Analects

Filter by type: All · Articles · Audio · Marginalia

Filter by anthology: All · Betterment · Gratification · Connection · Somatic Architecture · Spiritual Architecture · Thought Architecture · Wealth Architecture · Digital Architecture · Collective Architecture

No Action Without Emotion — On emotion as operating system

• [audio] Meditation Isn't For Everyone — 30 May 2026
  Meditation can harm you, and it isn’t for everyone. Strip the branding and it’s just trained attention—half of what you already do—so the only real variable is what you point it at.
• [audio] Overengineering calming down — 4 Apr 2026
  Pop neuroscience is just “calm down” in a lab coat. The theories are scaffolding around trivial advice, attractive because they make your problems someone else’s fault, and the scaffolding hides what actually matters.
• [audio] The Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre — 7 Mar 2026
  Your amygdala doesn’t decide your fear. You do. It’s not a fear centre, it’s an intensity detector, and calming it down is solving the wrong problem. Watch how you respond instead.
• [audio] Stress is Good — 1 Nov 2025
  Stress isn’t broken by modern life. It’s a performance tool, and the line between fuel and harm isn’t the stressor. It’s whether you control it.
• [marginalium] The economy of small pleasures — 8 Jul 2025
• [marginalium] Distraction is mind obesity — 24 Apr 2025
• [marginalium] Nostalgia as a parasite — 24 Apr 2025
• [article] Stress and Creativity — 28 Mar 2025
  Stress promotes bias—stereotypical thinking and behaving. Less stress promotes cognitive flexibility—an openness to new ways of thinking and behaving. Neither is better than the other. It’s about the situation you deploy them in.
• [marginalium] Modern determinism; free will dies again — 23 Jan 2025
• [marginalium] Rationalists discover 'vibes' — 23 Jan 2025
• [marginalium] Fitbit heart-rate when wife asked for a divorce — 27 Dec 2024
• [marginalium] Why Do So Many People Want to Die? — 27 Nov 2024
• [article] Giving in to Fight or Flight — 22 Nov 2024
  Stress is a good thing before it’s a bad thing. It motivates us to act. We are scared of the f’s, but we don’t need to be. We should fight for things worth fighting for and fly from things that aren’t. Use the f’s as guides to action, not just things to avoid.
• [marginalium] How to survive the age of anger — 6 Nov 2024
• [marginalium] The cases against free will — 30 Aug 2024