The Weekly Circle #19
Welcome to the nineteenth episode of The Weekly Circle! A free Circles in Time newsletter released every Sunday.
Hey everybody,
With my final course for the year wrapped up, I am going to be moving into a reflective and strategic mode— Looking back on the weird and wonderful world of 2020, and what might lay in store for 2021.
I’ll share an in-depth review of my experience building Circles in Time, as part of my commitment to working and experimenting in public.
Additionally, I will also share a road-map for 2021, and my vision for the direction I want the initiative to move towards over the longer run— it feels bold, weird and to be honest, slightly scares me a little bit. But perhaps a good vision of the future should do that.
If you have any feedback, questions or thoughts on how I could shape the Circles in Time initiative to be more valuable for you—now would be a great time to reach out :)
WORLD VIEWS
Here are the ideas I’ve been circling around this week.
THE WORLD AROUND US
The Idea Adoption Curve
Ben Thompson, the famous business technology writer, responsible for the Stratechery blog, recently published a fascinating piece about the market for ideas, its shifting landscape, the emerging implications of abundance, a transition from pull to push media and the substitution of ad-driven business models for subscriptions.
To make sense of the landscape, he uses a framework created by Geoffrey Moore, which he wrote about in his famous book, Crossing the Chasm.
As Ben Thompson explains:
Technology Enthusiasts love tech first and foremost, and are always looking to be on the cutting edge; they are the first to try a new product
Visionaries love new products as well, but they also have an eye on how those new products or technologies can be applied. They are the most price-insensitive part of the market
Pragmatists are a much larger segment of the market; they are open to new products, but they need evidence they will work and be worth the trouble, and they are much more price-conscious
Conservatives are much more hesitant to accept change; they are inherently suspicious of any new technology and often only adopt new products when doing so is the only way to keep up. Because they don’t highly value technology, they aren’t willing to pay a lot
Skeptics are not just hesitant but actively hostile to technology
He then uses this framework to make sense of the Idea Adoption Curve and different players at each stage of the life cycle.
Taken as a whole, the post is a useful sensemaking tool for understanding the current state of information, its nature and spread; and a window into where things might be going.
THE WORLD BETWEEN US
The Eight Rules of The School of Life
Alain De Botton’s School of Life is one of my favourite resources for learning how to navigate the complex social web of relationships that make up one’s community and social reality.
Earlier this year, The School of Life took on the enormous task of synthesising eight guiding rules from their mountain of content (500 films and over 5 million written words).
The eight rules of the School of Life are as follows:
ACCEPT IMPERFECTION
We are inherently flawed and broken beings. Perfection is beyond us. Despite our intelligence and our science, we will never stamp out stupidity and pain. Life will always continue to be – in central ways – about suffering. We are all, from close up, scared, unsure, full of regret, longing and error. No one is normal: the only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.SHARE VULNERABILITY
Recognising that we are each one of us weak, mad and mistaken should inspire compassion for ourselves – and generosity towards others. Knowing how to reveal our vulnerability and brokenness is the bedrock of true friendship, which we universally crave.KNOW YOUR INSANITY
We cannot be entirely sane, but it is a basic requirement of maturity that we understand the ways in which we are insane, can warn others we care about what our insanities might make us do, early and in good time and before we have caused too much damage – and take constant steps to contain rather than act out our follies.ACCEPT YOUR IDIOCY
Do not run away from the thought you may be an idiot as if this were a rare and dreadful insight. Accept the certainty with good grace, in full daylight. You are an idiot but there is no other alternative for a human being. We are on a planet of seven billion comparable fools.YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH
The alternative to perfection isn’t failure, it’s to make our peace with the idea that we are, each of us, ‘good enough’. Good enough parents, siblings, workers and humans. ‘Ordinary’ isn’t a name for failure. Understood more carefully, and seen with a more generous and perceptive eye, it contains the best of life. Life is not elsewhere; it is, fully and properly, here and now.OVERCOME ROMANTICISM
