#101: Relentlessly Resourceful, Time Kills Dreams, Future of Cartography

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This week, we will take a look at the delicate balance between achieving your dreams and your available time, one of the most important traits of the future, and a profession that is set for a new-age renaissance.

Let's dive in:

Time Kills Dreams

One of the most valuable lessons my dad taught me was that time is the most valuable resource we have in life. Most everything else can be found again, but once time is lost, it will never come back.

Many wise people have come to a similar realization over the years, but I came across an interesting piece that connected this lesson along with an insight that I hadn't quite considered before.

Justin Skycak shares how time is the #1 killer of dreams and aspirations. He sums it up beautifully, "When someone gives up on their dream, or gives up on figuring out what that dream is, it's typically a result of them losing the race against time. That is the point of compressing time, of removing skill bottlenecks early."

Many people assume that you will always have more time. Dreams can still be attained at a later date - but that later date never comes. One of my favorite moments in one of my favorite books, The Alchemist, is when the crystal shop owner talks about his dream:

"It's the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive. That's what helps me face these days that are all the same... I'm afraid that if my dream is realized, I'll have no reason to go on living."

I believe sometimes we become comfortable to have our dreams live in our head, rather than make them reality. The crystal shop owner says that it's because reality is often disappointing, but I believe it's a mixture of a few things.

I believe Justin Skycak is right in that time is what kills most dreams, but I would add that growing comfortable having the dream live in our mind also plays a role. I encourage anyone reading this with a dream they have been sitting on for a while to take even the smallest step towards making it a reality today.

An Unexpected Journey into Cartography

This beautiful map graced my feed the other day, and I was immediately struck by the intricacies and details it contained. It's the 1739 "Plan de Turgot," commissioned by the chief merchant of Paris. Every mark was originally engraved into brass plates and the end product is unbelievable. This lead me to exploring the page of the original re-poster, Evan Applegate.

His bio read "A vocational cartographer" - I had to double check to make sure we weren't in the 15th century. How could this be viable nowadays with Geographic Information Systems and modern technology for mapping?

I visited his website and was immediately blown away. Evan is a curator of some of the most beautiful maps in the world. He also has a cartography podcast "in which he interviews better cartographers" and has the "best living mapmakers describe how they create worlds in ink, pixels, graphite, threads, paint, ceramic, wood and metal."

This profession, dated by some standards, is interesting, and may even make a comeback. Why can't we create beautiful maps like the Plan de Turgot of Mars? Or the moon? Or other planets? Why can't we create better maps that show cities in a useful way like hood maps? Why can't everything be interactive and beautifully designed like Apple Maps?

It may seem like a boring subject, but I can see how a renaissance of cartography might just be perfectly timed to arrive soon.

52 Odd Health Interventions That Work Instantly

I first came across @BreatheLesss as someone who quote tweeted Justin Skycak's post on dreams being killed by time. They said 'Important if you're younger than 31 (the cut-off)". Even though I hate putting deadlines on things of that nature, it does get exponentially harder to make the time to pursue ambitious dreams. This made me curious to check out @BreatheLesss more.

I came across their substack, "Breathe Less - Essays on health, breathwork, internal alchemy, and philosophy", and was immediately intrigued by the variety of essays available: Nonsisyphean Effort, Be (Courageously) Inauthentic, 3 PM Motivation, and more.

I decided to go into the most digestible right off the bat, 52 Odd Health Interventions That Work Instantly.

I knew a few of the things listed out, and I was amazed that I already did most of the ones I was familiar with. To name a few of the most interesting:

3) Sleep on your left side - Right side is ok too but do left side if you can.

5) Very hot bath to drop your core temp before sleep - Your body will dump heat.

9) Put your legs up - Against the wall. For 10-15 minutes at a time. Helps lymphatic drainage and removes fluid buildup.

21) Pinch/massage the squishy part between thumb and index - For 1 minute on each hand.

27) Hold breath until strong air hunger - Move your head up and down. Rest for 30s. Repeat 6 times. Good for unclogging your upper respiratory system.

29) Mewing - It won’t make you pretty but it helps to open up the airways.

31) Put mental reminders - Use your brain like an alarm clock. Say you’ll wake up at 8 am, and eventually, your brain will obey.

43) Sleep on the floor - For back pain. You can use 2-3 blankets.

52) Fall in love - … amor fati. Find an obsession that will consume you. Stop debasing yourself by consuming mindlessly anything that poisons your mind and soul. Escape the low-energy state that increases your affinity for attachment to tribal groups that hijack your identity, slowly eroding your sense of self until you can only experience the world through an external filter. Commit to the great work by attempting to reach summa perfectionis, refining the function of your body and the mechanics of your mind until you can finally perceive reality sans naive attachments and fantasies that serve you in the way you want to be served, for time is the only enemy you have, yet the only friend who joins you in the path to overcoming the vicissitudes of fate; Saturn, the first boundary of material reality stands in your way, and you have to make a covenant only to kill Him when it’s time; yours and His time.

I loved the last one because it completely broke the mold of how straightforward and simple the rest of the list was.

Not only does Breath Less mention and expand on 'time', it discusses love in non romantic terms. We must fall in love with something. Whether its what we do or the people we're around, ideally you fall in love with every second of every day. The highs and the lows all come to balance each other out. Living like this simply makes you 'become' love. I can't wait to read more of Breath Less' work.

How to Effectively "Beat" the Algorithm

One of the most direct, non-bs ways of approaching posting on social media, by @yaccineMTB:

if you want advice on how to "beat" the algorithm i need you to listen to me

the algorithm is a system that includes the engineers working on it. the engineers have an objective function. it is very carefully measured. they run benchmarks against previous versions, and know exactly the effects of what they change (to the best of their ability)

at the core of all algorithms is a neural network optimizer. what gets fed into it is a platonic representation of concepts, and it quite literally understands the difference of things in this space. i am a specific type of person. there might not even be a name for someone like me. but the algorithm has me modeled, and knows how people like me tend to behave

your audience is your community. you don't want the algorithm to recommend your posts to people who don't get you. the algorithm works. recommendation systems have been solved. do you understand me? everything beyond this point is just post hoc tuning.

the algorithm, quite literally, has authenticity modeled in its weights. i bet you anything that you could train a classifier off of the embeds of users that split them into authentic and non authentic. there is no getting away, there is no faking it

you want to "beat" the algorithm? stop being a fake a** f**k loser. try being yourself. and focus on improving yourself, your person, become more honest. that too, is modeled by the algorithm

the algorithm knows when you're being needy

The Number One Skill of the Future

The number one skill of the future, according to Paul Graham over sixteen years ago, and Replit founder Amjad Masad, will be the ability to act "relentlessly resourceful":

“The future is entrepreneurship. Not just building companies, but being entrepreneurial inside companies too. We see non-engineers on Replit creating millions in revenue for their employers.”

“The main skill is resourcefulness. The worst thing you can do today is just do what you’re told. Young people need to think for themselves, they’ll know better than parents or teachers what skills to learn.”

Always try to deliver more, do good and expect nothing in return, and find a way when others give up.

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Becket U

Undiscovered #101: Relentlessly Resourceful, Time Kills Dreams, Future of Cartography

#101: Relentlessly Resourceful, Time Kills Dreams, Future of Cartography

Time Kills Dreams

An Unexpected Journey into Cartography

52 Odd Health Interventions That Work Instantly

How to Effectively "Beat" the Algorithm

The Number One Skill of the Future

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