I saw a TikTok this week where the girl was like, "How do people not know how to cook? You mean you can't follow a recipe? You can't follow instructions? Are you dumb?"
I've said this before as well. The amount of times I've told myself "oh I *could* cook that if I wanted to, it's just a lot of work" is much higher than I'd like to admit.
Recently, I started cooking more. I've cooked, but I've rarely tried to tackle more robust recipes with dozens of ingredients and multiple steps. I'm impatient, I like simple dishes that get me to fullness as quickly as possible.
Anyways, I've been cooking, and the TikTok girl is dead wrong. It's not about knowing how to follow instructions, but rather, it's about understanding when things go slightly wrong and having the intuition to fix them.
When I execute on a recipe perfectly, everything tastes great. But when I screw up slightly, it's a coin toss as to whether I'll make the right decision to get things back on track.
I think that's the case for a lot of jobs. Cooking is a good case study.
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Just do it.
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Why luxury?
Capital flows to the most legible ideas
Worldbuilding Media
That piece of advice has always frustrated me, in large part because it seems to be good advice. A lot of hyper-successful people tend to do one thing really well for a really long period of time. If I wanted to reach that level of success, I'd need to find my thing. My obsession.
In many ways, this obsession with obsession – and this larger idea of narrowing all of your attention to one life-encompassing goal – comes at a time where religion has taken a backseat in most people's lives. In the West today, "Obsession" seems to be taking the place of God.
And therein lies my hesitation.
It’s also why, despite there not being anything inherently wrong with “hustle culture,” it rubs a lot of folks the wrong way. Ambitious young people view obsession as the goal, and their work as a vehicle to achieve this obsessed lifestyle. Instead, obsession is the vehicle, and we need something greater to maintain our attention.
On focus, obsession, and God
The interesting thing about Islamic economics – and Islam in general – is that there are no firm philosophies placed upon the believer in regards to concepts such as efficiency, technology, progress, etc. All of these things are permissible in Islam, so long as they are done with *balance* and (Islamic) *ethics*. It is open to interpretation what that balance should be.
On Islam and efficiency
That's changing this year.
On rediscovering my beat
I've said this before as well. The amount of times I've told myself "oh I *could* cook that if I wanted to, it's just a lot of work" is much higher than I'd like to admit.
Recently, I started cooking more. I've cooked, but I've rarely tried to tackle more robust recipes with dozens of ingredients and multiple steps. I'm impatient, I like simple dishes that get me to fullness as quickly as possible.
Anyways, I've been cooking, and the TikTok girl is dead wrong. It's not about knowing how to follow instructions, but rather, it's about understanding when things go slightly wrong and having the intuition to fix them.
When I execute on a recipe perfectly, everything tastes great. But when I screw up slightly, it's a coin toss as to whether I'll make the right decision to get things back on track.
I think that's the case for a lot of jobs. Cooking is a good case study.
On cooking
It is a learned thing, and know what the terms all mean only comes with seeing someone else cook and explain them to you. If your caretakers don't teach you base life skills, you are almost always likely to continue on the same path of not knowing how to do those skills.
I think we take base life skill for granted, and never really understand how we learned them. We tend to belittle those who don't have them. We should instead teach those without how to gain them.
On boundless creativity
Why do you build? Are you seeking wealth? Progress? Freedom?
Why do you want wealth?
Progress for who?
Freedom from what?
You say you value ambition. But to what extreme?
Is ambition something we should optimize for? Is moderate ambition enough?
If so, then do you really value it?
And what about creativity – why should we unlock it for everyone? What makes boundless creativity valuable?
Do people want to be creative, or do they want the feedback that comes from creativity?
These are questions I'm asking myself. You should too.
Questions
On one hand, I think that's sometimes the most powerful advice you could give someone. The range of options and information in front of them deter them from focusing on what they really want, and then they start working aimlessly or toward a goal they never chose.
On the other hand, there are often many ways to reach the same end. Working backwards forces you to grapple with and choose between alternate paths, spending time optimizing for the best one rather than just getting to work.
I do believe that people don't spend enough time thinking about what they want out of life. But I think the hard part of thinking about what we want is that you have to be able introspect – and I mean really, deeply think – while still living life. You can't analyze your way to knowing yourself.
That's why a great sabbatical is never primarily rest, but creative activity.
So, yeah – I need to work backwards from my goals, but I also need to do lots of creative work, and eventually the two will meet in the middle.
On working backwards
On not believing what I write
On the democratization of discourse
On identity and goals
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On contentment and life's work
Valid fear? I don’t think so.
But I’ve realized that’s why I struggle writing consistently rather than waiting for the “good essays” to come to mind.
If the world is gonna get sick of me, I want them to be sick of my best work, not my mediocrity.
Another part of me feels like the fear is rooted in a lack of effort, not in an abundance of output. In other words, I just don't feel like I'm trying hard enough.
Why *can't* I write a better essay in one day?
Why *can't* I build the company I want in six months?
In 2024, I don't want to be scared of prolific output. The only fear should be that I didn't try hard enough.
On the fear of being prolific
On creativity and lived experience
I went back and read through those posts today.
28 out of the 30 were absolute garbage.
The 2 decent ones ended up being the seeds of larger essays that I'm really proud of.
That said, I probably wouldn't have ever written those 2 decent ones without forcing myself to write the others every day for the weeks prior.
If you're prolific, most of your output will be embarrassing. But you can brute force your way to quality.
On embarrassing output
A meme, a tweet, a call for boycott – content today moves at the speed of light, and evolves just as quickly.
I get really frustrated when people and organizations I generally agree with spread misinformation, even unintentionally. But at the speed of light, it's impossible to keep perfect balance. It's inevitable that we'll trip up sometimes.
The only antidote that I've found is to force yourself to learn a little bit about a lot. Understand history and current events and politics – but also understand economics and biology and statistics. As the world becomes more complex and the technology we use becomes more opaque, it's crucial that we value boundless curiosity as much as we valuing being "experts" in any one field.
This not only gives us the ability to accurately communicate complex ideas, but also to check things we read against a few big ideas to understand whether they pass the smell test.
We live in an environment of information warfare. Our only protection is boundless curiosity.
Otherwise, you’ll accidentally boycott your favorite coffee shop.
On the antidote to internet speed
On status and monetization
On scenes and writing
On judging a system by its worst days
On building a life
In that same time span, over 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.
There is no war in the West Bank.
I am Palestinian. My family is Palestinian. I spent summers in Palestine throughout my childhood and have had fond, shorter trips there as an adult.
I've seen the trauma of my people first hand.
And yet, despite the biggest Arab death toll of *any* war with Israel in the last 75 years, the death of Palestinians seems to be an afterthought of the West's conscience.
In the Internet Age, 11 weeks is an eternity. Collective focus never lasts nearly that long.
So this is a reminder that 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in 11 weeks.
I pray for peace for everyone in the region and beyond. inshAllah we'll reach it.
On Palestinian death
Subcultures all the way down (a Nounish perspective)
On AI, learning, and societal fabric
On conviction and being extremely online