I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be a victim. I will not write a listicle. I will not write a listicle. Listicles are as derivative as you can get, even more so than travelouges.

Here comes the listicle.

Three things happened last week.

A friend encouraged me to take melatonin, or magnesium glycinate for fixing my sleep schedule. To me, it sounded like a recreational drug- “vivid, intense, or weird dreams”. This is exactly the sort of recreational drug that I might touch. (This, and laughing gas. No further). On cue, I pulled out the “Good Sleep, Good Learning, Good Life” post from Piotr Wozniak. The friened pointed out that I have a tick- I’ll remember specific blog posts or videos about the topic topic being discussed in a conversation.

I met an old friend, and I was trying to explain why, atleast with people that you trust, you should be completely open about your whole thought process. (Another friend claims that I do this to get “partial marks” for showing my work). So I forced her to read Devi Parikh’s post “You should tell them that”. The same friend was looking for things to read that would make her think about different aspects of life.

Finally, I went down a Claude rabbit hole looking for good resources on physiology, metabolism, and such. I wanted a dense, scientific understanding of how exercise, diet, sleep and stress affect health (immunity, capability, mental health). I ended up finding Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky. I shared the link, and a friend loved it. I then dumped links to all the videos / lectures that have affected my thinking (and hopefully) my behavior, over the years.

A digression: I think its a pity that we don’t canonical references on holistic health. Something in the spirit of “The Selfish Gene”, or “Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces”- dense but readable text, that builds up an argument, and gives you a mental model of how the thing works. My lifestyle, more so than anything is going to help me prevent the degradation of my body- yet there is no “Doctor of Lifestyle”, and there is no canonical reference on how to do these things well. Is it really as simple as regular sleep times, eating less-processed, nutritious foods, strength training, regular movement, and (it feels stupid to say this) coping with stress properly? Or is there nuance? How do I understand the nuance? I didn’t find Outlive satisfying yet. I will read Guyton’s Physiology if it comes down to it, but I won’t find that satisfying either.

It has been a while since I declared “nonfiction is for impressing people in conversations”. My opinions have since changed.

For one, nonfiction is fun. A well written argument, like reading a math proof has “aha” moments, and points where you are banging your head against a wall. With the caveat that I only read things that I was curious about, nonfiction did change my model of the world, which eventually seeped into my behavior.

There are also some lectures- videos or talks, mostly from academicians, that have had the same effect. This article is meant as a listicle of these talks, and why I think they are interesting, useful, and/or amusing.

  • Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: The Stoic Ideal, Michael Surgue
    • A charismatic (good looking) philosophy professor pacing around in the classroom, passionately talking about “Meditations”- the musings of the Stoic Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. There’s things that you can control, and things that you cannot control. If you can’t control it, then there’s no point whining about it. If you can control it- your intentions, your behavior, who do you expect to help you out but yourself? Marcus accepts no complaints and no excuses, because there are no excuses to give!. I have turned to this in times that require virtue and strength. Much of the charm comes from the way Surgue speaks, getting excited, his voice rising, as he fires off one idea after another. Also, really cool title music. There’s something about these old videos- Friedman’s “Free to choose”, the “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” lecture series- all of these have really musical openings.
  • Scott Adams: The Happiness Formula
    • I’ll start with a caveat- the formula doesn’t work- if there were a formula that reliably worked, life would be a solved problem. I don’t sincerely believe that you can program yourself to be happy. BUT- this video brings a lot of known scattered ideas together. Your mood (“happiness”) is mostly a function of the levels of Serotonin, Dopamine, and Oxytocin. There are deterministic ways to influence the levels of these chemicals. You can influence these with your diet, regular exercise, sleep, touch, by cultivating a sense of purpose, avoiding stress, and by having a social life. “Simple but not easy”. Fix all of these, and you’ll be OK.
  • How to Get a Job at the Big 4, by Sean Lee
    • A buff, funny, normal guy from Waterloo explaining how to systematically break into big tech. There’s some very strong advice in here that helped me do interviewing right. Practice thinking out loud, do mock pair interviews. Interviewing is a thing that you can get good at, with deliberate practice. You don’t need to be a genius. “My GPA is 2.3! I have been on academic probation for the last 4 years. People come up to me and say that they’re jealous- but they don’t know right? I did not qualify for the co-op program. I took 6 years to complete a 4-year degree”
  • You and Your Research, Richard Hamming
    • Yes, that Hamming. “If what you are working on is not important, and is not likely to lead to important things, why aren’t you working on it? After that, I ate with the engineers”. A brutal guide to doing high quality work (not just research), based on Hamming’s years at Bell Labs. Hamming gives no easy solution- there is a cost, and you will have to pay it. But he also tries to convince you that it is worth the cost.
  • Debt: The First 5000 Years, David Graeber
    • This one opened me to the possibility that my ideas about how the world works could be wrong. Graeber presents alternative viewpoints to capitalism, and conventional morality, and what a society should be like. But he does this in a very insidious. As an anthropologist, he showers you with examples of societies that did things differently. The talk did not turn me into a full-blown anarchist, but it did help me question the ideas I believed in. “Currency is actually invented to pay soldiers. Soldiers are exactly the sort of people that currency is meant for. A heavily armed guy who is just passing through is the person who you are least likely to extend credit to. Taxation is a system to make the economy feed your soldiers- soldiers are paid in currency, and citizens must acquire currency to pay taxes”. I’d also recommend the book- but be very careful: Graeber is a silver-tongued anthropologist who is trying very hard to make you believe his point of view.
  • Sugar: The Bitter Truth, Dr. Robert Lustig
    • “What do we call it, when we take in a compound that is foreign to the body, and only your liver can metabolise it, and in the process, generates various problems? We call that a poison”. Explains how sugar (fructose) is metabolized, and plainly states that it is a toxin, taking the same metabolic pathways as alcohol (which is also a toxin). You weren’t supposed to eat refined sugar.
  • वजन कमी करणे - समज आणि गैरसमज, Mahendra Gokhale
    • This one in Marathi. A very Puneri uncle spitting facts about fitness. Masquerades as a weight loss talk, then tells you to exercise. Another “simple but not easy” talk. Strength training, diet, sleep will make you healthy. If you are Marathi, and your parents refuse to exercise, perhaps this will convince them. Explains why a pure calorie deficit is a bad idea, and why you should do strength training regardless of your age, why “walking” is not exercise, and that it is possible to have a nutritious, protein rich, vegetarian diet.

What is it about these videos? The speakers are charismatic, forceful, confident to the point of being brash, have a sense of humour. They know what they are talking about, they’ve spent a lot of time with the subject. They do not offer a silver bullet. They’re trying to make your life better. I don’t know about causality- perhaps I feel strongly about these ideas because I’ve watched these videos multiple times. Perhaps I am drawn to things that I already agree with, I watch lectures which confirm my biases.

I find myself re-watching these talks from time to time. It takes a while to re-read a book, but re-watching a lecture is quick and easy. In bad times, these jolt me out of my spirals, and make me take one step. And in times when things are going well, I have had some success adopting some of these ideas in the real world.

There’s a body of experiences, failures and successes and conversations, people, and writings, and talks that form the “canon” of my identity- what has value? how do I attain the things that have value? I offer to you a slice of this canon, and hope that you might share a slice of your own. I will be delighted to partake of the ideas that have influenced you the most!