Wiki

Think of this as my open notebook. Whenever a book, podcast, or article shifts how I think about money, health, work, or what makes a life good, I jot down what stuck — and I keep coming back to tidy it up as I learn more. These aren’t polished essays like the blog; they’re the notes underneath it, and they change as my thinking does. Wander through, follow the links wherever they pull you, and if something resonates you’ll find where it came from at the bottom of each page.

Start here

• Purpose & happiness — what makes us happy, the hedonic treadmill, intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, fit over passion, winning the life game, winning without crushing your soul, and ten steps to a happier life.
• Money — how much is enough, building wealth, and when to retire early.
• Health & longevity — hormesis, strength training, intermittent fasting, nutrition, supplements, and caffeine & sleep.
• Work & mind — habits compound, time-blocking & focus, tactical empathy, givers, takers & matchers, and luck & compounding.
• Philosophy (Naval) — life is a single-player game, the meaning of life has no answer, the modern struggle, Agrippa’s trilemma, and meditation as self-therapy.

The full list of pages is below.

All pages

• Agrippa's trilemma — Any chain of 'why?' questions must dead-end in one of three ways: infinite regress, circular reasoning, or an unproven axiom.
• Building wealth — The boring, durable mechanics — multiple income streams, index funds, temperament over IQ, and why the first million is the hardest.
• Caffeine & sleep — How caffeine works on adenosine and cortisol — and the simple timing tweaks (delay your coffee, guard your sleep pressure) that follow.
• Fit over passion — Don't follow your passion — engineer it. Get great at something, judge choices by fit not odds, and let mastery create the passion.
• Givers, takers & matchers — Adam Grant's reciprocity styles — why givers both fail and win, and how to give strategically without burning out.
• Habits compound — Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement — 1% a day, matched to your motivation, changing the paradigm not just the behavior.
• Hedonic adaptation — The "hedonic treadmill" — why we return to a baseline level of happiness after good and bad events, and what to do about it.
• Hormesis — The adversity lever — how controlled stress (fasting, cold, heat, hard exercise) triggers the body's repair and longevity pathways.
• How much is enough? — Where money stops buying happiness, why time and health outrank the marginal dollar, and the case for "die with zero."
• Intermittent fasting — Time-restricted eating as a longevity and clarity tool — the autophagy case, common protocols, and the caveats.
• Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation — Why chasing status, money, and approval never sustainably satisfies — and how to find the intrinsic motives that do.
• Life is a single-player game — Your experience of reality is generated inside your own head, so judgment and belief shape the world you live in — and reality itself is neutral.
• Luck & compounding — Luck isn't random — you increase your surface area for it by starting things early and letting them compound.
• Meditation as self-therapy — Meditation is the art of doing nothing while your buried judgments and unresolved issues surface like unanswered email — you work toward mental 'inbox zero.'
• Nutrition for longevity — The diet pattern the longevity reading converges on — less red meat, more plants, low sugar, real food — and why.
• Strength training for longevity — Why muscle is the single most-backed longevity intervention — falls, sarcopenia, hormones — and how to train for the long game.
• Supplements for longevity — What the evidence actually supports (creatine, vitamin D done right) versus the hyped and contested (resveratrol, NMN).
• Tactical empathy — Chris Voss's negotiation method — listen, label, mirror, and get to "that's right" — plus why "no" beats "yes."
• Ten steps to a happier life — Pieter Hintjens' ten practical shifts — sensory living, learning, community, and letting go — for becoming happier and making the people around you happier too.
• The meaning of life has no answer — Naval's take: the question is more interesting than the answer — there is no single meaning, you get to make your own, and the great questions all resolve into paradoxes.
• The modern struggle — Freedom has left us atomized and alone just as whole industries — social media, sugar, drugs, porn, games — are engineered to addict us; resisting them is the individual's modern fight.
• Time-blocking & focus — Cal Newport's time-blocking, Ferriss's morning triage, and the honest tension between structure and flexibility.
• What makes us happy — The research-backed sources of lasting happiness — relationships, gratitude, and repeatable practices — versus the things that don't move the needle.
• When to retire early — The timing question behind the money question — what the retirement data says, why the happiness curve and the mortality curve rise together, and the four windows early retirees actually land in.
• Win the life game — A small set of operating principles for a life well spent — play a game that stirs your blood, with people you admire, now.
• Win without crushing your soul — Graham Weaver's case that life is an internal game played in an external arena — fire your inner critic, pull out the nails you're avoiding, and trust the voice that speaks through energy rather than fear.