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John Maynard Keynes coined the term “animal spirits” to describe the human emotions that drive consumer confidence. You can see a new version of it in the AI boom: people cheering for an algorithmically-driven future filled with generated clickbait, mediocre art, fabricated “facts,” and an endless stream of low-quality content.

The difference between growth and grind matters. Growth usually looks like getting better at something, learning faster, and finding work that compounds. Grind is what happens when you just keep pushing, usually until you’re fried. I’ve gotten a lot more out of the first one than the second. Our cultural apparatus largely conditions us toward grinding rather than growing. As I’ve discussed previously, albeit from a different angle, the grind mentality takes root early in our educational systems. We face the relentless machinery of homework assignments, standardized testing, grade-based assessments, and other performance metrics designed to reward diligence over insight. This conditioning intensifies when we enter professional environments where working excessive hours often generates a fraction of the value we create for our employers (unless you navigate into executive positions where compensation more closely aligns with value creation).

Okay, the title is clickbait, and I am ashamed of that. So, I’ll give you the bottom line up front: the Dunning-Kruger effect is (in my experience) spot-on, and even though it’s a bit of a pop psychology trope these days, I’ve encountered this effect countless times. There’s a fascinating interplay between Dunning-Kruger and imposter syndrome where these two psychological phenomena can work together in surprisingly complex ways.

We humans are complex animals, and our brains developed over hundreds of thousands of years to survive on a rugged unforgiving planet. We invented technologies that became luxuries, and for many (in the West, at least) we live relatively easy lives, by historical standards. It wasn’t until the late 1800s in the US that indoor plumbing was commonplace, which is surprisingly recent1.

Speaking broadly, there are two ways to think about life: passively or actively. Passive philosophy amounts to letting things happen, whereas active is about making things happen. I generally try to stay active. If I want something to happen, I need to make it happen. Sitting around waiting for something to happen or for someone to come along and tell you what to do is passive.

Young people are often fed some variation of the belief that hard work will be rewarded; therefore, it’s good and virtuous to work hard. While I do agree with this sentiment, I think the same is also true of laziness. Unlike hard work, laziness is generally regarded as a negative attribute, but this is just a misunderstanding about what laziness truly is.

If you pay much attention to the mainstream media, you’ve likely heard the phrase “energy transition” thrown around, which alludes to an ongoing global effort to transition away from fossil fuels and move toward so-called “green” energy sources1. But if you look at the data, fossil fuels are still doing most of the work2.

Maybe being a good neighbor matters more than we like to admit. In a time when roughly 75% of Americans with a high school education or less report that they seldom or never attend local community events or meetings1, positive contribution starts to look less like a nice extra and more like basic social glue.

When I look back on my life, I’ve made countless mistakes, some more costly than others. One theme I’ve noticed is that in my younger years—my 20s and early 30s—I let my ego grow a little too large. This is a note to my younger self, and a few things I wish I’d understood sooner.

Fluidity and rigidity show up everywhere once you start looking for them. You can see it in materials, markets, buildings, and in the way people deal with stress. Some things survive by giving a little. Others stay stiff right up until they snap. The Nature of Fluidity # A fluid is anything that flows, which includes gasses and liquids. Some fluids even exhibit both properties of solids and liquids, such as in response to shocks (i.e., water with corn starch, a “non-Newtonian fluid”). Ketchup is an example of a substance that does the opposite: it exhibits solid properties until it’s disturbed, after which it flows, which is why shaking or pounding on the bottom of an upturned bottle of ketchup will make it pour out.