Michael Poosikian > Recent Status Updates

Reading about philosophy from thousands of years ago talking about friendship is super interesting. The same principles that apply now still apply then. The point that sticks out here is that good friendship is built on trust and the shared idea of what matters in life.

So far it’s interesting. Mainly talking about how many people pursue pleasure and are hedonists already, but that we aren’t very good at it. Also talks about delayed gratification and how the pursuit of short term pleasure often makes us miserable when it becomes part of a longer term pattern. Need to read more to have a better grasp on it.

“For the first time [he] realized the finality of his decision, and almost wished he could recall it. He felt his inadequacy to the goal he had so recklessly chosen and felt the attraction of the world he had abandoned.”

He just like me fr

Once I finish this book, I’m going to start working on a YouTube video

Tons of interesting parts here: on self love, erotic love, and what it means to love your fellow person.

It also addresses self love in a way that refutes the idea that self love is selfish. “If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice - to love myself, since I am a human being too.”

Many interesting parts here so far, but the part that resonated the most so far is the idea that love is primarily about giving, not receiving. Giving yourself fully to someone, enhances the experience of the person you are giving love to, and in turn, improves your life as well. “In truly giving, he cannot help receiving that which is given back to him”

“Love is a power that produces love”

Even though it was published in 2017, everything that I’ve read so far (and remember reading a few years ago) is so ridiculously on the nose for our current moment. It’s scary, but it’s important to be prepared. Tactics described to have been done by the nazis are being done by the new administration.

“History does not repeat, but it does instruct”
“History can familiarize, and it can warn”

Fuck…

Generalist good specialist bad etc etc

The chapter I just read was great. It talks about how much we change as people throughout our lives, and how that makes it so long term planning ends up being limiting, by basing the future on your present self, who will not exist when your plans come to fruition.

“The precise person you are now is fleeting, just like all the people you’ve been”

Uh guys… this reading thing is actually pretty fun

Movin’ and shakin’

It’s nice to read a book where I can read for an hour and make it through more than 10 pages

First part of the book talks about the idea that a lot of life is not in controlled environments and how adaptability is essential for navigating it, and that having a breath of expertise allows you to pull from different areas. Also talks about how education system doesn’t teach us to think outside the field we study

Finally in the home stretch. Such dense read but very insightful. Tons of good quotes from the last several pages I read but two that I like are

“Try at least, there is no shame in making an honest effort”

“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have”

Haven’t had the time or energy to read much recently, but I’ve finally made some progress here. I have a lot to get to after this.

(Still enjoying this quite a bit though)

The section on dealing with negative impulses particularly resonated:

“If you lose the struggle once, but insist that next time it will be different, then repeat the same routine - be sure that in the end you will be in so sad and weakened a condition that you won’t realize your mistakes, you’ll begin to rationalize your misbehavior”

“Makes a bad beginning and you’ll contend with troubles ever after”

Bro Epictetus really backloaded his discourses. First 50 pages weren’t doing much for me but he’s starting cooking around page 80

Lots of good stuff up to this point but the most interesting thing he says is that if you always gossip and talk about things told to you in confidence to other people, then you’ll never really feel at peace. Even if you get away with telling another person, there will always be a nagging feeling that the person whose secret you divulged will find out.

Hits on a lot of different themes at this point on how to live life, death, how to treat others, friendships, and dealing with outside stressors, but an idea that I’ve found interesting is that “needing to get away” is inherently flawed, since you end up taking all the burdens and anxieties with you wherever you go. A trip to a distant land won’t cure you if you constantly run away from inner problems.

He’s currently talking about friendship and self fulfillment. He pulls from a comic poet who said

“Not happy he who thinks himself not so”

He’s kinda onto something there

Damn, this guy is good (I haven’t even gotten to the letters yet)

Made it through a good chunk of the book while flying back from Atlanta for a work conference. Either this book is building to something huge that I am at the cusp of or I am losing the plot a little bit. Regardless, I am very eager to find out which it is.

Also, it is refreshing for the protagonist to be a massive loser though. Finally, someone the Everyman can relate to!

I read quite a bit on my flight today and the woman next to me said “I heard about that book and that it’s really weird” and then asked to read the back cover.