The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: Difference between revisions
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🪷 '''35 – Rational Buddhism.''' I call the approach Rational Buddhism because I reconcile any claim with science and evolution and reject what I cannot verify firsthand. Meditation, the quiet below “monkey mind,” and a base layer of awareness all pass the test; talk of past lives and energy centers does not. Evolution is non‑negotiable, and ego exists for action; what matters is the internal work that makes you calmer, more present, and in control of emotions. I refuse to treat old scriptures as proof and do not expect superpowers from sitting still. Instead I experiment, keep what improves life, and discard what does not. The thread is empiricism in the service of peace and sanity. The mechanism is self‑experimentation: test, falsify, and build a practice that holds up under your own observation. ''Try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what’s useful, and discard what’s not.''
🕰️ '''36 – The Present Is All We Have.''' Right here, in this exact point in space and time, is all that exists; no one has ever gone back, and no one can predict forward in a way that truly matters. Any two points are infinitely different, every moment is perfectly unique, and each slips by too quickly to clutch. I treat the past as a faint, fictional tape and let it go; what we call death is simply the absence of future moments. I borrow Homer for perspective—the fact we’re doomed makes everything more beautiful—then return attention to the breath and the room I’m in. When inspiration appears, I move now because it spoils fast. Presence isn’t mystical; it’s practical attention that dissolves rumination and turns ideas into action. In this frame, happiness is ordinary peace and wealth is many small, present‑tense choices compounded over years. The thread binding both is attention, because reality only ever arrives one instant at a time. ''There is actually nothing but this moment.''
=== III – Bonus ===
📖 '''37 – Naval’s Recommended Reading.''' The preface sets a simple rule: read from curiosity, not duty, and let appetite choose the next page. The selections then sprawl across disciplines so the mind can synthesize—science for truth, history for context, philosophy for clarity, and stories for imagination. I highlight David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (the standout of the past decade for me), and a shelf of Matt Ridley’s work. I point to Nassim Taleb’s Skin in the Game as a 2018 favorite and keep Carlo Rovelli close for physics written with lyric precision. Strategy shows up through J.D. Williams’s The Compleat Strategyst and Robert Axelrod’s The Evolution of Cooperation, because games and incentives run beneath daily life. Krishnamurti’s The Book of Life and Total Freedom, Jed McKenna, and Kapil Gupta ground the spiritual shelf in rigorous self‑inquiry. A reader who samples widely and then rereads what endures becomes their own librarian, and taste matures until the signal stands out from noise. This chapter is a map; follow the landmarks that pull you. The mechanism is intellectual compounding: curiosity selects inputs, breadth widens priors, and rereading deepens models you can use. ''The best book is the one you’ll devour.''
📘 '''38 – Books.''' Because the list is long and link‑heavy, I nudge you to grab the digital version on Navalmanack.com and browse by category. Nonfiction anchors the list: The Beginning of Infinity (Deutsch), Sapiens (Harari), and The Rational Optimist with more Ridley titles for evolution and progress. I include Taleb’s Skin in the Game alongside his aphorisms in The Bed of Procrustes, then sweep in Will and Ariel Durant’s The Lessons of History and Davidson and Rees‑Mogg’s The Sovereign Individual. For judgment and temperament, I recommend Poor Charlie’s Almanack (Munger) and Carlo Rovelli’s Reality Is Not What It Seems and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Game‑theory primers—The Compleat Strategyst and The Evolution of Cooperation—sit beside philosophy and spirituality: Krishnamurti, Jed McKenna, Kapil Gupta, Osho’s The Book of Secrets, and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Science fiction matters too: Borges’s Ficciones, Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others (with Exhalation and The Lifecycle of Software Objects), Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and Asimov’s “The Last Question.” The pattern is deliberate eclecticism that privileges clear thinking over genre. Read what pulls you, quit what doesn’t, and circle back to the few that change you. In the larger book, this is how you load mental models—varied, testable ideas you can recall under pressure. ''Read enough, and you become a connoisseur.''
🔗 '''39 – Other Recommendations.''' Beyond books, I keep a handful of sources on rotation: Kevin Simler’s Melting Asphalt, Farnam Street (fs.blog), Ben Thompson’s Stratechery, and Idle Words. Two posts function like tools—Farnam Street’s “The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works” and Scott Adams’s “The Day You Became a Better Writer,” which I still open while writing. For fast upgrades, read Simler’s “Crony Beliefs,” Elad Gil on “Career Decisions,” Harari’s Sapiens lectures on YouTube, and Ben Thompson’s Aggregation Theory; add Eliezer Yudkowsky’s “Think Like Reality,” Andrew Wilkinson’s “Lazy Leadership,” and Ed Latimore’s essays. I name favorite Twitter follows—@AmuseChimp, @mmay3r, and @nntaleb—and keep a short list of graphic novels that punch above their weight: Transmetropolitan, The Boys, Planetary, and The Sandman. For television‑plus‑comics, Rick and Morty remains a near‑perfect blend of curiosity and humor, and Zac Gorman’s comic holds its own. When you need a master class in doing great work, revisit Richard Hamming’s “You and Your Research.” The theme is simple: curate an information diet that sharpens judgment instead of hijacking attention. The mechanism is environment design—subscribe to signal, ignore spectacle, and your mind will compound accordingly. ''If you eat, invest, and think according to what the “news” advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.''
✍️ '''40 – Naval’s Writing.''' I close with two of my own compendia. Life Formulas I (2008) sketches terse equations as personal algorithms—Happiness = Health + Wealth + Good Relationships; Health = Exercise + Diet + Sleep; Sleep = No alarms + 8–9 hours + circadian rhythms; Income = Accountability + Leverage + Specific Knowledge; and so on—offered as notes to self, not scripture. Naval’s Rules (2016) distill habits and guardrails: be present above all else; desire is suffering; anger is a hot coal; if you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day; earn with your mind, not your time; truth is what has predictive power; watch every thought; mathematics is the language of nature; every moment must be complete in itself. Together they compress the book’s two arcs—wealth and happiness—into portable checklists that steer behavior without drama. They also show how I think: reduce to essentials, test, and keep what works. Read them as prompts for your own formulas and rules, not as a creed. The deeper intent is alignment—build a life where your daily choices naturally serve health, love, and mission. The mechanism is a personal operating system: clear values, simple heuristics, and consistent practice. ''Health, love, and your mission, in that order.''
⏭️ '''41 – Next on Naval.'''
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