--- ## Notes/Brainstorming ### ✨ In My Life ### **🔗** Links to Thinks - [[Power of fiction for creativity and ambition]] - anime and manga - blue lock - classroom of the elite season 2 - chainsaw man - interesting lessons - [[The difference between delusion and confidence]] **Never finished** - Highlights the extreme mindset he has towards his life and expectations - Not a single second wasted - Always ready - Pushing the human potential through resilience and embracing adversity - We're capable of so much, just need to win the battle with ourself ### **🚀** Actionable Tingz - should probably start meditating - very active mind, was waiting for burger patties to cook in the air fryer but couldn't even calm my mind down for more than 10 seconds - always thought about the future - always anticipating the timer - I need to stop procrastinating when im tired or else i won't get anywhere - Sure my quality of work is gonna be shit but it's still more than a quitter's mindset - I've become so accustomed to defaulting to go on my phone that it's scary - starting with why helps with urgency. urgency is one way the importance of why we need to do something - familiar face ### **🤔** Food For Thought - content creation - content creation of self-expression, the moment [[Influencers are controlled by audience capture]], you're wasting your life and are just working another 9-5 - I almost caved into [[Complacency]], washing my life away as I stayed secure in my 9:00 to 5:00 job, putting away my dreams and myself growth before what we would call a traditional life - ship 30 for 30's mantra, writing is art and is therefore subjective - combine with the fact that not everyone has the same experiences and environment as you, so you shouldn't think your story is useless - ultimately it's not the content but the consistency in delivery to your audience, look at the authority of ali abdaal on some of his videos. he's not some expert, someone who's just had experience - if you think about content creation this way, then it's so free - Men have been hit with a wave of "escape the matrix" style content - Iman gadzhi - Andrew tate - Hamza - Elon Musk even - The persona of keeps popping up in the back of my mind and how it conflicts with my [[VTuber Target Audience]] - I think there's enough super hard people, I need to somewhat stand out and be a voice for others - Like i'm not sure how to feel about it, I would prefer for it to exist for it to not since it does open people's eyes - And of course some of the things they also say and maybe the extremes can be questionable - Just curious to see how it will turn out **My core curiosities** - Twitter post What is life optimization? I think of it as priming you for peak performance. Top tier energies through - physical - eat, sleep, exercise - mental - second brain, productivity - emotional - relationships, experiences, happiness - spiritual - why, purpose What is self-actualization? - knowing who you want to be - your life purpose - having output that correlates with your desired identity - dennis xiao video ### 😤 My Ramblings - It's so much more easier to consume - The effort to reward ratio - The endless amount of content at your fingertips that please your extremes - Gaming - Pornographic content - Fiction - Struggle to turn my mind off, always need some form of stimulus - When I do give time off things just continue racing in my mind - Unsolved dilemmas, the future, or more ## Publishing Copy Welcome to another edition of _Weekly Wondering_, a sacred time where I share the resonating links, reflections and learnings from my past week to influence your next one ;) So many ideas, but so little time :( ### **✨** In My Life #### **Newsletter housekeeping** I originally posted on Sundays, but to match the timing of my personal reflections and Sunday weekly review, I'll probably be changing my upload time to 6 AM PT on Monday. #### **Reimagining education in Obsidian** The current mindset students have toward education is disheartening. School should be a time to effectively explore curiosities and have fun while doing so, not a time for worrying over mere numbers to determine your future. And so… Aidan Helfant ([https://www.youtube.com/@aidanhelfant](https://www.youtube.com/@aidanhelfant)) and I are creating a new approach to help people reignite their joy for learning through a video course + interactive Obsidian vault. We're currently accepting beta testers (limited spots!) who will get full access to it for free, and be part of what can be a new movement ;) If you're a student interested in learning more or know someone who might be, visit [https://tally.so/r/n9N4b4](https://tally.so/r/n9N4b4) for more information. #### **A break from videography** I'm going against my desired weekly uploads, but I'm starting to consider the tradeoff between consistency and quality. It might be my perfectionism, but the videos on my ran wanders channel take effort to ensure conciseness and relevance, much more than a simple plugin tutorial might require. And having a taste of the comments I've received regards to such a style of content has made me further reconsider the style on my main channel. Although people admire the straight-forwardness of the tutorials, I feel like I've filtered away my personality in the script for the sake of retention, and that's a big no-no. Sometimes it feels like it's missing my own thoughts, which is an entire debate in itself on whether that is a problem or not. So for the moment, I'm still figuring out the right mix between knowing what I know will guarantee views like the content on Obsidian canvas or matrix-style content that I'll talk about later, or if I'm willing to sacrifice external measurements to start sharing my story. Oh wait, I just happened to find a fleeting note I took earlier: > stop making these obsidian content, there's more value found in you opening up people's minds wlep Maybe it's the way I approach my video content. I've been emphasizing the "how" under the assumption that people already have their "why", but I feel like considering the average demographic of people who are interested in personal knowledge management, sharing my "why" is also as important. I've only recently realized how effortlessly integrated the second brain ideology and systems have been into my life. My Obsidian vault and systems have molded into a highway for my content consumption, ideas, thoughts, and life as a whole. I could also just make amends by preceding said lifeless videos with something akin to general self-help videos to emphasize the importance of these practices. I'm just rambling at this point lmao ### **🔗** Links to Thinks #### **Never be finished** Aside from anime characters, I can't think of someone with a stronger mental fortitude than David Goggins. Despite proving himself through impressive feats like prestigious military awards or Guinness world records, he never stops pushing for more. Recently, I've been reading his latest book [Never Finished](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/63079845) which goes into exploring his inner philosophy; his unparalleled mindset forged through fiction-like trauma, resilience, and pushing himself to the extremes. Like, I've already known quite a bit about him, but some of his feats are just beyond human rationality, a massive "fuck you" to himself and the world. And I love it. For example, who decides to take inhuman hate comments, read them out loud, and turn them into a recording or mixtape to listen to again and again? I'd like to think I've acquired thick skin through my time spent in gaming lobbies, and I think it's inspired me to continue doing dumb things like this to reignite my previous masochistic tendencies. To be unphased by the negativity of the external world. On a side note, it's interesting how relevant the books I read seem to be to my life. Maybe it's because I find myself just naturally connecting different snippets into actionable mindsets and advice for my own life, or there's some hidden level of serendipity that leads me to read books that are most relevant, I'm not sure. #### **Playing with ourselves…?** Thank you, internet serendipity, for letting our paths align 😭 So I chatted with [Dennis Xiao](https://twitter.com/DennisBXiao) for the first time after he reached out to me on Twitter, and it was quite the reawakening. Starting with his unconscious self-improvement through games and fitness, he became the epitome of a successful college gigachad by achieving the epitome of ideal physical, career, and social life expectations. But of course, such a level of perfection stems from something as equally taxing. Insecurity and expectations, are extrinsic reasons that deprive you of your own identity. Hearing his story resurfaced a lot of personal realizations originally discovered from my deepest times of self-reflection. As mentioned in my newsletter profile, I indulge a lot with the self. Hearing such conviction and extreme perspectives about the human potential from someone else unearthed the archived self-actualization guidelines I had for myself. His perspective on self-awareness and serving others reminded me of the ultimate mindset I had during my peak productivity phase. Am I truly optimizing my life as much as I can to get the most out of the limited time we're given? Do I comprehend the severity of mortality in my daily life and living? Am I being entirely selfish in my values and desires, doing fulfilling things that are not extrinsically but intrinsically rewarding? Is my personal conviction so strong that I realize the waste associated with not spending every second of my day working toward my ideal self, vision, and purpose? Am I okay with the sacrifices part of the ongoing responsibilities in my life, like working at my internship and indulging in leisure, that prevents me from leaving the output and impact I desire? When I say my purpose, do I feel it so deeply in my heart? Much like the YouTube New wave encouraged by authentic film and lifestyle YouTubers like [Ryan Ng Films](https://www.youtube.com/c/ryanngfilms), I think content related to the self needs to be spread more. Some extra tidbits I'm too lazy to expand include: - the effect trauma has on daily decisions - mere seconds of joy after realizing his full-time job, all the effort put into it just for absolutely nothing due to the extrinsicness of it all - realized he had no idea who he was, that he literally wasted his life - realized the gravity of death, recommends when breath becomes air - realizing the insignificance of a corporate job - relationships are the most important thing in his life - honestly same, looking back at gratitude journals - values mentorship - joy and fulfillment, wise man giving advice - misalignment with what he currently was doing - ikigai tattoo - uplift others through genuine connection - sacrificing every second for fulfilling your purpose in life - work to fulfill past insecurities and lack ofs - me and financial abundance - him and personal identity - traditional jobs meet survival needs but not internal, self-actualization - no non-entrepreneurial venture will fully fulfill him - experience is like trying a pair of pants - live it through first - one thing to learn or say, experience is something else - finds it hard to balance the two, inevitably will fully commit to content - very risky, no backup plan situation he's found himself in has come out successful due to the different - I should not do my current internship to enslave myself for corporate life, just fucking listen to what I've been thinking and play the cards in