The Introverted Thinker Newsletter #013
Catching you up on my travels, why you need to chase wisdom in life, my new favourite auto-biography, and a super concise but potent podcast episode.
Hey everyone!👋
I missed the email on Sunday, so here it is in return as I sit on a five-hour train ride back to my hometown of London. I spent five days in Edinburgh (Scotland)🏴 with my friends and we had an intense weekend of watching the Euro football 2020 finals (the most important football tournament in Europe that causes absolute passionate carnage).⚽️
The final was Italy Vs England, and well, I’m Italian. So I had to celebrate the win of my country! Here are some pictures to catch everyone up.🇮🇹🏴
Now here’s the actual newsletter, enjoy!❤️
Why The Pursuit of Wisdom Is The Only Thing You Should Chase In Life
And three introspective laws to reach for your innate wisdom.
Drugs, sex, cocaine, gambling, porn, prostitutes, money, and fame.
These are all the wrong things to chase in life. Instead, the original pursuit should sustain us. What is this original pursuit you may ask? It’s the endless and unattainable pursuit of wisdom.
This is a chase for knowledge that can transcend beyond what you are capable of knowing and understanding. This ancient philosophical pursuit originated in Ancient Greece with the invention of philosophy itself, which means “love of wisdom”.
I’d like to consider myself a wisdom chaser, I love to read books, reflect on my days, learn about philosophy, and contemplate my role within the universe. You could say this is a pursuit of wisdom, rather than a hopeless chase of damaging hedonistic desires.
Attaining wisdom is the highest pursual of human nature. Wisdom for me is knowledge in an incorruptible form. This is the knowledge that carries applicable meaning to your life that transcends beyond time, place, or the century you live in.
Wisdom may seem like an outdated mystical state of enlightenment that is out of reach to a regular person. It is fair to say that wisdom is slowly becoming less valued in our modern technological culture, where we rely on technological advancements to give us the knowledge we need.
Wisdom is a different type of knowledge though, and this is why you should chase it like a donkey.
Law #1: Expand Your Horizons Beyond What You Think Is Capable
You may be asking yourself what sort of wisdom can be chased, so it’s probably best to define what wisdom can come in the form of.
Wisdom can be any type of knowledge that gives you a greater sense of peace, fulfillment, or happiness. When you learn about different ideas, you are attaining wisdom. Immersing yourself in philosophy is a type of wisdom chasing. Or learning about anything that makes you think about reality differently in a way that positively impacts you is also attaining wisdom.
This is where the first law of wisdom comes in. You need to expand your horizons. This is important when seeking wisdom because boundaries are what restrict your knowledge. Society tries to set a man-made barrier to what you can know, otherwise known as the bare minimum.
The truly wise people understand that wisdom isn't around them in their comfortable homes, it’s beyond the horizon.
Living in comfort, choosing not to grow, and ignoring the possibility for change, is the recipe for breeding a simple-minded person. As Seneca said, we must understand that there is more to gain, something beyond what we are familiar with.
“Look at the stars lighting up in the sky, not one of them stays in the same place.” — Seneca
Just like the stars, we should move around in life as free as the wind. This can quite literally be as simple as travel. Traveling the world is one of the most effective ways to build and chase wisdom because you are learning about things that your culture has no clue about, you are shown new ways of life.
As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “The great affair is to move”. Refusing to stay in one place for the rest of your life is a chase of wisdom. This is because never having a destination is a journey of new life lessons.
Next time you look up at the sky on a clear and sunny day, try to imagine what is beyond the horizon for you specifically. Think about what more can be added to your life, is there something missing? You probably won't be able to pinpoint anything in particular, but the feeling that there is something more to your current state should send you into a blissful pursual of endless knowledge.
Wisdom is mental power. Fortitude starts in the mind, everything else will follow.
A Book I Read Last Week (it was a banger):
Greenlights By Matthew McConaughey
So before reading this, I was stuck in a reading slump. This book luckily revived my passion for reading again, and it was a joyous read. Greenlights is the autobiography of famous Holywood actor Matthew McConaughey, and let me say this, I did not expect this book to be that good.
I didn’t know much about McConaughey before this, I’d only seen a few of his movies, but I’m so glad that I took the time to learn more about him (by reading this book).
McConaughey is not your average Holywood actor, there is much more to him. He’s had an inspirational life, to say the least, and this book takes us through all of it. However, I wouldn’t just say this is an ordinary autobiography. McConaughey is an EXCELLENT writer.
He is as talented at writing as he is at acting. For this reason, parts of this book are more of a creative writing type of vibe. But anyway, the life lessons you get in this book make it well worth the read. It was also fairly easy to get through, I mowed through it in 4 days.
The main message I got from this book was to “just keep livin’ “ Matthew has had a life that we all dream of, and he credits this to the fact that he just lived his life to the max, without being too preoccupied about stuff, and things sort of fell into place.
It was funny, exhilarating, sad. inspirational, and much more. I’d definitely recommend this and gave it 5/5 stars on Goodreads. Here are a few quotes that stuck out for me.
“Relatively, we are livin. Life is our résumé. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?”
“So rather than struggle against time and waste it, let’s dance with time and redeem it, because we don’t live longer when we try not to die, we live longer when we’re too busy livin.”
“Take the challenge or you will forever regret not knowing. Leave your scent.”
A Short And Sweet Podcast Episode:
Make Luck Your Destiny by Naval Ravikant
If you don’t know about Naval Ravikant, he’s a modern philosopher and an all-around inspiring, and fascinating guy. His podcast consists of short episodes usually of about 5 minutes, containing nuggets of wisdom.
This episode is talking about luck, and the different types of lucks there are. Naval and his host go over what the definition of luck is, and how people let themselves be controlled by what essentially is an unknowable destiny.
“You build your character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.” - Naval
There is no point to let this mystical concept of luck control how you think about your life, instead, we should take it upon ourselves to create the so-called ‘luck’ we dream of having.
“We make our fortunes and we call them fate.” — Benjamin Disraeli, Former PM of the UK
Your luck is created by your action, we shouldn’t wait around for things to fall into place. If we want it that badly to the point of constantly dreaming about it, we have to take action.
“Extreme people get extreme results” - Sam Molttmann
And there we have it, thanks for stopping by once again and I hoped you enjoyed this week’s edition!🙏
I will send the 14th edition this Sunday as the schedule usually is.
A like, comment or share would be appreciated.❤️
Thanks once again and see you on Sunday. 👋