Derek look to who he admires when he's not sure which direction to go
"What kind of people do I like being around? I'm going to be serving these people"
If you have fun optimizing, then it's worth it
Nobody cares what you are not good at
It's important to be done with something so you can move on
Derek, like me, feels the weight of indecision and unfinished projects. He's learned the importance of no open loops
Skepticism is what has made the biggest change in him for the last 7 years
What he's learned by writing "Useful Not True" :
Nothing is objectively true
Beliefs are placebos
Norms are arbitrary
Refuse ideology
Shouldn't even believe anything you tell yourself - might not be true just because I'm not saying it
Can choose whatever beliefs work in the moment, liberating to just choose
If you choose to believe something, you will find evidence to support that belief
Sam Harris's Ted Talk "The Moral Landscape" is the best discussion he's found on judging something morally, objectively based on individual well-being
Utilitarianism!
Derek doubts everything he writes in his diary
Derek stacks up evidence to support the beliefs he chooses
Baby steps to put into action
You can take the action before internalizing it
Derek writes a description of his dilemma in his diary. Then he summaries his thoughts, the context as if he will send it to one of his 3 mentors. He writes this in bullet point format, then addresses the points that he predicts they would say, then includes it in his initial summary [fictional characters too]
Derek writes out dialogue of him and his older self having a convo!
Tim Ferriss: "Here is the situation, here are some assumptions. Here's what I've already tried, A, B, C, etc....then follow up with a super specific question [if he was writing an email to his mentor asking for advice]
Derek just listens to what his mentors or the authors of the books he's read do and does it