#3: A Cold, Cold Winter

Hello.

At the time of publishing I am now officially 25% of the way through the semester. Yikes. With four weeks down, the initially broad funnel of possibilities that greet us each school year has well and truly collapsed, representing the dying out of multitudes of potential roots of exploration. With that said, though, each root that survives now I hope has the rigidity to extend deeper and in doing so yield greater output by way of connections, experiences and learnings.

Despite the name of this publication, at the start of February there are small signs of the oncoming Spring. Interwoven through days reaching as low as -15° C, there have been hits of 5-8° C and ample sunlight for this time of year to bide us through the cold stretches. The American semester begun far earlier than those in Europe, but we are also now at the point where friends of mine also on exchange have begun their own journeys, and I've found it interesting to note that our experiences are essentially isomorphic up to the level of the geographic location and the names of people met. The first few days, a mad rush of novelty and activity, of sowing seeds for what is to come. The first few week of class, an exploration of the home city as well as foreign education systems and practices. And so on and so forth.

On a note that hopefully stitches the above two paragraphs together, I am also at the point now where the paths of all the other exchange students at Purdue are beginning to materialise, and observing them has left me questioning a lot this week, in both good ways as in bad, about the optimality of how I have chosen to spend my time. We all have our different priorities and preferences and hobbies to be sure, but it would be foolish to think I've managed to conjure the objectively best way of doing a Purdue exchange. Borrowing discoveries from those around me should serve very productive going forward.

Enjoy the read as usual. Though there are no trips out of state this time, there are some interesting points to be found I think. I'm also planning on doing another release in the middle of this week for Week 3 at Purdue so I can get these newsletters to the better position of lagging behind my current self by only one week instead of two. We'll see how we go!

Photos.

Releases.

No additional writing this week 🥺, though I have a few things being drafted...

Bullet digest.

Something I am trying... I've been using an app called Notion for the past two years for task management, having migrated previously off of Todoist. One downside with Notion is that it is quite bulky and slow as an app, so jotting down one-off tasks during the day has a lot of friction. The alternative I've been playing around with the last month or so now is a Bullet Journal, something I experimented with but fell off from some years ago. Whilst it won't replace my Notion system, it is a good supplement to it for all the smaller stuff that I don't want/need clogging my main task dashboard.

Something I am watching... Pale Flower (1964) directed by Masahiro Shinoda. Often likened to the Japanese version of Kerouac's On the Road (a book I am now mentioning for a second week running...) it's a fairly disorienting film following the spiraling relationship between an ex-prisoner and a gambling addict. Took a while to get used to the style of the film, in particular the extremely long time between cuts especially when in dialogue and the lack of any background music, but well worthwhile watching.

Digressions.

• Punchline: Utilising the concept of Proof of X can give massive leverage in developing positive/negative habits

  • Strava is the world's most popular running app, and amongst other things what differentiates it is the feature of following other people's activities.

    • For those who haven't used it, is is essentially like a social media app, but the content on your feed are other people's activities (runs, but now also workouts, rowing, etc.)

  • At base, the reason why anyone ever posts anything at all to any social platform (particularly pictures) is to serve as some sort of validation of having engaged in a particular experience.

    • "Yes, I am in fact in Indiana at the moment and went to Chicago last week and the photos I have posted prove this"

    • And, since there are large releases of dopamine associated with having this certification put out into the wider world, there are mechanisms in your mind that will constantly work to direct your endeavours in directions that will produce more of these provable moments.

  • As a concept, this is exploiting what you could call Proof of X, and it would appear to me that an app like Strava is one of the few examples of exploiting this aspect of our cognition towards a positive outcome.

    • That is, the threshold for having something to post and therefore have validated is to go and do exercise. There are no other ways around it.

      • Compare that to the threshold for a good Instagram post, which essentially could be distilled to putting yourself geographically in a worthy setting, nothing more.

  • The forces that drive people to use Strava compulsively have the net result of people running more.

    • Sure, if you are not careful there are still the latent traps of comparison or concerns about whether your activity is up to standard.

    • However, in general it is the quintessential example for me of ways to positively exploit digital social cues.

  • At this stage, I'm unsure as to whether Strava is unique in what it accomplishes, or whether there is potential for a whole suite of such apps, each targeted at behaviours/hobbies/habits that are net positives.

    • Strava for reading, studying, learning, taking courses, languages (Duolingo is heading somewhat in this direction) etc. all could be ways to 10x the number of people participating in said activity each day and 10x the amount of time each individual spends on said activity.