Resilience Solved - Mark Manson

The Nature and Trainability of Resilience

Resilience is a highly developed skill, not an inherent or fixed trait; it is trainable. It is often misunderstood, as it is not about being emotionless, suppressing painful feelings, or being impervious to challenges. Instead, it involves feeling the pain deeply but being able to act in one's best interest despite those feelings, thereby dictating actions through, rather than being hijacked by, negative thoughts and feelings. In the field of psychology, resilience is defined as the capacity to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant stress, involving a dynamic process of successful adaptation rather than merely "bouncing back". Often, when resilient people successfully navigate challenges, they not only return to baseline but they improve, gaining strength and adaptability for future challenges, a concept referred to as anti-fragility. Furthermore, research indicates that recovery from extremely difficult or traumatic events is more common than often perceived, with estimates suggesting 75% to 85% of people eventually recover. The original Latin verb for resilience, *resoli*, literally means "to leap backwards," and the term was historically used in engineering to describe substances that would return to their original form after stress, before entering psychological literature in the 1960s.

Biological and Physiological Foundations

The Performative Male Epidemic - