the setup is somewhat idealistic. I love the open web and want my site to exist on its own, not be on Substack. I’m also too cheap to pay for a newsletter service.

These days, I want to write like an explorer. I want to publish more to sharpen my thinking, consolidate my learning, and practice the craft.

The mixed setup is an annoying source of friction. I need to post on one site first, then copy-paste to another, then reformat the output because something always gets out of place. It’s time to be pragmatic and consolidate. I want to optimize for sharing ideas and putting in the reps.

I’ll soon be moving giolodi.com here. Something might break in the transition, and I apologize in advance.

Also in the spirit of reducing friction, I’ll be stopping the Friday Recap posts and send an email for every new post instead. I don’t expect to publish so frequently that it will be annoying for you, but do let me know if the output is too frequent and I might restore the weekly digests.

I’ll also restart the paid subscriptions, with a 50% off offer for the next month to celebrate. Your support would be very much appreciated.

Gear - OpenRun Pro 2

This is not a paid endorsement!

I lost my beloved AirPods Gen 3 last week. According to Find My, they are in my house but out of the case. They must have run out of battery because I can’t ping them. As for the case, nowhere to be found either.

I hope they’ll resurface, but in the meantime I decided to finally try a pair of bone conduction headphones to use when running.

If you’ve never heard of it, bone conduction is a technology to transmit sound through vibration in the skull instead of the ear drum. The experience is odd at first, like a telepath from the comics talking in your head, but it quickly feels natural and comfortable.

I went for the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 and I’m very happy with them so far.

I got the mini size because I didn’t like the idea of having the connecting part hanging behind my neck. I found them remarkably stable when running. The audio quality is excellent to my ears, though I’m no audiophile—so take that with a grain of salt.

I also tried them with a helmet and sunglasses on a bike ride. Here, too, they felt comfortable. However, as soon as I picked up some speed the wind in my ears mixed with the Shokz output and it became hard to focus on it. To be expected, I guess, and probably for the best—better staying focused on the road when on the bike.

I might still be in the honeymoon phase. I’ll report back in six months or so, with repeated use, battery life, etc.

I repeat, this is not a paid plug—just a piece of gear I’ve been liking and I thought you might like too.

I hope to get my AirPods back because of how convenient they are with Apple devices, but I can see myself using the Shokz as my primary listening device when on the go or doing chores around the house.

What are your favorite headphones? Have you tried bone conduction? If so, what do you think? Let me know.

Sport watches are for training, not posting.

Originally posted on giolodi.com on 2025/03/31.

Long-time readers know I love my Garmin watch. I configured it with no notifications or connected features. I use it to tell the time, as an alarm that wakes me up but not my wife, and, of course, as a training guide.

I’m also a sucker for the gamified badges system. Intellectually, I know those badges are vacuous and inconsequential. But what can I say? Whatever personality trait makes kids want to complete the Pokédex and grown-ups collect badges—I must have it.

But despite my irrational drive to catch 'em all, there are two badges I will not be trying to get.

In April, Garmin users can win the April Likes badge by getting a total of 25 likes on their public activities and the April Photo Share badge by posting 3 pictures.

I appreciate Garmin shaking up their monthly challenges with something other than “run 5km this weekend, ride 40km the next, swim 1km the one after that,” but I have zero interest in fishing for likes.

If documenting your run with pictures and mile-by-mile breakdowns on Strava is your jam, then go for it. I actually enjoy reading the detailed breakdowns some of my friends post.

But for me, sharing workouts would dilute their value. It would add a status-seeking component to something I try to see as intrinsically valuable.

This goes back to one common topic on this blog: using technology with intention.

Whether it’s Garmin and Strava, Facebook and X, or LinkedIn and Substack, these are all tools that we should be able to use to our advantage. Opt-in to new features by decision, not by default.

I train for physical and mental health, not to share on socials. As such, I don’t share my workouts and I have no interest in the new Garmin social badges.

What about you? Do you exercise at all? If so, how? Do you share your training on Garmin or Strava, or am I misjudging the extent to which people who exercise filter the experience through apps? Keen to hear from you.

Fiction - The Foundation series audiobooks

If you have a Spotify subscription, then you have access to Isaac Asimov’s excellent Foundation series:

• Foundation

• Foundation and Empire

• Second Foundation

• Foundation’s Edge

• Foundation and Earth

• Prelude to Foundation

• Forward the Foundation

As Asimov describes it, Foundation is a series of stories narrating “the full history of the thousand years of turmoil between the fall of the First Galactic Empire and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire.” The character in the books are compelling and engaging, but what really gets you into the series is indeed witnessing this imaginary galaxy progress through the centuries.

If you are looking for a series to get lost into for days, then this one is for you. It’s full of clever characters and unexpected plot twists.

I’m currently listening to Foundation and Earth. One of the highlights for me so far was the duel of wits between two characters – no spoilers – in the Table chapter from Foundation’s Edge.

Pay it forward without measuring it

Here’s a bit of advice from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant that resonates with me:

Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure—your patience will run out if you count.

Notice the “long enough timescale” part. I like Naval because he explains things in a simple way without pretending they are easy.

We should be mindful of survivor and selection bias when listening to advice from successful people. What worked for them at a specific time might not work for us today.

I might be falling prey to biases as well, but I trust in Naval’s advice because it mirrors my experience with mokacoding.com.

I started writing on mokacoding.com because I was interested in software testing and wanted to get better at it. I was “good” at it and started “helping people” with how-to articles that I wrote as learning exercises. I gave them away for free on the blog and on Twitter. I kept at it consistently because there was so much for me to keep exploring. I also got lucky with the occasional retweet by respected folks—“attract what you project.” Eventually, that work led to a very modest book deal, a few invitations to teach workshops, a few more job opportunities, and, more importantly, made some great connections in the iOS community.

The time scale is the scary and frustrating part. Naval says “over a long enough timescale” and warns “your patience will run out if you count.”

This is why you should be writing—or sharing in whichever medium you prefer—to learn, first of all. If you write to become successful, and you don’t have the benefit of an existing platform, you’ll run out of patience. But if you write to share what you learn, to clarify your thinking, to solve problems, then you’ll go on forever, because you won just by writing the post. Anything else is a bonus.

Podcast: The Future of Warfare

Arjun Khemani’s interview with Ethan Thornton, founder of Mach Industries, is inspiring on various axes.

Ethan’s defense technology, focused on decentralization and quantity, is fascinating. And so is how he thinks of Mach as a matrix of specialized teams with different capabilities that come together to build various products, instead of the usual product team structure.

But what I found truly inspiring was that he got started building as a teenager to help solve a problem he was concerned about. Imagine if more teenagers skipped school to build something instead of making a sign and sitting in front of it. How much more progress could we have made already?

Kids: Gods of the Ancient World

When I told my son I featured the castle book he’s been enjoying in last week’s dispatch, he suggested I also recommend Gods of the Ancient World: A kids’ Guide to Ancient Mythologies, so there you have it. If you are looking for a varied collection of myths to enjoy with your kids, that’s the book for you.

The secret to gaining 17,000+ subscribers without publishing a single post

On March 2nd 2025, Will Parker Anderson posted his first note on Substack. He had exactly two Substack subscribers. Two weeks later, Will’s subscribers were more than 17,000.

How is this possible?! What’s his secret?

The secret is that there is no secret!

The note was nothing special: “Hey friends, I’m a senior editor at Penguin Random House. New to substack, but I’ll be posting tips about writing and publishing here weekly. Excited to connect with you all.”

Will’s massive growth came down to being the right person, in the right place, at the right time. Simple, not easy.

• The right person: Senior editor at big publishing company giving writing advice.

• In the right place: Substack is a platform for writers. Maybe not every subscriber has a newsletter or aspires to publish, but it’s safe to assume a large enough portion are interested enough to subscribe.

• At the right time: On March 12, Substack announced having crossed 5 million paid subscriptions, just four months after having reached 4 million.

Sure, there might have been a lot of luck in there, too. For whatever reason, his note might have tickled the Substack algorithm in just the right way to reach escape velocity and go viral.

But that only explains the “right time” factor.

There’s an apocryphal story about an elderly Picasso being approached in a restaurant by a diner who asked for a sketch on a napkin. The master took the napkin and in just a few strokes produced a portrait in his unmistakable style. “That will be 50,000 francs, madame.” “How is it possible,” exclaimed the woman, “it took you no more than thirty seconds!” “No,” replied Picasso as he folded the napkin and put it into his pocket, “it has taken me forty years to do that.”

