Juan David's Newsletter - March 27, 2022
Two Year-Anniversary and The Way Things Change
Hello there,
It’s been two years since I started this newsletter.
You can read my first email announcement as well as the first issue.
This project started when I was a senior in high school, and now that I’m almost halfway through college. I underestimated how much I would change about the type of things I would think and thus write about.
The biggest change has been how I went from writing about ideas such as the mystery of language, statistical thinking, or even airline economics to writing about how to think for yourself in college, figuring out what I want, and really creating a new narrative, which I’ll get back to.
I changed, and I’m not sure if I wanted to. So what happened? Well, I started college and became more reactive to the culture and to the system. Perhaps, in high school, I didn’t see how the world of most people was. In high school, I didn’t have to interact with people beyond classes I didn’t want to interact with.. In college, it’s not as easy. At my age, it’s harder to create the world and environment you want to live in because you can’t really choose your peers yet. I internalized most people’s world. The world of unquestioning, unintentionality, and endless distractions from phone addiction to using substances to tame yourself.
In summary, it’s a world of doing everything and anything to face your reality. Everything is good as long as you take your daily or weekly intake. You don’t? Life becomes unbearable. Exactly like the soma from Brave New World or the pill from The Giver.
But just why. Why the hell do I think like this? When you experience life or death circumstances. You learn what life is about. It’s either you live or you die. If you’re alive, everything else is secondary. This changes how you think about the time you have, the people you are with, and what you do.
Someone asked how my week was. I said, “Excellent.” He said, “What would you consider a bad week or day?” I replied, “A bad week or day would be when I die. If that doesn’t happen, it’s an excellent week.” The person laughed nervously and blushed.
Long story short, I started to think less and less about interesting ideas and more about keeping up against the current.
What keeps me going with this newsletter is the same reason why I keep going in general. So what is that?
Not recently but I would often think whether I should keep writing through this newsletter. Is it worth the time? Would people care? Could I be learning other things? Maybe, maybe, and maybe.
But my answer is that I’m creating a narrative that shows an alternative to how we can live. In a religionless world, many people don’t have internal metrics to know what is good or bad or even whether what they’re doing is what they want to doing. I don’t think I can provide such internal metric system but I can help with providing a new vision through the creation of a narrative.
Narratives are how things start and end. How we change people’s minds and societal cultural norms. A narrative is also a model. A model is just like a template people to send emails or social media graphic.
I want to create a narrative of another world that already exists but few people get to experience it. I want to amplify this world.
A world of where people do what they want through doing what they love. A world where people don’t need to tame themselves to survive life or face hard questions from chosing what they want to do to the toughness of being alone while finding your people. A world where we people think for themselves. A world where the purpose of life is to live, love, and have fun.
This narrative is also a message for people to not give up and keep strong. We can either be like everyone else or be ourselves. This isn’t us against them because we’re all the same people. But it’s definitely a way get more people to be sane. In a world of crazy people, the sane ones are “crazy.”
But beyond that, why am I really doing this newsletter? Well, because I can. I don’t need a reason. I enjoy writing weekly, and that’s all there is to it. Are there other things that develop? Yes, and what I just explained to you is an example but that’s not really the reason. I do it because I can. I do it because I want. I do it because I enjoy doing it.
Why coudn’t more people do things when they simply want to?
That question right there is an example of the many questions I will continue to explore, and I hope you can join me in this path.
Thank you for reading,
Juan David Campolargo
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