Brian Alonso

26

2026-04-01T11:50:46.166068+00:00

26 reflections on my 26th birthday.

I can't believe you're 26.

-Van McCann

Happy immediate family, happy life. Don't forget about your parents.
Podcasts are entertainment masquerading as knowledge. Entertainment is not a bad thing, but excessive consumption might be.
In a human world, AI can never replace human accountability. Leverage this accordingly.
You can either do a few things well or many things poorly. No exceptions.
If you don't love yourself, who else will?
No matter how small, healthy actions early in the day promote healthy tendencies later in the day.
Willpower is a finite resource. Use it intentionally.
Don't envy a lifestyle without considering the cost to attain it.
If possible, financially support things that bring you joy. This is not the time to be frugal.
Seek to own, not lease, especially when it comes to music.
Seek to understand before being understood.
Be interested before being interesting.
Trust your gut. You will make mistakes which will only help train your intuition.
Use more salt when cooking.
You're probably not tired, just dehydrated.
You can't escape your human nature, so you may as well understand it enough to make sure it is not to your detriment.
When you've explored and found what you like, don't be afraid of becoming a salty old creature of habit.
Outside of hard science, fiction will teach you more than non-fiction ever will.
Learn to express yourself using many mediums. At the root of it, playing an instrument is no different from public speaking.
Group physical activity yields some of the highest returns on your invested time.
Do more for the sake of it. You don't need a reason and rarely need permission. This is sometimes called art.
Consider optimism with a sprinkle of realism.
Adults aren't real. We're all just trying to figure it out.
Never put off something that will take less than two minutes.
Write more. It does a tremendous job helping you clarify and process your thoughts.
Learning does not make one learned, so do what you will this pithy list.

Indifference, Motivation, and Flourishing Once Again

2026-03-31T22:48:29.201651+00:00

From the time I graduated college in 2022 up until this winter, I felt so full of life: dreaming big dreams and progressing towards infinite goals. I felt like I was flourishing.

However, 4 years later, all of that is gone. Through the first quarter of 2026, I have felt indifferent towards the world, feeling no desire to impart my values on it.

How much difference does it make?

-Eddie Vedder

Where did my motivation go?

After much reflection, I have answers for myself and anyone else feeling indifferent and lacking motivation:

The journey >> everything when it comes to motivation
Obsessing over values that are not your own severely compromises your motivation
Mental peace comes at the cost of complacency

Healthy motivation

Momentum seems to be a perennial theme I seem to reflect on. It feels so difficult to do anything when you have no momentum and it feels possible to take over the world when momentum is with you. Momentum almost completely relieves you of any need for willpower.

You have momentum when stopping takes more effort than continuing.

Momentum feels like a perpetual source of energy. It doesn't stop when you run out of the obsession that might have gotten you started or the discipline that may have initially sustained you.

Journey > Destination

This simple maxim seemed to be the root of my feelings of indifference. I had no momentum, no motivation, and nothing to work towards. A journey is at the heart of all of this!

Picking the right journey

While arriving someplace on a journey doesn't necessarily matter, the direction of a journey certainly does.

Why are you headed that direction?

While it may seem like such an innocent question, we (for better or worse) exist as the most socially-connected species to ever inhabit the Earth. Our nature compels us to maintain good standing in the tribe because the genes of those who did not fit into the tribe were not passed on to us.

One predominant modern strategy for social acceptance is virtue signaling—convincing others of how virtuous you are, optionally accompanied by virtuous action.

I have certainly employed this strategy! When you can appear to be whoever you want behind some digital profile, why not be the most virtuous of them all?

Though the benefit of social standing is tempting (and unnatural to ignore?), living up to the person one builds oneself up to be is impossible. To put it simply: I'm not trying to change the world, nor am I trying to convince you that I am capable of or trying to change the world.

A misaligned journey eventually comes to an end when one realizes the direction is not true to oneself. From now on, the directions I choose are based on values that are truly my own.

The cost of peace

In making decisions conscious of values I feel are truly my own, I feel generally at peace. I am no longer bothered by world events in which I can do no more than offer my prayers. Outside of my close social connections, I am no longer tempted by the 'must be nice' vices of fame, extravagant wealth, or elite social standing.

Ironically, all of this peace has come at the cost of indifference.

But the complacency feels so nice! Even if it creates the issue of purpose. Because maintenance of this 'destination' does not fill my days nor my thoughts.

While one option may be spending more time reflecting on "what else matters to me?"; my gut fees is to sacrifice some of this peace for purpose, drive, curiosity, and energy. In short, I miss feeling energized to get out of bed in the morning and spend time on something that is meaningful to me.

While relating to happiness, I believe the Count of Monte Cristo's wisdom to be highly relevant in this case:

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world. There is only comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

-The Count of Monte Cristo

Contrast is everything to our limbic system: we must feel the lack of something to be motivated to put energy towards something.

Will our love bloom again?

-Rebecca Lovell

Admittedly, I've only skimmed George Orwell's essay "Why I Write", but I admire his honesty admitting "sheer egoism" drove him to write.

The reality is, if we don’t do anything out of love for ourselves, who else will? Even the most perfect, devout, and attentive partners cannot possibly know the love we ourselves need each second of the day. Do something for yourself out of self-love.

So let your love for yourself bloom again, because self-love is the spark that starts everything: the small sacrifice of peace, to the value-driven journey, to flourishing once again.

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2025

2026-01-07T16:06:29.081226+00:00

2025 was a turbulent year to say the least. I both married my soulmate and lived through a family health scare. Through these highs and lows, I feel I have matured a tremendous amount and have gained much clarity on what actually matters to me—in turn, lifting a big weight off of my shoulders.

2025 was also the year I started writing on Bear, coincidentally discovering the IndieWeb and getting to meet some wonderful people :). Over three years after beginning to publish writing online, I feel I have finally found my home in the wide world of personal websites.

For safe-keeping, here are some other things I am proud to have done in 2025:

Completed my first bodyweight Murph in ~1 hour
Realizing I already had what I wanted including:
- A fulfilling, impactful career path
- A distraction-free, no-algorithm music listening experience through CDs and records
Published a few short stories, including an allegory outlining what I think it means to live a fulfilling life
Bought my first, second, and third pair of barefoot shoes
Finally, breaking my short-form content addition
Cancelled ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot subscriptions in an effort to rely on my own intuition and skill again

As a result of the clarity I gained in 2025, my desires for 2026 are focused.

This year I feel motivated to come at my work as a craftsman; I don't feel the need to take on side-projects; I want to keep learning and sharing things (on this site) that interest me; and when the motivation presents itself, I am excited to use the power of fiction and write more short stories.

Life feels fairly well balanced right now, so I'm really just striving for "more of the same" in 2026.

Happy new year!

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Realizing You Already Have What You Want

2025-12-20T21:01:50.291850+00:00

For the second time this year, I was reminded of this lesson: sometimes, the thing you want is right there in front of you.

Maybe humans are optimistic by nature, or maybe media in the 21st century has convinced us that 'the grass is always greener.' But sometimes the grass is just as green right where you are!

The first time this happened this year was when I was thinking deeply about what I want to do career-wise with the next few years of my life. While my job certainly fulfilled my childhood dreams, I felt it lacked the impact that I desire my adult life to have. Coincidentally, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket launched for the first time reminding me what aerospace technology is all about—not scratching a billionaire's itch, but working to improve life for all on Earth.

I had been thinking on this for the three years since I graduated college, but I forgot to seriously consider if my current path was actually providing the impact I wanted to have. By chance, I was emphatically reminded "it does!" at the crucial moment.

I made the same mistake again this fall. I'll admit—I am one of the most easy people to fall for a techno-fix. And often, I seek techno-fixes as solutions to my often techno-problems.

This time around, I realized that I am too easily distracted by my phone when going to play music. How frustrating! I just want to open Spotify and queue some music I enjoy, only to be distracted by notifications or the lure of apps that I know are bound to be highly stimulating.

The obvious solution to my problem, I thought, was to ditch Spotify for an iPod.

Unfortunately, this transition was easier said than done because I didn't own much of my own music. I owned a hand full of records, but at the time, I classified them as a completely different listening experience.

So before thinking about getting an iPod, I needed to get my hands on an even older piece of technology—CDs.

Late this summer and throughout the fall, I began raiding used music stores like a maniac. Admittedly, the hunt for CDs was thrilling. The dopamine you're are rewarded with when you find the exact CD you are looking for at a fantastic price is a feeling like no other.

Side note: I'm 25, which means that my parents are of the generation that doesn't stream music, owned a lot of records, and now own a lot of CDs. While building my iTunes library, I had so much fun discussing and sharing the music I was buying with my dad. I don't get the same experience sharing a link to a song with a friend. All to say—I enjoyed this serendipitous experience sharing physical music with someone else.

Fast forward four months to now, as I am having the realization that the physical media listening experience is what I was looking for the whole time. I had it with records even before this 'search for music to fill up the iPod' began.

It's as simple as turning on the stereo system, putting a record or CD on, and enjoying the music—no device (and certainly no other techno-fix) required.

I was once again reminded that I already had the thing I was after.

P.S.—Turning off my Personal Radio Station

I'm too young for the album listening experience to have make an impression on my childhood. Growing up, I kind of just started buying songs I enjoyed from iTunes, and later, streaming songs I enjoyed from various artists and albums. In retrospect, technology of this time was built around making it as easy as possible to legally create your own mixtape or radio station.

This was awesome and empowering, but has now—in my opinion—taken a turn for the worse. I think the topic deserves longer thought, but in short, the algorithmically-generated listening experience does a perfect job of playing exactly the music you want exactly when you want it, but does so in a way that completely strips the art out of the music.

Through my journey back to physical media, I so thankful to have discovered the beauty and uniqueness of the album era.

To me, the album is a format of music meant to be consumed cover-to-cover. To cherry-pick an example, I don't think a prog-rock album like 2112 would make an impact or get any plays if it were released today. The song 2112 itself is a 20 minute commitment. That simply doesn't get played on the radio or recommended by Spotify.

Furthermore, I believe that the context of songs is important—and I certainly appreciate certain songs when I hear them in the context of the other songs on the album, as intended by the artist.

Lastly, I am thankful that there are still artists making music like this today. I particularly enjoy Fontaines D.C. and Foals.

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White Mirror I: Prelude

2025-11-06T13:31:46.494002+00:00

The first of a multi-part reflection on chaos, perception, and agency.

Friday

Washington, D.C.

After 35 long years, the day had finally come. The funeral for one life was the birth of another.

He gathered with his colleagues in their favorite conference room—all case officers for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. A sheet cake was illuminated by rows of bright fluorescent lights. It read: Happy Retirement Roger.

Rodger’s mind was elsewhere, even though he was surrounded by the closest remaining thing he had to a family for one last time. Tonight’s retirement party was distracting him from preparing for his forthcoming pilgrimage to the Mecca of fly fishing, and Rodger still needed to pack. Plus, he had just purchased some new gear and badly needed practice with it as he was relatively new to the sport.

His dream of the perfect retirement was born as the excitement of the first few years of his career wore off. From that point forward, Rodger began saving to make this dream a reality—saving and sacrificing for over three decades. Often, the dream was the only thing keeping Rodger going. And not once did Rodger question if enduring years of ethical battles with tax collection cases was a just price to pay for the chance to live out his dream retirement.

Rodger, now 62, occupied the liminal space between his working life and what he imagined to be his dream life.

Despite being well past his best years physically, he was still in relatively good health—and long may his good health last, for he had the ambition to live out his days experiencing endless moments of adventure and freedom.

That night, he knew his final steps out of that IRS office building were his first steps on the adventure of a lifetime.

On the other side of the DMV, Lindsey was working late this Friday night. Not because she had a pile of work to complete, but her partner was out of town this week and she didn't feel like staying out late at a bar with her friends or going to the gym.

She wasn't a workaholic by the traditional definition. Rather, she valued her health, relationships, and mission contributing to the world. Tonight, she choose to focus her attention on the latter.

Lindsey was a scientist who studied how melting ice impacts the Earth's climate. And when she was confronted with the question, "Doesn't melting ice just cause sea levels to rise?" Lindsey would patiently explain that sea level rise is only one small, long-term effect of melting ice.

She studied an immediate effect of melting ice: a warmer Earth.

As she explained it—ice reflects some portion of sunlight back into space, so losing ice means that less light is reflected into space and more heat is absorbed by the Earth. To those in her circle, this is called ice-albedo climate feedback.

Nothing too pressing was happening this evening, but results were now available from the latest weeks-long run of her climate feedback model. Climate anxiety drove her to work in this field, so whenever new results were ready, she could never wait to start pouring over the data.

Monday

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Rodger touched down in Jackson Hole on Sunday, and of course, darted straight from the airport to observe the spectacle of Old Faithful, which seemed to spout higher than ever. He camped out that night in his rig near Firehole Falls.

The sun shined on Rodger Monday morning. He enjoyed feeling the warm embrace of Mother Earth—his new family.

As he made his way down to the Firehole River, preparing for a day blissfully fishing for trout, he noticed flocks of birds swarming past him. It was a truly divine moment—as if God told all of the other animals he was coming and to leave all of the fish to Rodger. “This is exactly what I worked so tirelessly for,” thought Rodger as he descended to the distant river.

Rodger couldn’t help but smirk as he was eating his favorite tinned-fish treat—anchovies and mozzarella on sourdough—reflecting on his blissful morning. This would be the last time he needed to eat preserved fish. The trout were biting today. He just had to get one on his hook.

As he got back in his waders for the afternoon, his fellow fishermen were complaining that the fish had stopped biting. When he got back into the water, he noticed the crisp, crisp smell of Rocky Mountain fresh water was starting to turn rotten. But it seemed like he was having better luck with the fish! Bubbles were appearing around him—a key sign of the activity of smaller fish.

And in the blink of an eye, he was underwater.

It felt like a heavyweight champion had punched him in the chest, knocking the air right out of him. Trying to swim upward was very difficult in his now useless waders, so he had to ditch them.

He began seeing stars. His arms and legs began to tingle. With the last of his breath and consciousness, he finally broke the surface of the river.

This new world was unrecognizable to Rodger. The sun was completely gone, shielded by a great plume of sulfur and dust. This was the last image Rodger saw before being impaled by a rock flying through the air at terminal velocity.

Thursday

Washington, D.C.

On Thursday morning, back in Greenbelt Maryland at NASA’s Earth Science center, Lindsey was trying to understand what this all meant. She wasn’t a geologist, but knew that a cataclysmic eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera super-volcano was virtually impossible. It had been dormant for 70,000 years before Monday.

The sun had not shone through the cloud since the day after the eruption. The cloud, which covered the entire continent east of the Rockies, now made its way across the Atlantic. Of course, a silver lining of the situation was the reprieve that this series of eruptions would give the planet from a warming climate—just look at Mt. Pinatubo's 1991 eruption which cooled Earth by 0.5 ºC for a couple of years.

As she turned her attention to the news feed on her computer, Lindsey saw that good news was coming in. Geologist seismic models seemed to indicate that this was a one-off event. So far, Lindsey knew the volume of sulfur and dust spewed into the air was comparable to five times that of Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption.

Unlike the the field of seismology, the recent feeling amongst the climate science community was that they were beginning to get their arms around the chaotic nature of Earth’s weather systems and climate. Though as far as her current work was concerned, Lindsey was effectively blind, as her satellites (or “eyes in the sky” as she called them) were completely obscured as the growing cloud from Yellowstone covered the continent.

In the back of her mind, she was beginning to think about the climate feedback loop she studied, but in reverse—not global warming, but global cooling leading to ice sheet growth, which reflects more sunlight away, which causes Earth to cool even faster, causing ice sheets to grow even faster.

But she wasn't too bothered by the sun being blocked for a week. Lingering sulfur particles in the stratosphere would definitely keep Earth cool for a year, but due to this week's Yellowstone eruption, ice sheets would not noticeably grow.

And then it happened again.

Though this time the eruption was truly cataclysmic and didn’t stop for a week. Violent earthquakes devastated cities as far away as Denver and were felt in Seattle. If there was still life inhabiting the park, observers would have noticed Yellowstone lake almost completely boiled away.

This was the most powerful and destructive eruption that any of our human ancestors had ever experienced.

Fueled by caffeine, followed by adrenaline, and now by fear; Lindsey was trying to wrap her head around the implications of the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption. With the latest volcanic activity, Yellowstone was now 20 times more explosive than Mt. Pinatubo in 1991—over 100x the volume of sulfur and dust spewed into the atmosphere.

Once unbothered, but now anxious, Lindsey was understanding what this meant: the Earth could cool 5 °C or more over the next 10 years.

Not only that, but the abrupt, prolonged cooling could create enough ice to send the Earth into a runaway period of ice-albedo feedback, turning Earth into a ball of snow and ice for possibly tens of millions of years.

As Lindsey calculated it, the probability of 'snowball Earth' was a staggering 56% if the Earth cooled 6 °C in the next decade.

In her mind, only one question remained: can humanity prevent or endure Earth’s frozen future?

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What Is One Thing You Will Finish This Year?

2025-10-07T12:53:07.003935+00:00

I ended up writing about two things in this post: one thing and the social reality effect. Feel free to skip to either one.

Around this time every year, I find myself with many things I want to do and many things I've started doing—all paired with waning focus and motivation.¹

Coincidentally, the fall also seems to be the busiest and most stressful time at work, which drains my creative energy.

What Is One Thing You Will Finish This Year?

In these times of limited mental resources, I find it useful to choose one thing² to focus on. Choosing one thing sets me up for success by (1) stripping away almost all expectations and (2) making it extremely easy to know how to focus my time.

Through answering this question, I've gained clarity on what matters the most. If you don't know what this is, trying to answer the question of one thing at least forces you to think about your priorities. Newton's first law of motion often applies to humans too. When we're in motion, we tend to stay in motion—even if that motion isn't directed towards the things that matter the most to us.

Through answering this question, I've been able to grant myself permission to stop working on the things I can't seem to get across the finish line in favor of getting one thing done. This may sound obvious, but I struggle to quit and tend to let things fizzle out.

But what about the time I've already spent on those other things?

Yes, one option is to view the time already spent on other things as a sunk cost! It's true that you'll never get that time back. But on the flip side, stopping other things to focus on one thing is an effort to ensure the time working on your one thing isn't wasted.

Additionally, being able to actually finish something is bit of a lost art—at least for me. These days especially, it seems that the bar to start doing anything you want is really low. Intrinsic motivation and a little bit of discipline are usually required to see something through to the end. To me, these skills are like muscles—they need to be worked every once in a while to be ready for action when you need them.

Now that I have my one thing that I am planning on finishing this year, can I share it?

No! Whatever you do, please do not share your one thing! It must be kept a secret. Keep reading to learn why.

It's not dopamine that makes short form content digital crack

2025-08-30T13:11:51.620516+00:00

Why did you click on that video? What about the title or thumbnail "spoke to you"?

Did it promise to contain a piece of knowledge you may one day find useful? Did it promise to make you feel some type of way if you watch it?

I've come to realize that most of my compulsive watching happens as a result of these two questions.

Information and emotion.

Of course our brain incentivizes consuming new information—it's a survival mechanism. Up until probably some point in 2012, information was hard to come by. Now, information is abundant. If we're not cognizant of the mismatch between the reality of abundant information and our brain's default settings, it is all too easy to lose control of our attention. I covered this in my post 2012 (Rosy Retrospection).

Emotion is a different problem made difficult by the fact that we can't always explain our feelings. In this post, I want to dive into this part of the problem.

Clicking on a YouTube video, watching it for a few minutes, and then realizing it isn't what I wanted has become a common occurrence. I'm sure part of it has to do with a short attention span. But more significantly, I have begun realizing that (1) I love my life and don't wish to live the life portrayed by someone on YouTube (read more) and (2) the emotional reward for watching a YouTube video is shallow and temporary compared to emotions in the 'real world'.

So back to the topic at hand—entertainment.

A fundamental idea here is that modern social media platforms lean much more towards entertainment than the social networks they once were. Herman and Jason cover this in this podcast episode. Furthermore, the entertainment offered on these platforms is akin to digital crack.

So how do you make digital crack?

Pick an emotion to convey
Convey the emotion in 60 seconds
Post it on a platform that will automatically feed that emotion to someone exactly when they want to see it

Entertainment is entertaining because it conveys emotion.

Ironically, I credit this realization to a YouTube video which had an appetizing title like "You'll never watch short-form content again after watching this video".

The short nature of short-form content means that one ten minute session might make a consumer experience ten different emotions compared to a long-form session where a consumer may only experience a few emotions.

But why is this only a problem today?

Entertainment has existed as long as humans. It's how we pass culture down to our descendants, it's how we teach valuable lessons, and it guarantees we leave having felt emotion—laughter, happiness, sadness, betrayal, lust, or anger.

And that is what makes short-form 'content' so addictive—its ability to convey an emotional state in 60 seconds.

Why sit through a two hour play when you can have a serving of the same emotions within a few minutes from the comfort of your own home?

But the duration is only a part of it. The platforms that serve you these micro emotional states have a really good idea of what you want to feel in that moment.

This is so often why I click on the first or second video on my homepage. Because it seems to promise exactly what I want in that moment—and it's usually right!

What can be done about all of this?

I've been trying for years to modify my digital environment in pursuit of a life focused on the things I want to focus on.

But I was only successful after realizing that emotion is at the heart of addicting entertainment.

I invite you to think about how emotion plays into what you choose to consume online.

And remember, attention is the one thing you own that everyone else wants. I wrote more on the topic here.

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2012 (Rosy Retrospection)

2025-08-19T01:10:12.597961+00:00

I roll over in bed as I hear the alarm clock on my iPhone ringing. It's 7:30 AM on December 11th, 2012. Supposedly, the world will end tomorrow.

I unlock my phone to see notifications from a few things I missed overnight. Not much seemed to happen while I was asleep. I briefly check instagram and see a few new posts. Then twitter. Not much has been happening in my circles since I went to bed.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee starts to make its way into my room as I set my phone aside. "Modern life is so convenient!" I think think to myself while patting myself on the back for remembering to set the coffee maker to automatically brew this morning.

After a quick breakfast, I get in the car and start my commute to work. I bought the new Rush album Clockwork Angles on the iTunes store this weekend, so I plug my phone in to the Aux port and rock out on my way to work.

The office is lively today, just as it is every day, so this detail doesn't really stick out to me, but it was a little difficult finding a parking spot!

On my walk in, I swing by my colleague's office to chat about the weekend's Barclays Premier League results, as both of us love playing soccer. I gloated about the opportunity to watch Arsenal beat Spurs live this weekend, while my colleague's club Chelsea wasn't shown on TV. In lieu of televised soccer, he proceeded to tell me about his exploits in his weekend pickup game.

After work, I need to decompress, so I turn on pandora radio and plug in my earbuds. I love to spend this time of the day reading a post from my favorite blog or catching up on e-mail conversations with friends from a far. But I begin to grow frustrated by pandora's recommended songs—mostly radio hits—not the deep tracks I've found listening to my favorite albums cover-to-cover, so I switch back to my iTunes library.

Next, I log on to YouTube and search for the Chelsea highlights my colleague was telling me about. After the video ends, I look over to my clock and see it's only 6 PM! I don't yet realize it, but I'm really enjoying being in control of my evening.

Now it's time to call some friends and see if anyone has plans after dinner. The finale of the second season of Game of Thrones is tonight and I'm interested in watching.

They come over, we watch the episode, and the chat for a few hours before calling it a night.

Before bed, I crack open the book I just got from Barnes and Noble and read.

As I peacefully fall asleep, I completely forget that the world is supposed to end tomorrow, for I am too in-touch with my physical world to worry about things like that which are outside of my control.

A Note from the Author

Was 2012 actually this good, or are we just remembering the past through rose-tinted glasses?

When I look back, I remember 2012 as a special year. Not because we actually owned our own music, but because we owned our attention.

Do you remember a time when it wasn't possible to binge watching a show? In 2012, you probably would have needed to go to the store, purchase a box set of the show you want to binge, and play DVD after DVD after DVD until finishing the show.

In 2012, there was much more friction to do nearly everything. We had to drive to the store to buy something, we had to purchase a song to listen to it, we had to search for a video to play it, and to leave work we had to get into the car and drive home. Information and novelty was plentiful, but required some effort to get it—just enough effort to force us to spend our time intentionally.

Chris Williamson has a theory that around 2012, there was a perfect balance of information—enough to stay informed without being overwhelming.

Compare this to 2025—a frictionless world of abundance.

Our brain has not yet evolved to cope with this wealth of information. Biologically, we assume that information is scarce and are rewarded for novelty.

In the modern world, so much willpower and intentional life design is required to truly be in control of our attention—the one resource we have that everyone else in the world is vying for.

Awareness that we aren't in control is an essential step in taking back ownership of our attention.

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When life feels out of your control

2025-06-12T12:38:55.060765+00:00

I was recently under the impression that I had ultimate agency over my life. After all, it feels really really good to be in control. Or at least to think you are.

What was I even chasing in my bid for agency?

Realistically, I wanted the ability to make the physical world imitate the imaginary world in my head, but recently it feels like the universe has observed me feeling a maximum sense of agency and has chosen to remind me about what brings joy in life.

