Mar 12, 2023·edited Mar 12, 2023Liked by Daniel Kazandjian
This idea of focusing on the gut before the brain is critical. All the time I am surrounded by coworkers who focus on intellectual activities (the content in their presentation, the knowledge they share) at the expense of emotional ones, and it is incredibly apparent. They contort as they speak, they anxiously scrape their fingernails together, they eagerly interrupt the silence to make things "less awkward". None of these things are _necessarily_ wrong, but often they occur without reflection (which is less than ideal), and so they cannot be fixed over time. If you started with the gut, you simply can't avoid these reflections ("why did I feel that emotion? why did I just say that?"). There is no brain in a vat: the brain cannot be severed from the gut.
Sounds like you're talking about congruence. When your intellectual activities are incongruent with your felt-senses, you get weird vibes despite otherwise decent content.
"Ok bro, but HOW do I do this?"
Like anything worthwhile, gut-literacy is a practice. It will initially require baby-steps.
So here's a fun baby-step: take any content feed and ruthlessly mute/block/dislike things that FEEL off to you.
For example, Spotify Discovery Weekly will algorithmically give you songs based on your past listening habits.
Listen to this every week without reading song names or looking at album art. Then RUTHLESSLY edit the list.
Don’t overthink it. When you have a gut feeling about a song LIKE it or DELETE it. No pondering.
Practice making these small curation decisions instinctively, without the need for a rationale.
Over time you might unearth your actual music taste.
This idea of focusing on the gut before the brain is critical. All the time I am surrounded by coworkers who focus on intellectual activities (the content in their presentation, the knowledge they share) at the expense of emotional ones, and it is incredibly apparent. They contort as they speak, they anxiously scrape their fingernails together, they eagerly interrupt the silence to make things "less awkward". None of these things are _necessarily_ wrong, but often they occur without reflection (which is less than ideal), and so they cannot be fixed over time. If you started with the gut, you simply can't avoid these reflections ("why did I feel that emotion? why did I just say that?"). There is no brain in a vat: the brain cannot be severed from the gut.
Sounds like you're talking about congruence. When your intellectual activities are incongruent with your felt-senses, you get weird vibes despite otherwise decent content.