🏆 I provide private lessons on Emacs, Linux, and Life in general: https://protesilaos.com/coach/. Lessons continue throughout the year.

Loss, entitlement, and presence

Raw link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5xle0NYFFE

Thanks to Dmitry Matveyev for the 500 EUR donation that allowed me to buy the smartphone (Samsung A53) and selfie stick that I use to record these videos in the great outdoors.


In this entry, I walked in the mountains and talked about developing the right attitude for dealing with matters we do not control. The main points:

  • A story of mine about remaining open to new experiences after misfortune strikes.
  • You do not control all the factors. If you assume the blame, you imply that you do control those factors.
  • If you think you are a god, you will always overestimate your abilities. You will then desire to achieve that which you cannot. The disconnect will make you suffer.
  • An explanation of non-ownership with specific examples.
  • Elaboration on the bad habit of dithering, delaying, and postponing. You think you control time, again overestimating yourself.
  • Overthinking and overanalysing is to your detriment. Fundamentally, you make the mistake of assuming that the perfect is attainable.
  • Thinking that the perfect is attainable means that you expect your actions to be perfect. But to act is to do so in imperfect circumstances, with incomplete knowledge.
  • To act is to perform a leap of faith. There is faith in acting.
  • More examples that tie it all together.