Yay or Nay on this kitchen? 😉

Correct Tarantino list in order. All other opinions are wrong.

1. Inglorious Basterds

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Django Unchained

4. Kill Bill 1&2

5. Reservoir Dogs

6. Hateful Eight

7. Once upon a time in Hollywood

8. Jacky Brown

9. Death Proof

Wealth is important and necessary, but I’ve met far too many rich people who are unhappy.

Usually because in the pursuit of wealth they neglected their health or relationships. Sometimes both.

You should strive to max all three of these variables as best you can.

If I was to give life advice to someone just starting out in life, I’d say prioritize your health in middle school, high school and college. Focus on eating right and getting in amazing shape. You’ll build the habits that will carry you through the rest of your life and you’ll look your best during the years when dating and sex matter a lot. Providing you more ability to find a high quality life partner, because long term high trust relationships are crucial for sustained happiness contentment etc…

Then in early adulthood go hard on the pursuit of wealth. Your twenties are the time to work your ass off and put yourself in position to own your time down the line. Better to give up 5-10 years now and own the next 30, rather than goof off in your twenties and end up stuck as a wage slave for 30 years. Save and invest aggressively, take risks, embrace sacrifice. Allow your peers to make fun of you, knowing you have a plan. Let compounding work for you.

Retire in your 30’s sometime around the time you’re starting your family and spend the rest of your life devoted to your kids, spouse and interests. Refocusing all efforts on health and happiness. Don’t take a single action unless it brings you more in either of those dimensions, while simultaneously tending to and growing the wealth you built up to this point.

People think for whatever reason that this sort of life path is not attainable, but it’s very much within the reach of the average college educated westerner. Most just have a defeatist mindset, which ultimately lead them in the wrong direction.

I wrote a lot of things. Now I just have to publish them. Oh, the pain of editing a stream of consciousness.

can I get some more zaps, for some more testing. 😘🚀🙏

I will zap some back. nostr:note1rwrgjpwqrlme8fmfhfzh84e5pyr6qqk9k6c6xhyzvayxkgje9m4qe0cwq3

Today marks 25 years since my country was bombed, in the operation called “Merciful angel” or “Angel of Mercy” - whatever.

In 78 days of air strikes:

- 420k bombs were dropped on us

- 4k died (81 child)

- 25k homes destroyed, plus:

- 14 airports

- 18 kindergartens

- 39 hospitals

- 69 schools

- 176 historical sites

- 500+ kilometers of roads

Etc

I was nine. I remember my nose bled from fear. I don’t know how me being scared caused my nose to bleed, but it happened.

I remembered the duffle bag packed next to the door, with a few cans of food inside of it, some clean clothes, passports, and all gold jewelry we had- cuz we didn’t know if it would get worse.

I still have ptsd triggered every time I head air strikes sirens. Luckily, I don’t hear them much- only when they are testing if those still work, or when are paying tributes to the casualties.

Anyway, for years to follow, my father would use any opportunity to gift us gold jewelry. Why? Because: “If it gets bad again, money won’t worth much. We learned that in 1994. You exchange these ear rings/bracelets/necklaces for food or anything you need.

Nowadays, I don’t have a run away bag prepared. But trust me when I tell you, I could pack one in jut a few minutes.

Nowadays, I don’t buy my kid gold jewelry, I stack sats.

It could be one of the reasons why I’m bitcoining. It gives me a hope. An escape plan, among other things.

As for the first part of my note, let’s stop for a second to think about all kids around the world, their traumas, bleeding noses from fear and sleepless nights. Let’s pray for their beautiful souls and innocent lives.

🇷🇸

A story that illustrates why I will never orange pill anyone ever again.

2015- Attempt to orange pill friend multiple times. No dice. Totally uninterested.

2019- He asks me if now is a good time to get into bitcoin. “It’s always a good time”. I set him up with a HW wallet and tell him DCA and chill.

2019- Friend calls me a few months later, he wants to put the down payment money for his house into bitcoin, but he’s nervous. I say no worries I will backstop your investment. What’re friends for?! I want you to succeed. He now has a no risk investment. Financed by me.

2020: Friend is doing well. Has been stacking hard and has 2 coins. A great stack for his income.

2021: He starts watching cringey YouTube videos about shitcoin trading. Gets into a private telegram, trades his 2 bitcoin into 4 and then gets rug pulled and loses everything.

2021: He’s near suicidal, very dark times. He doesn’t tell me anything because he knows I warned him about trading and thinks I’ll be disappointed in him. Finally he tells me. I help him get a personal loan so he can take advantage of the remainder of the bull run. He sells at 55k and manages to break even. He’s not up but he’s got his house money back.

2023: We’re out drinking with some other friends from high school. He expresses some jealousy towards me in a semi awkward fashion. “Every time I see this dude (me) I think about bitcoin.”

2024: I meet up with him so the kids can play at the park. Vibe is off. Lots of insecurity and tension. They’re going on a trip to San Diego and I ask if they might go to the zoo while there. “I can’t afford that. That’s for rich people like you”. Odd interaction, but I shake it off.

2024: A few weeks later he gets drunk and hits on my wife via text messages. She shows me immediately and I confront him. He’s like “sorry bro I was drunk I didn’t mean it”. I tell him off and make clear this is the last time we will ever speak.

No good deed goes unpunished. I could not have been nicer to this dude and more helpful along the way and he is fully consumed by envy towards me.

Unfortunate.

The majority of people have a strong tendency to want to be part of something that is bigger than themselves. It is why they not just get up in the morning, but why they are *energized* to get up in the morning.

Clans and religions were among the earliest bigger things. People know that they will die, and so they invest into their descendants, honor their ancestors, and contemplate metaphysics and the nature of life. Many people will willingly sacrifice themselves for their children or for their highest ideals because of this.

In the modern era of printing presses and telecommunication systems, there is also a broader set of choices for people to group together around, either combined with those other ones or sometimes instead of them. Sometimes they choose nationalism. Sometimes they fight for a political ideology that transcends borders. Sometimes it is a professional guild or professional recognition. Sometimes it is the environment. Right or left or anywhere in between, you can often tell what someone adheres to as their highest ideal.

A powerful exercise is to 1) identify what you feel a part of in the bigger sense (it could be a few things) and 2) whenever someone’s behavior confuses you, stop and think about what they likely feel a part of in a bigger sense, if anything. You might feel that what they associate with is fucking retarded, but if you can at least identify it, then that is the first step toward successful communication and debate and rebuttal.

Using myself as an example, my professional experience is in a combination of engineering and finance. Separately, my ethical philosophy is grounded in virtue ethics (that’s a whole other longwinded topic), and as a result, what I feel a part of in a bigger sense is various social movements and protocols that utilize technology to bring financial autonomy to people. That’s where I put my time and capital toward.

Successful commerce involves the combination of value and communication. Therefore, I want people to be able to communicate freely and transfer value freely. As such, I strongly associate with the leading technologies in those fields, such as Bitcoin and Nostr.

If I thought they were weak, I would sympathize with them but not invest in them or have much hope for them. That was my view for a while. But if I view them as technically capable and achieving of network effects, then my rationality combines with my sympathy and becomes full support.

I don’t care what peoples’ race, sex, orientation, ethnicity, or nationality is. Instead, what I care about is doing whatever tiny part I can to bring technologies to people that allow them to transfer value and information to others, or to educate people on those technologies, etc. That is where my time and capital is focused on. Outside of family, that is what makes me energized in the morning to work toward.

What is yours?

Something new to try...