4104: Surface Tension by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle on Deeper Thinking

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] Right now, get up to 15% off Select Storage Solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking. And the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find Select Shelving and Tote Storage up to 15% off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit homedepot.com. How doers get more done.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_03] I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_01] Botox, on a botulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01] Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_04] Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_02] This is Optimal Living Daily. Surface Tension by Colin Wright of ExileLifestyle.com And I'm your narrator Justin Malik, the guy that reads blogs or articles to you every single day of the year including weekends and holidays. I appreciate you listening every day. It really means a lot. We're going to get right to our next post as we optimize your life. Surface Tension by Colin Wright of ExileLifestyle.com

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02] There's a superficial level to every discussion. If you follow this conceptual thread far enough, you'll find that language itself is just a coded analogy that allows us to approximate meaning to each other verbally and with written glyphs. But in this case, I'm talking specifically about the character-like discourse we often engage in because it's convenient, even potentially weird or rude or awkward to do otherwise.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02] When we talk about politics, we typically focus on a handful of main topics and the characteristics, real or imagined, of our candidate and that candidate's opposition. A conversation in this space seldom delves into the moral rightness of liberal democratic systems or the confluence of politics that has led to the current global order and what alternatives might exist to that order. We could discuss these things and maybe we should.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_02] The conversation would certainly be more complete, though our surface-level discussions generally lack the resolution necessary to accurately display the more granular issues that inform the superficial ones. But like a pyramid, the lower you go, the more massive, more substantial the discussion becomes. You begin by talking about tax policy, but before you know it, you're discussing the social rectitude of agrarianism and the metrics we use to establish rightness within a secular moral landscape.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_02] In short, we sometimes have cartoonishly simplified discussions because we're ignorant or lazy. But we also have them because a larger discussion would, quite possibly, take up all of our time. We use shortcuts in this space for much the same reason we use language. It allows us to address and assess on a high level, which allows us to operate and make changes despite what we lose in translation. The resolution is low, but we don't need crystal clarity 100% of the time.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_02] Sometimes the gist is all we require to get to where we want to be. That said, the deeper level, the area beneath the surface, makes up the bulk of the intellectual ocean. There's a lot going on down there, and though it's not possible to live there full-time, you have to come up for air eventually, it's possible to dive deep, to explore, to be amazed by the variation found in the analogical life fluttering and flittering and lurking in that exotic intellectual space.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_02] What's more, you can train yourself to dive deeper and for longer periods of time. This is the knowledge-seeking, philosophizing equivalent of becoming a pearl diver who trains herself to hold her breath for several minutes at a time. She plunges below the surface dozens of times a day to achieve this capability. She works hard to train her body so she can spend an increasing amount of time down there amidst the fish and coral and sea anemones. It's hard work, but it's possible.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_02] And all that training, importantly, allows her to come back to the surface every time, safe and potentially burying treasures from the otherwise inaccessible depths. I sometimes think of this mental model when I find myself lingering above or below the intellectual surface for too long. It's possible to stick with the superficial level of knowledge, of discourse, of intellectual exploration, and to never acknowledge that there's another layer down there waiting for you to visit, to spend some time, to look around and see some bizarre and beautiful stuff.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02] It's also possible to retreat beneath the waves, seldom coming up for air. You perhaps become a creature of the deep, grow a set of gills, but in the trade-off become less capable of interacting with those up on land. Maybe you yourself become more creatively and intellectually alive as a result of this evolution, but because of your change in habits and lack of interest or skill in translating what you've learned, you also become less capable of sharing it. That knowledge, that beauty, ends with you.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_02] Surface tension refers to the tendency of liquid molecules to adhere more strongly to each other than to molecules in the air. So where the water ends and the air begins, that delineating layer of ocean is actually stronger in a way, more difficult to puncture than the expanses of water below. This is what allows tiny bugs to skim along the surface of lakes and what causes dew to beat on leaves on a chilly spring morning. A similar effect can be found on the intellectual border between deep exploration from superficial communication.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02] The distance between these two realms is immeasurably small, but there's a tension there. A molecular surface you have to break through in order to explore on the other side. The effort required to traverse this line is miniscule, but substantial enough to seem not worth the attempt to many people. There are simply too many forces competing for our time, our attention, our energy. The argument for a periodic submersion into something interesting often pales in comparison to the practical realities of paying the bills

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_02] and struggling to get enough sleep to survive another day. But the effort pays off. Particularly if you can become accustomed to the shock and exertion of breaching the surface upward and downward and bringing what you learn on each side back to the other. Use your communication skills to turn your newfound knowledge, your hard-won experiences, into essays and poetry and paintings. Use your expanded horizons to increase the range of topics you discuss

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_02] and the number of questions you might ask of people who have seen portions of the big picture you haven't. It's easier to skip across the surface of the water than to break through it. But the rewards of seeing both sides of being a creature of the deep and the sky are immense and valuable. You just listened to the post titled, Surface Tension by Colin Wright of ExileLifestyle.com And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02] Support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites. Payments, point of sale, online orders, inventory, staff, all in one place. So you can focus on your customers instead of your to-do list. One thing about my favorite gelato place, besides the flavors, is that I'm always done paying in seconds. Tap to pay, receipt in my inbox, and the person behind the counter is actually talking to me instead of messing with a machine.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_02] That's Square. When the tools aren't the focus, the human part of the business gets to come forward. Square helps you run your business more smoothly, bringing payments, operations, and insights together in one place, so you're ready for whatever's next. Right now, listeners can get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash old.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02] That's s-q-u-a-r-e dot com slash go slash OLD. Get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_05] At Oli, we've got wellness down to a science. From PMS to pregnancy to menopause, our women's wellness line offers science-backed support for every stage. No judgment, no shame, none of the stigma. Just supplements designed to meet you wherever you're at. OLLI, choose science over shame. Find support at a retailer near you or on OLLI.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02] Thank you to Colin. Typically a more difficult author to narrate for me, and today being a great example of that. Anytime the word agrarianism makes it into a blog post, I know I'm going to have some trouble, but hopefully you found value in this one. If I had to sum it up, I think this is talking about the importance of variation. When's the last time you discussed something deeper and really questioned a topic, either with friends or loved ones or even someone new to you.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_02] Of course, you don't want to jump right into politics with someone you just met. You don't want to scare them away. But it doesn't always have to be a topic like that. To Colin's point, there are rewards with both sides, and always sticking to the superficial can keep us a bit, well, stuck. So maybe try diving a little bit deeper today. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits. Bye.