June 2, 2020
Just for the record…
Sent by Jonathan Stark on June 2nd, 2020
You didn’t subscribe to this list to hear me wax poetic about topics like civil rights or social injustice or political machinations. Not because these things aren’t important - they are critically important - but because I am not an expert in these things.
I have strong feelings about these subjects but they’re uninformed and chaotic and disorganized. Sharing them outside of my inner circle of loved ones feels like a pompous act of self-importance.
My highest overarching goal as a human is to be useful to others. Broadcasting my hot takes on current events would be the opposite of useful; it would merely add to the noise.
That said, there are a couple of threads from my area of expertise that map to big picture social issues that I do feel qualified to comment on:
- Playing finite vs infinite games
- Adopting a posture of service
- The subjective nature of reality
As someone who has explored these topics for years in both theory and practice, I do have a degree of confidence that I can offer some useful perspectives to others. I’ll talk about each over the course of the next few days.
In the meantime, I hope you’re staying safe.
Yours,
—J
P.S. If you’re looking for ways to help, my good friend Kai Davis let me know about this helpful page that aggregates a bunch of options: