who do you admire?

bat-signals for smart and thoughtful humans

Andrea Calisi - 24 Febbraio, mare, ancora luci

The pace this week has been dizzying. I’m standing on the edge of a tall ski slope. One side of the mountain overlooks Reno, Nevada: a wide expanse of dry plains, a patchwork of red and ochre fields. The other side is covered in snow tipped peaks, blue sky, powder, air, snow spilling over into a turquoise lake. I’m exhausted from snowboarding. I want to sit down and not move for 48 hours. I blink and the weekend is gone. The car is warm and idling on the bridge. The lights splay long and golden across the water. We approach San Francisco at dusk.

On the drive home, I tell J I’ve always been someone who admired outlier traits in others. Growing up, I picked different role models and mentors for each sphere of my life (spirituality, business, elegance, eloquence etc). It was essential to be a little satellite in orbit back then. Witnessing. Channeling. Cultivating who I wanted to be.

I discovered my preferences rapidly: I like spiky, authentic people. People who operate with devotion. With self-assuredness. Strong boundaries. People who are, for lack of simpler description, very themselves.

The selection of people we choose to inspire us, the closeness we invent, is one of life’s most important choices. Who you interact with on an intellectual/spiritual/physical playing field shapes you irrevocably. I saved a line from something I read a while ago: all proximities turn into intimacies if you let them go unchecked long enough; Then, inspiration is a deliberate form of intimacy. What we engage with, we internalize.

This week I collected a non-exhaustive list of traits I like in people. These span across categorizations, jobs, or lifestyles — you can learn valuable traits from varied archetypes. E.g., an artist may well teach you as much about discipline and logic as a mathematician can.

A good litmus test: do your inspirations, online and offline, make you feel more vital (do they strive in a way that feels ambitious, dynamic and meaningful?), conscious (do they evoke reflection?) & free (do they expand what you think is possible?)

bat-signals for smart & thoughtful human beings

1. Active curation of taste — active and intentional consumption of information. People who fine tune their inputs and the algorithms that feed it. They metabolize information with little ambivalence (they quickly funnel attention toward tangents that excite them, and tune out noise/hype they don’t buy into)

   As Brie Wolfson wrote: Though taste may appear effortless, you can’t have taste by mistake. It requires intention, focus, and care. Taste is a commitment to a state of attention

2. Highly agentic — an inherent belief that their actions shape their reality, and that reality has fewer rules than we assume

3. Abundant persistence — high execution rate for the actions they claim they will take (when they say they want to do something, it happens). Also: consistency and regularity of actions taken when no one polices them

4. Generative capacity and spirit — A tendency to mold and trim ideas into curious new shapes. Flexibility to what this looks like: creating beautiful spaces, intentional groups, events, art pieces, side hustles, startups, social media etc. (This is why I routinely engage with people who write beautiful slash insightful things on substack/twitter spanning different domains)

5. Intuitive frankness vs tact — instinctively knows when to be direct and self assured, but is also skilled at 'reading the room'. Employs logic/feeling in appropriate contexts. An example of this is gauging conversational intensity (e.g., discerning when someone wants a chill chat vs an intellectual debate)

6. Context-seeking — comfort with low-context and low expertise states. Relishes being a beginner. Navigates unknown territory gracefully by asking directional questions to increase context surface, without self deprecation or shame/embarrassment

7. Earnest curiosity — ability to geek out is super important! Being unabashed about fascination leads to openness and receptivity

   Paul Graham writes this essay on earnestness, arguing that when startup founders are both formidable and earnest, they are as unstoppable as it gets: “when you call someone earnest, you're making a statement about their motives. It means both that they're doing something for the right reasons, and that they're trying as hard as they can.”

8. Keen perceptiveness — an attunement and sensitivity to details. Notices slight alterations in environment, emotions, relations. Operates with subtlety. Knowing, as Simone Weil writes, attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

   DF Wallace: If you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down

9. Willing endurance + consistency — A view of love as choice rather than fleeting feeling. Has a rooted patience around their goals. Employs practice and discipline as gateways to expression (and are highly present in practice)

10. Balanced relationship with advice — an elegance and mindfulness to which they give counsel. Possesses the self assuredness to either align with or ignore advice/recommendations given to them

A list of this nature would be incomplete without the input from some friends whom I admire greatly. Qualities mentioned were:

1. Steadfast sense of self (via Justine)

   People with the quiet conviction to show up as they are. Instead of the constant shape-shifting that comes with appealing to the likes, wants, expectations of others, the solace of an alternative mindset: some people won’t like me; some people will leave — and that’s okay. What matters is who stays.

2. Benevolent grace amid complexity and conflict (via Bushra)

   People who reflect a spirit of care and goodwill towards every side in a conflict as they disentangle and resolve complex issues—while also remaining grounded in themselves

3. Exude vitality (via Ashley)

   People who have an insatiable desire to learn, witness, and experience all of what the world has to offer; who, as Thoreau wrote, wish to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

   Discerning features: an endless stream of questions on any topic, an ability to strike up a conversation with anyone, and an antenna always turned toward the possible.

4. Quiet discipline (via Shruti)

   Those who are grounded in and find conviction in the things they set their mind to, consistently show up for others and approach difficult situations with calmness

5. Attentiveness (via Kasra)

   Attentiveness to conversation, to the world around them, to their own emotions and behaviors. I notice whether or not they let their ambition get in the way of their kindness and attentiveness towards others.

6. Firmness of purpose (via Miyu)

   People who have absolute clarity and integrity with their values. Each choice is made with intention and accountability.

From Henrik’s essay, first we shape our social graph; then it shapes us:

You see the same pattern with top performers in many domains—researchers, programmers, painters. Often they spend a great deal of thought on how to structure their milieu: whom to interact with, and what work to study and learn from. You can do this for soft values too, training yourself to be generous by surrounding yourself with generosity

Who we learn from informs who we are. So my question for you: Who do you admire? And why?

special thank you to Justine, Bushra, Ashley, Kasra, Shruti, Miyu

PS: If you are so inclined, please like and subscribe to this newsletter. Your support helps me curate more posts and reach more readers, thank you :)

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you might enjoy similar pieces: lukewarm feelings & finding the right people

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What I’m Reading

• In a similar vein, I was inspired by and enjoyed Anson Yu’s piece on ‘sparkly people’:

sparkly people and how to find them

• This essay series I mentioned above by Henrik Karlsson which discusses the important idea: “it is by changing your milieu that you change yourself.” Part 2 and Part 3 are similarly riveting.

First we shape our social graph; then it shapes us

• & this post by Erik Hoel on attempting to preserve ‘an innocent world’:

Vigil

French Song of the Week (Justine inspired)

and… a non french tune… huge jam though: