Nesting Dolls
"A grownup is a child with layers on" - Woody Harrelson
Phew! A wild week of travel (with an unexpected pivot to North Carolina due to weather), followed by a quick break, then off for a long journey next week. I'll be 'off the grid' - not something I usually do - so it'll be a bit of terra incognita for me. Before heading out, I wanted to pivot from the last newsletter - and I sincerely appreciate many folks who reached out afterward with their words of kindness and experiences that mirrored some of my thoughts.
I have been thinking about personalities recently, specifically, what makes us, well, us.
There has been so much written on personality traits, but the common big five that reflects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves:
- Neuroticism - tendencies toward anxiety and depression.
- Extroversion - a state of being where someone 'recharges' or draws energy from being with other people.
- Agreeableness - compassion, respectfulness, trust in others.
- Conscientiousness - organization, productiveness, responsibility.
- Openness - Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas; imaginative and curious.
I wonder if personalities are more like Matryoshka nesting dolls. You know, those wooden dolls from Russia that open to reveal a smaller doll inside. And within that is another doll.
Perhaps it's easiest to think of it as layers upon layers of personality that have been built up through our experiences. Pain, happiness, relationships, love, struggles, fear. And what's the most petite doll lies the raw core. It makes you think how deeply you know someone through those infinite layers.
Most of us are like those Russian nesting dolls, presenting a slightly different visage to the world depending on which world we're dealing with at the time. The outermost doll isn't a lie; mine still offers part of who I am, but it's not all of who I am.
- Paul Asay, God on the Streets of Gotham
Or, maybe we should think that people's "true" selves are more like the Da Vinci Code Cryptex - a portable vault used to hide secret messages, waiting to be cracked. In the book/film, The Da Vinci Code, it explained that the cryptex works like a bike combination lock to spell out a password, then the tumblers inside align and the cylinder slides apart.
Bummer that the Cryptex was invented by the author Dan Brown, who wrote The Da Vinci Code - there is no evidence that Da Vinci had such a device.
I think the most straightforward and best thinking comes from Tim Urban's post, "The Apple Game". The exercise is a way to judge if someone is a good person or a bad one, but examining the three layers of depth:
- Skin: How you come off at first.
- Flesh: How you are once people get to know you.
- Core: How you are deep down.
And, how the 'range of depth various people in your life probably know you':
His post has a unique but relevant discussion on the differences between "GOOD-GOOD-BAD" and "BAD-GOOD-GOOD" people, and people with good skin, bad flesh, and core are 'everyone's fun friend who turns out to also just kind of be a huge asshole.'
There's no simple answer to what makes us, us. But exploring these different models has been an interesting thought exercise, especially for better understanding my own layers and core.
So .. how do you like them apples?
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Mind Benders 🤯
Quotables 🪢
That’s the first important thing you should know about The Pattern. If we're not vigilant in our defense against it, it gradually turns us into cynics and nihilists—ignoring the voice within that knows we're capable of more. When you're living out of alignment with your values, you can feel it. But in a world controlled by The Pattern, it's easy to rationalize away that sense of discontent. When the economic incentives are stacked up against you, it’s easy to convince yourself nothing matters. But even if you ignore that inner voice, it never goes away. It's always there, poking and prodding, reminding you that you're off track, and that you have so much more to give.
There's something else I learned that summer. The Pattern isn’t just a personal phenomenon. It also plays out on a much, much wider scale.
Read more in The Ungated Manifesto - The Pattern, and the Battle for the Soul of the Internet
Or listen to the podcast:
Brain Dump 🧠
Here are a few articles and videos that resonated with me over the last week:
- A valuable lesson: leverage your leaders and don't hesitate to ask for help (or delegate). 'Someone who tells me when things are going poorly is someone I am going to trust relative to someone who struggles in silence.' — [via Get It Done]
- I have a fond memory of enjoying the Good Humor 'Toasted Almond Bar' and was disappointed to learn that it has now been discontinued along with the Choco Taco. This week, their untimely demise has been confirmed. Is nothing sacred? Join the petition to bring it back here at change.org. — [via Requiem for a (ice) cream]
- Somewhat appropriate now that Reddit has completely started its nosedive into oblivion. Cory Doctorow describes the process of enshittification (a word I need to use more often) as 'first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.' — [via Seven Rules For Internet CEOs To Avoid Enshittification]
- One for the quote archive: 'The quality of every decision you make is pre-determined by the quality of options you create.' A perfect read about how people generally rush to decisions and do not spend the right amount of time developing options. — [via The Root Cause of Mediocre Decisions]
- The small web (for people) versus the big web (centralized, big tech) was fun to digest and think about more. I like it! — [via What is the Small Web?]
- Gripping post (and a further reminder from last week's newsletter) from a woman who became gravely ill and how it's changed her perspective on a great many things.— [via What 'Near Death' Was like for Me]
- 'One of my least favorite moments as a leader, specifically your leader, is when you ask me to make the decision.' Michael Lopp has another great read that tackles how he handles making hard decisions. — [via Ask Questions, Repeat The Hard Parts, and Listen]
- I've mentioned the book Four Thousand Weeks previously, but I appreciated the highlights from Greg Morris as he just finished it — [via Four Thousand Weeks]
- 'Jack spends so much of his time looking up at the great things that will come his way and planning his future happiness and not nearly enough time looking down and thinking about how badly he used to want so many of the things he currently has.' — [via Life is a Picture, But You Live in a Pixel]
- A wonderful set of visuals on how fast stories change; the faster they change, the harder it is to know what's true. — [via How to lose the plot in ten steps.]
- Another week, another view on all the crazy that's going on with AI and LLMs (large language models) and how the over-reliance on them 'because they are smarter than I am' may be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. 🤔 — [via I Am a Careless Person and AI Is Smarter Than Me!]
- I've heard of problems with water tables and groundwater issues in certain areas, but I just learned about the global effect of pumping so much water out of the ground. New research shows that it's shifted the rotational poles. — [via We’ve pumped so much groundwater that we’ve nudged the Earth's spin]
- This post asks an important question: 'how can I live a more environmentally friendly and sustainable life? Begin with what you bring into your life, followed by how you live. Change begins and ends with you.' Hell, yeah. — [via Things That Connect People – In Real Life]
This Weeks Vibe 🎸
I've spent my week in Excel doing budgets. 'Nuff said.
I remember when
I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space
And when you're out there without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly
Be well. ✌🏻