Let's do a little thought experiment, proposed by Naval in his appearance on the Modern Wisdom podcast.

I can put an electrode in your brain, and as a result, you will feel pure bliss. Would you like that?

Maybe for a little bit, but perhaps you realize you don't want to feel happy all of the time. Maybe instead, you ask if the electrode can make you feel fulfilled.

But is that really what you want? Even pure, unlimited fulfillment and happiness will get old after some time.

I think really, we are truly driven by serendipity. Serendipitous happiness, serendipitous fulfillment, even serendipitous sadness, anger, or disappointment.

So maybe you've gotten a parking ticket that seems unfair, or a loved one has ended up in the hospital close to death, or you have an unexpected pregnancy, and you find yourself wishing things were different, remember: life is not in your control, and the fact that it is not is a good thing, because humans crave serendipity—it's what keeps existence dynamic and meaningful.

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I Didn't Realize I Was a First Principles Thinker Until…

2025-05-15T15:43:54.112268+00:00

For the better part of 6 years, first principles thinking was a mystery to me. Of course I wanted to become a first principles thinker, but didn't understand how to become one.

Then everything changed. Today, I realized that I had a first principles thought.

As a result, I am writing this post to share how I would learn to become a first principles thinker if I were starting again.

Why first principles thinking?

In recent years, thought leaders in the engineering and business worlds attribute their success to first principles thinking. As a result, personal development gurus echo this as advice, while simultaneously making it clear that they are only reciting platitudes rather than understanding the concept themselves.

Admittedly, first principles thinking was not a trait I intentionally taught myself. I stumbled upon the realization that I was doing it.

But the results of first principles thinking are undeniable—often making the seemingly impossible possible.

What is first principles thinking?

First principles thinking is a problem solving technique where a larger problem is broken down into its fundamental parts (its first principles).
First principles thinkers instinctively approach problems in this way, questioning all assumptions and stopping only at the laws of physics.

How to become a first principles thinker

Step 1: optimistic thinking

As Thomas Friedman once wrote:

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

When is the last time you came across a problem and stopped at, "I don't think this is possible" or "this would be really hard to do right now"?

And you're probably right! the thing is probably virtually impossible or may be hard to do now.

But this pessimistic thinking has stopped you from solving this problem before first principles thinking can even be applied.

The optimist acknowledges the difficulty of the problem, but chooses a different definition for what's possible.

They believe: only the laws of physics can determine if something is impossible.

Step 2: find the essence

Imagine the following scenario: your marriage has become dull. Your partner seems to get upset with you for the simplest, trivial things.

Maybe this particular episode is happened because your partner took the trash out instead of you tonight.

How could you apply first principles thinking?

First, it would be appropriate to notice that something as silly as who should take the trash to the dumpster? is a symptom of some other problem—not the essence of this one.

You start to think through it and realize you and your partner are both exhausted tonight. They cooked dinner after working from home while you were commuting almost an hour each way.

You've found the essence of the problem!

From here the solution to reignite your relationship is not I'll take the trash out in the future but we'll work on changing our lifestyle so we aren't both tired and irritable by the end of the evening.

From here you're far more likely to implement a lasting solution that addresses the fundamental problems in your relationship.

I believe the technique really is this simple. Now you have the mindset the become a first principles thinker.

Solve problems as an optimist
Find and address the essence of problems

The key to having your aha! moment is to go out and solve a lot of problems.

If your work is by nature technical, this should be straightforward as it is what you are paid to do. If your typical work is something else, your life away from work will present many opportunities to apply first principles thinking.

If you find yourself wondering if you are a first principles thinker, ask yourself these questions:

Do I seek to understand root causes or do I stop at symptoms?
Do I even consider the option that the problem is impossible?
Can I find fundamental similarities in related but different things?

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Brian Alonso

26

Indifference, Motivation, and Flourishing Once Again

Healthy motivation

Picking the right journey

The cost of peace

2025

Realizing You Already Have What You Want

P.S.—Turning off my Personal Radio Station

White Mirror I: Prelude

Friday

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Monday

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Thursday

Washington, D.C.

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I Didn't Realize I Was a First Principles Thinker Until…

Why first principles thinking?

What is first principles thinking?

How to become a first principles thinker

Step 1: optimistic thinking

Step 2: find the essence