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
Fantasy
Harry Potter (Vol. 1–7, Jim Dale Audiobook)
My favorite hero’s journey. A sophisticated model of magic. Childhood.
Lord of the Rings
The Phantom Tollbooth — Norton Juster
Nonfiction
Birth of a Theorem — Cedric Villani
The Incerto (Audiobooks) –– Nassim Taleb
In particular, Antifragile and Skin in the Game. How to live and thrive in an uncertain world.
A New Kind of Science –– Stephen Wolfram
That complexity can be generated from simplicity. The role of computation in all aspects of the world, and the value of the computational perspective.
Maps of Meaning –– Jordan Peterson
That the world may be validly formulated as a forum for action, as well as a place populated with things, and that this forum for action is governed by self-consistent internal rules.
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. 1) –– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One should know precisely what life is like in societies that degenerate into tyranny (and one should learn the characteristics of those individuals who create and perpetuate that tyranny).
The Master and His Emissary –– Iain McGilchrist
Two different ways of Being are embodied in the structure of the brain (i.e. the Hemisphere Hypothesis). Also a decent humanities and neuroscience education packed into one book.
Guns, Germs, and Steel –– Jared Diamond
Perhaps the most important book for social justice I was never required to read.
The Theoretical Minimum (Vol. 1,2,3) –– Leonard Susskind
An example of what real physics looks like, and that much exciting physics is not as hard as it is made out to be.
Chaos –– James Gleick
What physical and mathematical systems are capable of.
The World Beyond Your Head –– Matthew Crawford
Skilled practices transform our experience of the world. We discover ourselves, and others, as we push up against the world through such practices.
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
How to do quantum mechanics numerically. Takes a bit of unpacking, but seeing wave functions simply fall out of the computer was a real lightbulb moment for me.
Lectures
Frederic Schuller’s Lectures on Physics
Lectures on General Relativity and Lectures on Quantum Theory. The full grandeur of physical law delivered in unparalleled clarity by a master expositor. A model for theoretical/mathematical physics education.
Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories –– Jordan Peterson
Making sense of the divine. (Probably deprecated, but influential for me at the time.)
Music
Piano Concerto No. 1 –– Tchaikovsky. (Van Cliburn recording.)
The Brandenburg Concertos –– Bach
Space Oddity — David Bowie
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
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.
Internet Content
StuffMadeHere
3Blue1Brown
Stephen Wolfram Livestreams
Styropyro