Becoming a senior editor at one of the world’s top publishing houses takes years of effort. And if you check Will’s LinkedIn, you’ll indeed see that he’s been in the business since 2013.

So, well done . I am one of the many subscribers and am looking forward to your advice.

Podcasts – Anxious generation… or biased author and sloppy researchers?

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt made quite the splash last year. Haidt argues smartphones and social media are to blame for the what he refers to as an epidemic of mental illness.

Vaden Masrani and Ben Chugg take a look at the book and in particular at the research Haidt used to back up his claims in episode 82 of their Increment podcast.

Their conclusion? The data was treated “sloppily.”

Haidt is aware of his bias and went to great lengths to offset it by collecting and processing the studies in the open and online. Yet, they argue, not only does he mix and match results from different studies to support his conclusion, but he also draws from studies that are far from rigorous.

I admit that I haven’t verified their claims, but having been a listener of the show for a while, I have no reason to be suspicious. Besides—and here, my own bias comes into play—between the replication crisis and academics like Francesca Gino, how can we trust anything coming from fields of research that resort to appending “science” to their name?

That’s not to dismiss Haidt’s claim—Vaden and Ben take it seriously and so do I. But we need to be careful in choosing explanations that boil down to “this new technology is bad.”

Many of the technologies we depend on and treat as harmless today were considered evil and dangerous when they were introduced. Check out the excellent Pessimist Archive to get an idea.

My guess is that reality is far more complex than the correlation some see, or forcefully extract, from a bunch of more or less rigorous studies. Every child is unique and parents need to work together to create individual solutions.

Kids Books

I stumbled upon a post on X by , recommending giving every child a copy of Stephen Biesty’s Cross-Sections Castle to encourage reading:

Another case of “right place, right time.” My son has been interested in castles recently, building his own LEGO version after the latest session of watching Lord of the Rings together.

For what my sample of one is worth, Ryan’s suggestion is solid. My son immediately buried his head in Biesty’s superb illustrations and got lost in the book for a long while.

We’ll likely get the rest of the Cross-Sections series. I’ll let you know which was the favorite.

This used to be for premium subscribers only, but I paused subscriptions back in June last year while I figure out what I’m actually writing about and what’s a good way to get readers support without artificially hiding what I hope is useful writing.

Provide. Protect. Project.

My 8-year-old son and I were talking about the roles of a man in the house.

We thought of three important roles, and since we like to play around with words, we looked for a nice alliteration.

• Provide: A man should work hard and work smart to provide for his family.

• Protect: A man should protect his family. This covers a wide spectrum of activities, from being fit and capable of defending the family from direct harm, to ensuring the home is safe and well-maintained, with nothing at risk of breaking.

• Project: A man should show, not tell. Transmitting values starts with living up to them. Only then can come discussions and explanations.

Granted, there’s more to being a man and a father than providing, protecting, and projecting. But I find it’s useful to have these little catchy reminders. I see them as handles you can use to grab a hold of a nuanced topic and lift it into your mind.

Besides, having that conversation with my son was more important than identifying a precise model. It showed him — I hope — that I take him seriously, that I strive to improve, and that he can too.

It was also a good excuse to talk about something other than LEGO Ninjago or the latest fart jokes.

Three podcasts worth listening to

Musk, Chalamet, and Real vs. Fake Greatness. Cal Newport joins the Farewell podcast to discuss the pursuit of excellence in the polarized American society. They comment on Elon waving a chainsaw on stage, Timothée Chalamet’s SAG award acceptance speech, and the NYT post Elon Musk Is the World’s Richest Man. Why Is He Sleeping on an Office Floor?. The conversation turned a bit political, which I found took away from the message — that pursuing excellence is worthwhile but the challenge is to do it on your own terms and without conflating quantity of input with quality of output or being distracted by the resentful anti-productivity discourse.

On the Evolution of Reason. Sharp thinker Brett Hall, on creativity, rationality, and finding better ways of thinking.

Learn To Read, Write, And Think. Of all the things I’d expect to learn from the military, how to write better was not one of them. Yet, Professional Writing: The Command and General Staff College Writing Guide does just that. Jocko Willink and Echo Charles unpack some of the tips and dig deeper on the value of writing for thinking better.

Fiction

I’ve been reading Once a Runner by John L. Parker Jr. In the past year, I’ve taken up running regularly and dug a bit into how to train for it. I found the description of the training sessions and races fascinating.