‘The one’ is a cruel invention. No-one is ever wholly ‘right’ nor indeed wholly wrong. True love isn’t merely an admiration for strength, it is patience and compassion for our mutual weaknesses. Love is a capacity to bring imagination to bear on a person’s less impressive moments – and to bestow an ongoing degree of forgiveness for natural fragility. Compatibility isn’t a prerequisite for love; it is the achievement of love.DESPAIR CHEERFULLY
We are under undue and unfair pressure to smile. But almost nothing will go entirely well: we can expect frustration, misunderstanding, misfortune and rebuffs. We should be allowed to be melancholy. Melancholy is not rage or bitterness, it is a noble species of sadness that arises when we are open to the fact that disappointment is at the heart of human experience. In our melancholy state, we can understand without fury or sentimentality that no one fully understands anyone else, that loneliness is universal and that every life has its full measure of sorrow. Despair but do so cheerfully: believe in cheerful despair.TRANSCEND YOURSELF
We are not at the center of anything; thankfully. We are miniscule bundles of evanescent matter on an infinitesimal corner of a boundless universe. We do not count one bit in the grander scheme. This is a liberation. We should gain relief from the thought of the kindly indifference of spatial infinity: an eternity where no-one will notice, and where the wind erodes the rocks in the space between the stars. Cosmic humility – taught to us by nature, history and the sky above us – is a blessing and a constant alternative to a life of frantic jostling, humourlessness and anxious pride.
Here is a lovely short video they made to unpack the eight rules:
THE WORLD WITHIN US
The One Thing all ‘Blue Zone’ Centenarians have in Common
In a fascinating conversation with Joe Rogan, the infamous Aubrey de Grey discusses the Centenarians, and how, despite the myriad of differences across all the Blue Zones, it is evident that they all share an ability to deal with stressors extremely well.
“When you are in a stressed-out state you synthesise elevated amounts of certain hormones that interact throughout the body and in various ways accelerate the accumulation of different types of damage.”
This is the point, Daniel Buettner, one the most knowledgeable researcher’s on Blue Zone, has made in the past too.
WISE WORDS
The quotes I’ve been circling around this week
“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” ~ Eden Phillpotts
"The modern mind is overstimulated and the modern body is under-stimulated and overfed. Meditation, exercise, and fasting restore an ancient balance." ~ Naval Ravikant
“No one who disdains the key will ever be able to unlock the door.” ~ Sigmund Freud
“Eventually .... Execution beats luck. Consistency beats intensity. Curiosity beats smart. Kind beats clever. Together beats alone.” ~ Shane Parrish
COMMUNITY UPDATE
It was great to see community members during the monthly system setup workshop this weekend.
The session tied onto the end of the Essentials course, as a way to connect the outgoing cohort with the existing community members—a component I’ve included to connect the growing community more closely. It worked nicely, and definitely something I am going to continue with the cohorts in 2021.
If you didn’t attend the workshop this weekend but still have a personal system you would like to experiment with for the month of December, head to the community platform and share your goal in the Pledges space. I’ll provide some feedback and link you to other members who have tried similar systems in the past.
SOMETHING TO PART WITH
This is the world’s longest continuous road that a person can walk on. Who wants to do it with me one day? And it starts in my home town!
Until next week,
Take care,
David
Share the love: If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing or forwarding it to family members, friends and colleagues. Are you that family member, friend or colleague? You can sign up for free here.
Let’s start a conversation: If you have any questions on thoughts on the content discussed in this post, I would love to hear it. If you’re in your inbox, you can reply directly to this email. If you are on the Substack post, you can add a comment below.
Become a community member: Want to get more involved? Consider becoming a member of the Circles in Time community. You will get access to our community platform, live conversations with experts, monthly workshops, member-only substack posts and a growing library of behavioural tools and templates for building personal systems. You can join here.