Useful Definitions for Life

Definitions and anti-definitions I found useful for my life.

All of them are wrong because things are oftentimes defined better by overlapping similarities, not a single common essence.

However, they are still useful.

1. Life’s work = Building something in service of others to express who you are ¹

2. One’s opinion on something = The quality of commentator x The quality of the thing x The interaction of the two ²

3. The occurrence of a behavior = Motivation + Ability + Trigger ³

4. Motivation = Meaning + Progress + Creativity + Social Influence + Loss Avoidance + Curiosity + Ownership + Scarcity ⁴

5. Ability = Time + Money + Physical Effort + Mental Effort + Social Norms + Routine ⁵

6. Health = SEER (Sleep + Eat + Exercise + Relationship)

7. How you see a situation = A function of what you are capable of doing in a situation ⁶

8. The maximum amount of information that can be stored in a space = Proportional to the surface area surrounding that volume (not the volume of space) ⁷

9. Suffering = Pain x Resistance ⁸

10. To suffer more = To suffer before it is necessary ⁹

11. Startup = Growth ¹⁰

12. Entertainment experience = Inherent Interest (natural appeal) + Poetry of Presentation (aesthetic quality) + Projection (audience immersion through empathy and imagination) ¹¹

13. Sticky ideas = SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and wrapped in Stories) ¹²

14. Emergence of Complex systems = Sufficient interacting parts + local autonomy + negative feedback loops + limited randomness ¹³

15. Engaging writing = Personal + Insightful + Playful ¹⁴

16. Addiction = Triggers -> Actions -> Variable Rewards -> Investments ¹⁵

17. Advertising = Salesmanship ¹⁶

18. Luxury = Necessity that begins where necessity ends ¹⁷

19. Design = How Things Work ¹⁸

20. Complete free trade of cultures = Monocultures that are all diverse in the same way ¹⁹

21. The long-term goal of an artist = Be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable ²⁰

22. Fulfilling life = Big ambitions x High standards x Low expectations ²¹

23. Deep connections between people = Ambition (Future) + Vulnerability (Past) + Intense shared emotion (Present) ²²