Weekly Review #208 - Landmark Forum, Wife Referral Fees, and Animoji Karaoke
I attended the Landmark Forum for all 36 hours of this weekend, and am still reeling from the experience. Wow, is all I can say.
Google Landmark and you'll find endless pages of skepticism and cult accusers. But that's not what this is at all. I'm gonna write a massive blog post about it ASAP (I have 11 pages of notes), but the fundamental truths Landmark teaches you are the following:
Life is empty and meaningless. You don't experience what happened, only your meaning-making story of what happened.
Therefore, any possibility is possible if you truly commit to it, and separate the story from the truth, and your past from the present.
And that's what the Forum does - separate you from your stories. The concrete outcome from that is you calling the most important people in your life and ridding your stories from the relationship, and inviting them into the future possibility you'd like to create. Which is just about the highest possible lever for life satisfaction, when you think about it.
That's why everyone thinks its a scam - everyone calls all their friends and tries to get them to do it too as soon as they finish. But it's not to sell - it's to enroll them in the powerful new possibility they just created for themselves! It's hard to do that to someone set in their ways - so the easiest thing to do is have them experience it firsthand, too.
That's what I'm doing with my dad, with whom I experienced an incredible breakthrough on Saturday that had me bawling body-wrenching tears for a half hour straight, and telling him I loved him for the first time in a long while. We'll see if he responds to my invitation for Tuesday...
Tech
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
Deep statistical dive into what makes current teenagers who they are, comparing them with past generations, and pointing out how their online lives are spiking loneliness and all sorts of bad things. Definitely got the family talking about our 16 year old brother.
Poe's law - Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
“Poe's law: online, it's impossible to parody extreme views without being mistaken as sincerely expressing them." That's part of why the Net is such an extreme places - the trolls appear real!
Lifehacks
How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio - YouTube — www.youtube.com
Excellent 30 min animated explanation of how the economy works, from the head of one of the world's most successful hedge funds. Worth a watch, no matter your background.
Soulmate Hack: $10,000 Reward For Anyone Who Sets Up Joe W/ a Date
Joe is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who finds him a girlfriend that he ends up dating for at least 4 months. I love the rationale here (dating market is just like the job market, and company referral bonuses are huge!), but this guy is going about it all wrong. He's got a checklist and a very narrow definition of success.
The best way to do this is to do a short list of dealbreaker and must haves, then sit back and let your friends do the work. And to be open minded that your soulmate might not be the fantasy you have in your head!
Fun
I played Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes this week, a VR game where 1 player is defusing a bomb using the instructions from the other players who have to deftly read the answers from a manual.
It's like asymmetrical Spaceteam, tons of fun, and forces you to quickly figure out how to communicate effectively. Who knew following instructions was so enjoyable?
top scoring links : AnimojiKaraoke — www.reddit.com
The iPhone X lets you map animated emojis to your face. People sing songs with them, and the resulting music videos are truly glorious. My favorite is the Gasolina one.