Wanna start a giant scam together?
Here's the idea: a "focus light" that lights up green whenever you're focused (and goes dark when you're distracted).
The user experience will be smooth and delightful.
Just peel off the double-sided 3M adhesive, stick FocusLite to your wall, and boom! The green indicator illuminates whenever you're focused.
"But Sam that's a decent idea, not a scam."
No, it's a full-blown scam—I promise.
For a very simple reason: the product won't work, and our users will never know.
The moment they think "am I focused?" and look to see if the light is green, they'll have already lost focus (and the light will be off).
It's the paradox of creativity, in a sense.
While I'm writing, I cannot also think "I am writing. That makes me a writer. Ohh, I am a writer. I wonder what I'll write about next."
Fuck! I was already writing. And I broke the focus when my mind went from "writing" to "I am writing."
Or rather—the focus changed from "writing" to "I."
This is the experience of meditating, too.
I try to calm my mind. To meditate, but not think "I am meditating."
Inevitably, after a grand total of about 8 seconds, I will think "I am meditating."
This is when the meditation starts. Because how I respond is actually what meditation is about.
Do I think "ahh, fuck! I messed up the meditation."
Because if I do, I've now lost more focus thinking about how I lost focus.
How do I regain focus? The moment I stop asking "how" and just regain it.
There's no other way. And no way to explain.
That's what focus is. Forgetting about yourself for a brief, timeless moment.
But yeah, are you down for the scam?
Let's go big and trick the world. Happy customers, thousands of 5-star Amazon reviews.
We, the sams.blog email list, will make away with millions, perhaps billions. Proudly looking at ourselves in the mirror, knowing we conducted the largest scam in the history of decentralized email lists.
And our FocusLite will be green (just don't check)
New Way to Receive Physical Mail
I've been using Scan Mailboxes in Austin. They receive your mail, open it, and scan it.
There's something delightful about not opening my physical mail. And I never worry about misplacing mail, since it's all scanned. I can even forward mail when I need to.
Kobe Interview I Watched
This interview with Jay Shetty.
Kobe is a mastermind. Tactics are so overrated, watching how great people think is so underrated. Below is one of my favorite quotes from the interview.
"You grow up and you make game winning shots and it’s awesome.
Come back the next day and miss a game winning shot and it’s misery.
And then the next day comes, and you’re back playing again, and you understand that life has this cyclical nature.
What you do on Monday is fantastic, but then Tuesday is a bad day, but guess what, there’s Wednesday.
So are we just supposed to live our lives like this the whole time? [*motions hand in roller coaster cycle of up and down*]
Versus just staying like this [*keeps hand steady*] and understanding that it’s really just a journey of evolution every day.
Just constant improvement, constant curiosity, constantly getting better.
The results don’t really matter, it’s the figuring out that matters."
–Kobe Bryant
Quote I'm Pondering
"Hate is just a lack of imagination."
– Pete Holmes
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