your favor - tolerance of risk depends on self-esteem, and I guess there's some lack of confidence I need to deal with first - intellectual loneliness because no one relates, seeking writing online to fulfill that need - had parasocial relationships through role models, but needed something - lack of dreams and self-actualization is limiting beliefs If you're reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the chat :) ### **🚀** Actionable Tingz #### **I've been note-making this entire time** At times I question whether I put in enough time to reflect and play with my notes and ideas, but as soon as I start writing this newsletter, I realize that I just cram it all into this one sacred time block of my week #### **I should probably start meditating** I was waiting for burger patties to cook in the air fryer and tried using the time to quiet my mind, but couldn't even do so for more than 10 seconds before thoughts flooded back in. I continued thinking about the future, anticipating the timer finishing, and just feeling a sense of restlessness for both my tasks and ambitions. I think my previous English teachers would be proud of me for using the same starting word five times in a row. ### **🤔** Food For Thought #### **Escaping the matrix** I might just be pulled into a niche algorithm, but I've been noticing a wave of "escape the matrix, take the red pill" style content. Escape from traditional expectations, and work towards a lifestyle of freedom from society. Iman Gadzhi is combining it with the idea of a digital renaissance and capitalism to encourage personal freedom in starting an agency. Hamza emphasizes body aesthetics for borderline-NEET and lonely audiences. Dan Koe incorporates spirituality and human potential to sell his entrepreneurial products and lifestyle. Elon Musk doing the usual, sharing memes on Twitter about somewhat controversial and thought-provoking topics. And of course, Andrew Tate created products like "The Real World" to advocate for the same lifestyle. I'm sure this is just a recent wave of principles and ideologies related to entrepreneurship and self-improvement that have lasted for some time now, but it's interesting to see the recurring theme nonetheless. Because I do adopt the same beliefs and want to help others realize the same, but am unsure about the associated traits like toxic masculinity, especially since it doesn't fully fit my personal branding. I'm also not sure how to feel about it. I would prefer for such content to exist since it does open people's eyes to their inner potential, but also concerning considering the considerably loyal following audience they have and the morally questionable things they say. #### **My content creation philosophy** I've also been grappling with what it means to be a content creator in my own life. Ultimately, I believe content creation should be a form of intrinsic self-expression to serve an audience that you define yourself. An expressive, creative outlet for your self-actualization. The moment you're [captured by their audience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2RpY_dj9Y), not accepting you unless you conform to their expectations and beliefs, you begin losing yourself. They won't accept the natural curiosities and changes that accompany human evolution, which begin to carry the same baggage as living an extrinsically driven, unfulfilling 9-5 job. Thankfully, we can prevent this by viewing content as art. Your profile is your personal art gallery, and people have different lenses through which they perceive your content. It's entirely subjective, which goes against the retention-driven practices Youtubers and Tweeters try to play the algorithm with. Your ideas and presentation may not resonate with everyone due to the variety of the human experience, but what matters is catering to the people you personally want to impact. The emphasis isn't on the originality, but on the delivery to your audience. All self-improvement videos consist of the same advice, just packaged in different ways to resonate with different audiences. Take a look at Ali Abdaal. He's not some innovative productivity expert, he's just someone who's curated the best ideas he's learned and experienced from others smarter than him. Yet people follow him because he understands what his audience is and wants. The same could be said for channels like mine. Nothing I share is new. I'm merely following the knowledge paths that others have already paved, just adding my own experiences and personality into the mix. My channel and life purpose is to be a vessel for helping people achieve my personal interpretation of self-actualization. This is the philosophy that most speaks to me, as an altruistic yet selfish perfectionist that worries about current role models and societal values. If you think about content creation this way, then what's stopping you from sharing your ideas with the world? If you still don't, you're [selfish](https://johnmavrick.substack.com/i/90114941/food-for-thought). This is the philosophy that most speaks to me, as an altruistic yet selfish perfectionist that worries about current role models and environments. ### My Tools for Learning and Growth I record everything I mention in my newsletters in my Obsidian, my favorite note-taking, and productivity app. If you want to aggregate the valuable gems from your week like this, or need a place to store your ideas and highlights, you can set up your own [second brain](https://johnmavrick.gumroad.com/l/obsidian-starter-vault). If you want the most densely packed and actionable book summaries, try out Shortform for free [here](https://www.shortform.com/). If you want to make reading and highlighting easier, check out [Readwise](https://readwise.io/i/john5833) (affiliate link) and sign up for their Reader app!