Hello friends 👋🏻

Today is officially the last day of my summer break. I took the time this weekend to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer but under the Sun, with the company of charming sounds and beautiful words.

Jurvis Tan @jurvistan

sand and sound therapy

August 30th 2020

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I cannot be more excited about the semester ahead. Here are the five classes I will be taking: Knowledge and Reality, Ethics, History of the Middle East, Literary Criticism, and Physical Geology.

Evidently, writing will become a dominant activity over the next 4 months, and I cannot wait. Furthermore, I will be converting some of my papers into essays for the blog, so look out for that!

Last week, I started my writing mentorship with Cedric Chin, a friend and excellent writer at CommonCog. We meet every Thursday and I watch as he takes me through his thinking process when editing essays. We worked on a piece explaining why software engineers should consider joining the QA team earlier in their careers.

Thought of The Week: Unintuitive Truths

I have been thinking a lot about how some of life’s most important facts happen to also be unintuitive.

Sharp Knives are Much Safer Than Dull Ones

A dull knife can lead to all sorts of problems. Without a sharp edge, one is more likely to hold a knife from the spine to assert more force. What’s suppose to be “slicing” will end up looking more like “poking”

Needless to say, asserting more force and engaging in a poking motion instead of slicing puts you at greater risk of injuring yourself. Sharpen your knives, y’all.

Failure as a Default Mode for Progress

As the famous Edison quote goes, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

Succeeding your first time at anything is a curse because you will never know how you got there. On the other hand, failure forces you to recover from your mistakes methodically. The gratuitous toil itself is the teacher.

When Swimming Against a Wave, Dive Under, Not Over or Through

I’m going to have to remember this when I start my triathlon training.

Find of The Week: Alternative Forms of Wealth

Morgan Housel does it again. In this short post, Housel makes a list of important things (other than money) that we should value in these uncertain times.

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Covid has forced many of us to spend unprecedented amounts of time with a few people (spouses, kids, roommates). You’re wealthy if you still enjoy their company after six months of unbroken socialization.

2. You have a level of independence that goes beyond money. You can cook for yourself, do your own laundry, change a flat tire, and be alone without getting bored.

3. You don’t have to pretend to look busy to justify your salary.

4. You can speak non-offensive truths about your industry or company without fear of repercussions.

What are yours?

That is all we have for the week! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. If you have any questions, suggestions, complaints, or feedback, please feel free to reach out by replying directly to this email!

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See you next week 👋