I am also liking the character of Bruce Denton as an embodiment of humble consistency:

He wanted to impart some of the truths Bruce Denton had taught him, that you don’t become a champion by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years.

Thank you for reading.

Let me know what you think of the Monday Dispatch + Friday Recap format.

Before getting started, I want to plug a podcast conversation with some of my favorite thinkers on productivity, performance, and how we interact with technology. If you enjoy my writing, you’ll enjoy Farewell’s episode 31: Let’s Make Work — and Technology — Less Insane.

Ten Mantras To Live By

While I’m skeptical of simple solutions to complex problems, I find there’s something powerful in having mantras.

Mantras, in this context, are concise and memorable wrappers for nuanced concepts or values. They work as handles you can use to lift an otherwise complex schema of ideas in your working memory or metaphorically hand it over to a family or team member that shares that meme (of the Dawkins kind).

Recently, I’ve been gathering mantras to help me stay focused, grounded, and committed to improving.

Here are the ten I’ve been using the most.

I hope you’ll find them as valuable. Let me know what you think.

1. Problems Are Inevitable. Problems Are Soluble

This is one of the core ideas from The Beginning of Infinity.

Problems are inevitable. There is no such thing as equilibrium or sustainability because every solution creates a new set of problems.

But that’s okay because problems are also soluble—once you know how to do so.

The proviso is crucial. Problems won’t solve themselves. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on them.

2. The Obstacle Is The Way

The problems are obstacles between the state you are in now and the state you want to be.

In The Obstacle Is The Way, Ryan Holiday channels the writings of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and other Stoic philosophers to remind us how each challenge in life is an opportunity for growth.

The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

3. Don’t Wish It Was Easier. Wish You Were Better

A natural reaction when facing a problem is to wish it was easier. When you find an obstacle, it’s natural to wish it wasn’t there.

Jim Rohn encourages us to take a different, proactive approach. Don’t wish things were easier. Wish you were better.

Problems won’t solve themselves. Obstacles won’t magically get out of your way.

The only rational approach is to get better yourself.

4. Discipline Equals Freedom

Getting better takes time.

Whether you want to be stronger, learn new skills, or get a better job to support your family, those improvements don’t happen overnight. You need discipline to keep showing up day after day, regardless of how you feel and regardless of how little progress you seem to have made.

Eventually, all the work you put in compounds in noticeable improvements. Those improvements give you freedom.

You buy freedom with discipline.

5. What can I do today that will make everything else easier or unnecessary?

This is a question, but who said that questions, even long ones like this, can’t be mantras?

I wrote about this question, which I discovered via Gary W. Keller, in the past. It’s a helpful lens to adopt during decision-making.

Asking it throughout the day is a great way to bring attention back to your goals and priorities. It’s a way to make life easier for your future self.

Looking for actions that can make everything else easier or unnecessary reveals connection and second-order effects. Instead of mindlessly picking up the next item in the queue, you force yourself to think of the bigger picture. You purposely imagine the unfolding chain of events and how to stir them in your favor.

6. Pay Now Or Pay Later

Most things in life come with a price. Either you pay now, or you risk paying later—with interest.

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As a belated celebration of the second anniversary, this week’s dispatch has no paywall.

Last month marked the second anniversary of my transition from writing about (mostly) software testing on mokacoding.com to (mostly) productivity on giolodi.com.

On top of that, I realized I passed the 100 posts milestone a while back. As a matter of fact, I published 125 posts on giolodi.com, plus 15 Monday Dispatches, and 10 Patreon-supporter posts, for a total of 150 posts.

This seems like a good time to look back and share some highlights and reflections.

The setup

A few details on my peculiar setup.

giolodi.com is the official site, but I use Substack as the vehicle to email posts and offer paid content. The idea was that Substack’s social layer would help with discovery, which it does, but only a little. More on that later.

I also cross-post on Medium because it takes a couple of clicks, and, with less diligence, on LinkedIn.

giolodi.com is hosted on WordPress.com. That’s a way to dog-food one of the products I help build at Automattic.

Some Numbers

Each article gets an average of 1.3k views on Substack but only a handful on giolodi.com.

The figure comes from me eyeballing the posts list as I couldn’t find that figure in Substack’s stats. Substack optimizes for sending new emails and converting paid subscribers, any data about other areas is quite sparse.

