Good Stuff
Examples of people getting it right in ways big and small, serious and silly, esoteric and mundane.
(This list also necessarily evolves with time. Arguably, some of these recommendations are deprecated. And certainly a lot is missing too.)
Books
Science Fiction
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Books 1-4) — Douglas Adams
Project Hail Mary (Audiobook) — Andy Weir
Orphan X Series — Greg Hurwitz
Ready Player One (Audiobook) — Ernest Cline
The Martian — Andy Weir
Dune — Frank Herbert
Jurassic Park + The Lost World — Michael Crichton
Leviathan Wakes — James S. A. Corey
Artemis — Andy Weir
Fantasy
Harry Potter — J. K. Rowling (Vol. 1–7, Jim Dale Audiobooks)
Lord of the Rings — J.R.R. Tolkien (Vol. 1-3)
The Phantom Tollbooth — Norton Juster
Mysteries, Detectivery, Etc.
Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Murders in the Rue Morgue — Edgar Allen Poe
The Cuckoo’s Calling — Robert Galbraith
The Silkworm — Robert Galbraith
Nonfiction
Birth of a Theorem — Cedric Villani
Antifragile — Nassim Taleb
Skin in the Game — Nassim
A New Kind of Science –– Stephen Wolfram
Maps of Meaning — Jordan Peterson
12 Rules for Life — Jordan Peterson
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. 1) –– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Master and His Emissary –– Iain McGilchrist
Guns, Germs, and Steel –– Jared Diamon
Chaos –– James Gleick
The World Beyond Your Head –– Matthew Crawford (Audiobook)
The Autobiography of Malcom X — Malcolm X
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman — Richard Feynman
The Math(s) Fix — Conrad Wolfram
Alchemy — Rory Sutherland
Mastery — Robert Greene (Audiobook)
Molecules — Theodore Gray
Love and Math — Edward Frenkel
Metabolical — Robert Lustig
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam — John Archibald Wheeler
The Double Helix — James D. Watson
Extreme Ownership — Jocko Willink
A Billion Wicked Thoughts — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
Isaac Newton — James Gleick
Movies
Oppenheimer
Video Games
Another Crab’s Treasure
Minecraft
Subnautica
Marvel Spider-Man
Scientific Papers
Use of the Discrete Variable Representation Basis in Nuclear Physics –– Aurel Bulgac and Michael McNeil Forbes
Lectures
Frederic Schuller’s Lectures on Physics
Lectures on General Relativity and Lectures on Quantum Theory.
Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories –– Jordan Peterson
(Probably deprecated, but influential for me at the time.)
Classical Music
Piano Concerto No. 1 –– Tchaikovsky. (Van Cliburn recording.)
The Brandenburg Concertos –– Bach
The Four Seasons — Vivaldi
Art
Poetry
If –– Rudyard Kipling
The Will to Win –– Berton Braley
The Road Not Taken — Robert Frost
Politics
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
Heuristics
In order to feel 20% better, do 20 things that make you feel 1% better each.
It may not be possible to rid yourself of suffering, but it is often possible to trade off one kind of suffering for another.
Find PDFs of every textbook you have ever used, and keep them organized in a single folder. That way, you can draw on your entire education at a moment’s notice. (Do the same for scientific papers.)
Good habits build on one another, and so do bad ones.
Do difficult things every day.
It is almost always possible to practice something you wish you were better at, no matter what it is.
If you can walk to the refrigerator/snack cabinet, you can exercise.
Never learn a difficult lesson twice.
Never miss lay-ups. Never delay taking them either.
It is easier to macro-bullshit than micro-bullshit.
Build the tools that you wish existed but don’t.
Nothing good happens after midnight.
If you are exhausting yourself ever day climbing a mountain that you shouldn’t even be climbing, remove the mountain from your life.
Tools
Meaningwave by Akira the Don
The Wim Hof Method. Cold showers and Wim’s breathing technique are my two most reliable tools for combatting anxiety.
Waking Up by Sam Harris
Peterson Academy
Aphorisms and Quotations
Not all that glitters is gold. Not all that is gold glitters.
Venenum in auro bibitur.
Opportunity can be found where responsibility has been abdicated. (JBP)
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. (Solzhenitsyn)
Haste makes waste.
The Obstacle is The Way.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘wow, what a ride!’” – Hunter S. Thompson.
“Find what you love and let it kill you.” – Charles Bukowski.
Do not cast pearls before swine.
Internet Content
StuffMadeHere
3Blue1Brown
Stephen Wolfram Livestreams
Styropyro