Who is the wisest (not smartest) person you know?
Answer my survey! It'll take 2 minutes. Also, stress and a "better" world.
I didn’t get a lot of responses to my last week’s survey. My friend Victor, who reads the newsletter, said that he didn’t even see the link and suggested that I ask for an email reply instead.1 So I’ll ask again:
Who is the wisest (not smartest) person you know personally?
What about them makes them wise to you?
Given your answers above, how would you define wisdom? Do you try to cultivate wisdom in yourself?
If you’re willing, please reply to this email. It will take you 2 minutes to respond, although contemplating who is the wisest (not smartest) person you know and what makes them wise to you may require some quiet thoughtful time. Which is sort of the point. We don’t think a lot about wisdom in today’s world. I think we’d be a lot happier if we did.
Because I want to leave you time to contemplate the above questions, this post is short and to the point:
Are you stressed out?
Almost everyone I know is stressed out, including (especially?) my friends in the professional white-collar class.
Stress is related to obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal problems, and asthma. Medical research estimates as much as 90 percent of illness and disease is stress-related. In 2019, before the pandemic, 55 percent of Americans said they had experienced stress during “a lot of the day” prior, compared with just 35 percent globally. 33 percent of Americans reported feeling “extreme stress.” I can’t imagine that those numbers have declined since.
The United States is an achievement culture. Our sense of identity is built around accomplishment, or even at its most enlightened, a sense of purpose.2 That creates a lot of anxiety. In contrast, many other places have a culture where identity is based on belonging. People don’t seem to feel that they have to earn their place in the world, they simply belong.
Most capitalist advice is to become more efficient. James Clear says build better habits. Seth Godin says to level up. Cal Newport says to get into Deep Work. Get more education, more certification. Manage your calendar better. Focus more with the Pomodoro technique. It sounds all very exhausting. And that’s the messaging we get all around us: it’s our fault we’re not doing enough. Just become better.
None of that is going to reduce stress. In fact, trying to do more in less time is only going to increase stress. It’s all a bit absurd. Charlie Chaplin’s factory scene in Modern Times. By doing more in less time, we’re just speeding up the assembly line. The only way to lower stress is to slow down the assembly line.
90 percent of illness and disease is stress related, so the only way for this nation to be healthier is to slow down the assembly line.
Every ecological marker that is degrading is because of producing and consuming stuff, so the only way to continue living on this planet is to slow down the assembly line.
The only way to slow down the assembly line is to do less.
Everyone, including probably you, is trying to do their best. And that’s the exact wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is do less. Work 50% less. Consume 50% less. Get less shit done, stop asking so much shit to be done. This isn’t even about prioritization. I’m talking a 50% cut across the board. Just do less.
Try less. Be lazy. Be inefficient. If you do it, you’ll be healthier and happier. You’ll enjoy life more. If we all did it, we’d stop accelerating to ecological collapse.3
We’re talking about Taoist principle of wu wei (video explainer), “non-doing,” or “not forcing.” As any friend of mine knows, Wu Wei is also the name of my wonderdog, the epitome of a being just being, not trying to do anything.
I swear to you, you’ll do more do more good in the world if you did nothing that if you did something. The only way this world could be better is if you operated with a clear definition of enough and stopped trying to achieve, accumulate, or acquire more than you actually need4: the second homes, the extra clothes, the nicer vacation. There is not outer solution for the interior problem. The disaster comes from inside.
Speaking of which, someone recently asked me:
What is a "better" world to you?
My answer of a “better” world is not “more” of anything.5 I wrote back:
A world where people could accept that everything belongs, and nothing needs to be pushed away.
A place of spiritual fun: Camaraderie, togetherness, positivity, laughing reminiscing, sometimes food. The prescription is to invite over 4-6 people. Don’t turn on the TV, don’t bring out board games. There is a tragedy in not being able to have good conversation. Tell stories. At a good party, you can’t know everyone, it’s an element of surprise and discovery which can only be described as delight.6
A world where people understood that primary satisfactions: a sense of safety, of being known and affirmed, of being part of something, are all these things that can only be received from others as a gift. And modern capitalism tries to replace those with secondary satisfactions: material goods, power, rank, prestige. These things are all addictions because things have have earn can never satisfy the soul. And if you look closely, secondary satisfactions are all the things we stress about. When we lose our sense of not-enough, we lose our anxiety.
Write me back!
Anyway, I don’t want to go on too long because I want you to contemplate this and write me back (or put it in this Google Form)! I want to know:
Who is the wisest (not smartest) person you know personally?
What about them makes them wise to you?
Given your answers above, how would you define wisdom? Do you try to cultivate wisdom in yourself?
Looking forward to your answers!
Less friction for you, the responder, more work for me, the collector.
"And y’know that there is sometimes I think: I have no value. I’m just loved.
I love to offer that to people as an alternative to the American purpose-driven life that says you don’t have any value unless you’re serving a purpose and what is your purpose and all of us are born with a purpose and you have to find your purpose and then you have to change the world with that purpose. All of that just makes the tendons in my neck stand out and gives me hives of anxiety that I’m doing it wrong or that I might never get there or that I had a purpose but then I failed and it should have been this one. All of that is just so tremendously anxiety-producing.
It’s so inhumane to teach people that that is what the point of their life is – is to earn, somehow, their presence on this earth through purpose and through what they contribute and it better be good. It’s just so mean.
The reality is that you are not required to have a purpose at all – that’s what it means to be loved. You are not required – nothing is required of you. Nothing is required of you. You are part of all of this. And could not be if you tried. And that, I think, is real peace." - Elizabeth Gilbert
“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.” ― Edward Abbey
HT my man Michael Poffenger
Interestingly not even more justice, more equity, more freedom all things I work on. That’s it’s own whole post but if we got more of those things, would we really be happier? Or would we find more things to be dissatisfied by?
I got this from somewhere, but I can’t find the citation. But if you said this and see this, let me know and I’ll credit you!
Thanks Douglas!! As my wife tells me often: "We are too blessed to be stressed!"