Most viewed posts on Substack

1. Don’t let your intrinsic motivation become a liability

2. Being productive won’t get you more free time

3. Write down what you need to do, wake up early, and do it

4. Develop empathy for your future self

5. Be your harshest critic

Those posts received 1.45k to 1.6k views each. They match with the most emails opened. That suggests most reads come from you, my dear subscribers, and not other sources like social or searches.

Most viewed posts on giolodi.com

The numbers on the blog itself are one order of magnitude lower, between 350 and 150 views. This reinforces my conjecture on where and how people read my work.

1. What does it mean to be a productive software developer?

2. Swift did not disrupt the iOS job market, and neither will AI

3. Turn Your iPhone Into An Inspiration Machine

4. When should you fix software bugs?

5. Software developers should read

I find it interesting that the top posts on giolodi.com are different from Substack’s. I haven’t dug into it, but I suppose those views come from a mix of sharing on social media and organic searches.

Notable mentions

These are the 5 posts that Substack’s algorithm currently ranks as “top”:

1. Don’t check your inbox. Process it!

2. When Remote Work Doesn’t Work

3. Break free from mediocrity

4. Premium Subscribers Q&A – September 2023

5. Chris Lattner on cross-pollination in Mojo

I’m surprised that none of the top posts are from the most viewed group. Nor are they the ones with the most likes. Clearly, Substack’s alg must take additional factors into account.

The piece There’s more to caring than working long hours deserves a special mention, too. It got syndicated on Medium’s Better Programming publication where it got quite a few eyeballs.

Observation

I’m skeptical of analyzing the posts data without at least exporting them into a spreadsheet. But I cannot find such an option on Substack. Besides, given my volume, I doubt there’d be anything statistically relevant.

So, here are some observations.

Themes

The posts that most resonated, using views as a proxy metric, are down-to-earth, actionable productivity advice. One might say they have a contrarian flavor. The titles are phrased as critical or have negative verbs. “Don’t let this,” “That won’t,” “That other doesn’t,” “There’s more to this than,” etc.

None of the best posts are about AI, the future of work or the other tech-related topics I opine about from time to time. I don’t have the discipline or the attention span to write on a single topic over and over, but this observation will help me decide how much effort to put into those tangential topics.

Speaking of AI, none of the top posts has AI-generated images.

Distribution

Cross-posting and syndicating have been basically useless in gathering new subscribers. The piece syndicated on Better Programming that I mentioned above got more views than any of my posts on Substack, yet Medium accounts for only nine all-time views and one free subscription.

When viewed from that angle, I should stop doing it.

But I’d like to think my writing is helpful in some way. Sure, I’d love for folks to subscribe and for this endeavor to eventually become economically viable. But I’m also doing it with the romantic ambition of being part of the ladder of progress. From that angle, sharing and cross-posting are good ways to spread ideas and meet people where they are. I can see myself keep doing it on those channels that have low friction.

SEO

As I’ve mentioned above, from the data I can gather between Substack and my WordPress instance, little of my traffic is organic.

I debate whether to invest in SEO. On the one hand, it seems like a no-brainer. Why spend all that time writing if people only see your posts once?

On the other hand, I’d rather use the little time I have on writing.

I may be delusional, but I think there’s a tipping point in scale that, once reached, will outsize the return from any SEO effort. Better to work on my craft and sharpen my ideas by iterating on post after post than playing SEO games.

Lessons Learned

A classic theme for this kind of retrospective post is “how to grow your newsletter like I did.” Alas, I can’t advise you on how to grow an audience or succeed at Substack because mine is not a success story. My subs number is low and churning, and the growth curve is relatively flat.

What I can share, however, is how I managed to stick with this for two years, publish a healthy number of articles, and get value out of the process regardless of extrinsic metrics being unremarkable and stagnant.

What works for me

I’ll summarize it in a step-by-step framework. But keep in mind that reality is more complex. Take this as a guideline.

1. Find something you are interested in and care about. Ideally, it should be a “scratch your own hitch” kind of thing. I care about productivity because I want to be the best version of myself and support and provide for my family. All the online writers I admire write from a place of curiosity.

2. Read about it. Read about your area of interest as widely as you can. Watching videos and listening to podcasts also counts as gathering ideas. After all, ideas come in all different forms and instantiation. But I can’t help feeling that if writing is your goal, reading should be the primary acquisition medium.

That means being in touch with the prominent voices in the field at present, as well as understanding the “canon” and background of the field. In addition, read widely, for example, by reviewing the bibliographies of the books that resonated with you or by finding out who your favorite authors read.

3. Think. Then, think some more. I came across a prominent author’s comic strip illustration of their writing process. Unfortunately, I didn’t note it down at the time, but I remember it showing a stick-figure-like version of the author’s head growing in size in each frame until it was massive. That’s when the writing began.

Writing is thinking.

I’ve heard from various authors in interviews that they have several ideas in incubation at a time. They’ll go out for a walk and ponder about them. Or collect notes in draft articles. At some point, all the thinking coalesces, and they’re ready to start writing.

That’s been my amateur experience as well. I’ve missed my self-imposed weekly deadline many times because I started to write a post that wasn’t thought through enough and couldn’t get anything worth sharing in time.

4. Write. That sounds easy enough, but anyone who tried it knows it isn’t.

But if you’ve thought through your ideas long enough, writing about them gets less hard.

I follow a rather standard process.

• Write down the core idea. That’s the elevator pitch for the post, the one-liner kernel at the center of it.

• Develop an outline. Try to think about storytelling, too. Beginning, middle, end. Setup, conflict, resolution.

• First draft.

• Edit.

• Bounce between writing and editing until satisfied. Or till you realize you’re going round in circles and it’s time to ship the damned thing.

• Copy edit. I’ve been using Grammarly for a while. Recently, I’ve also been feeding the final version into ChatGPT. It picks things every now and then that Grammarly missed.

5. Publish, then move on. It’s easy to get emotionally attached to a post. You came up with a new idea or a fresh angle to an old one. You’ve put your heart and soul into it.

Then you publish and… it’s out of your hands.

Sometimes, it resonates. Once in a while, it goes really well.

More often than not, it falls flat.

That’s why I try to ignore my posts’ stats and think forward.

John McPhee pointed out that: “It doesn’t matter that something you’ve done before worked out well. Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you.”

Something your last piece can do, however, is reveal further avenues for research and thinking. At that point, you’re ready to start again from the top.

I find the process I just described thoroughly enjoyable. From the turning of pages in the books I read to the loud clicking of the Cherry MX Blue in my Ergodox EZ mechanical keyboard. From diving into rabbit holes to ruminating on ideas while out walking.

I get something out of it every time, regardless of the measurable outcomes. If all the reads and like went away, I’d still be writing in one way or another.

That’s the not so secret secret of my consistency. If found something I care about and built an enjoyable process around it. It’s a climb where the landscape I see along the way is intrinsically rewarding, regardless of how far the peak is.

Accountability

Another benefit of writing about the topics I cover is that every post holds me accountable.

Since writing about developing empathy for the future self, I found it harder to make short-term focused choices. Publishing posts about workflows and ways to work is a way for me to put them into practice. I can’t be consistently disorganized when I pour so much ink into praising organization and discipline.

If writing is thinking, then publishing is accountability.

If you want to embark on a self-improvement journey, consider writing about it in public.

The raw metrics for my writing are far from impressive, but there’s more to this work than optimizing for views or shares.

It might sound lofty, but I find myself aligned with what philosopher Karl Popper wrote in Conjecture and Refutations: “It so happens that I am not only deeply interested in certain philosophical problems (I do not much care whether they are ‘rightly’ called ‘philosophical problems’), but inspired by the hope that I may contribute—if only a little, and only by hard work—to their solution.”

So, here’s to the next 150 posts.

And here’s to you for sharing the journey with me.

Thanks!

Originally published on giolodi.com.

Before sharing a reflection on how we approach our phones, I have a pool for you.

Thank you for voting.

Last week, I listened to an interesting interview with Jake Knapp on The Art of Manliness podcast. The conversation revolved around tips for “creating a distraction-free phone.”

It reminded me of the most useful post I read in 2018, How To Configure Your iPhone For Productivity and Longevity. It was an eye-opener for how to use the phone as a tool. More on that later.

During the interview, Jake recounts his experience as a tech nerd and early adopter and how that translated in what I call opt-in by default attitude towards new apps once the iPhone came out.

The wake-up call came when Jake’s son asked what was on his phone. A pretty harmless question if it wasn’t for the fact that Jake and his son were playing. Or at least that’s what Jake wanted to do, but he clearly was more preoccupied with his phone than his son.

This vignette will be tragically familiar to most parents. And if you are not a parent, I’m sure it happened to you when out with family or friends. (The Apple Watch is particularly devious in this regard, as it lets you check out notifications with a quick glance at your wrist.)

That incident was a turning point for Jake. He has spent the past twelve years re-configuring his phone to be as distraction-free as possible.

Without delving into the implementation details, which you can learn about by listening to the interview, the approach Jake took is what I refer to as opt-in by decision.

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Just in case, this is not an April’s Fool post. Your inbox is probably crowded with them already, no need to add to the clutter. Besides, I lack the sense of humor to craft one in the first place.

On Gamification

On a recent Farewell episode, the panelists touched on the value of gamification in fitness.

Their conclusion resonated with me: If gamification is what you need to get out of the door, go for it. But treat it like a crutch; at some point, you should no longer need it.

If that doesn’t happen, your incentives and motivations might be off-kilter.

The conversation is a good complement to my reflection on gamification and being aware of what game you are actually playing from a few weeks ago.

As a quick aside, the advice on using gamification as a temporary crutch goes hand in hand with regularly exercising without data-collecting devices. The idea is that, as useful and fun as the data is, we need to remind ourselves that exercising is valuable in and of itself and stay in touch with our body and the signals it sends during it. But this is not a fitness newsletter, so I’ll move on.

On Free Will

The week I’m writing this, Sam Harris published an interview with Robert Sapolsky on free will based on Sapolsky’s latest book Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will.

The conversation was well articulated, but, as far as I’m concerned, it missed the mark. Their argument against free will is technically correct but practically useless.

Every time I come across the “free will does not exist” argument, especially when packaged in a well-produced format like Sam’s, I listen back to these pieces for a counterargument:

• Free Will Exists

• A diversion on Free Will and Artificial Intelligence

Brett’s angle also works as an intellectual cleanser. The chain of reasoning he applies, following in David Deutsch’s footsteps, is far solid and, crucially, leads to practically useful conclusions.

The foundation on which Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky build their argument against free will is that the more we learn about the brain and the body, the more we see how our decisions are affected, sometimes dictated, by lower-level processes.

Much goes into our choices that is outside our control. Our DNA affects our choices. Our past experiences affect our choices. Our luck, or lack thereof, affects our choices and the array of choices available to us.

In short, we don’t have free will because we are a product of our environment, genetics, and chance.

This reductionist argument seems profound on the surface but amounts to nothing more than saying that we obey the laws of physics and causality… like everything else in the Universe!

According to that model, I am currently typing these words because of electrical crackles in my brain initiated by a chain of events that we can trace back to the Big Bang. This is obviously true, but it doesn’t begin to explain why I’m typing these words.

And why is all that matters.

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I noticed Monday Dispatch 2024/02/13 had a missing link. The URL for The Downfall Of Modern Podcasts video by James Smith on YouTube is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE1GuFQHxSE.

“Freedom is an opportunity for self-discipline.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I discovered that Eisenhower quote in Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny a couple of months ago and it’s been buzzing around my head ever since.

I find it applies so well to the life of knowledge workers working remotely.

We have freedom in the hours we choose to work. We need the discipline to stick to them and not overwork.

We have freedom in which projects we choose. We need the discipline to work on those that matter, not those that are easy.

Zooming out from remote knowledge workers to people living in the West, we have freedom no other generations ever enjoyed.

There is an abundance of calories dense food. We need the discipline to avoid caloric overload.

There is an abundance of entertainment. We need the discipline to get off the couch.

There is an abundance of products. We need the discipline to buy only what we need. Gear, not stuff, as puts it.

It may seem unfair. My son certainly thinks so when he remarks how much he wishes lollies were as good for you as broccoli.

All this goodness within reach, most of it is bad for you unless taken in small doses.

The more choices, the more discipline. But being disciplined is not as rewarding as eating that doughnut.

Or is it?

Discipline’s rewards are delayed but more ample. They are health, wealth, and wisdom.

And it goes further than that. The more I think of it, the more I see discipline as its own reward.

Which is why Eisenhower’s quote stuck. All this freedom is an opportunity for discipline, because discipline is a reward, not a penalty.

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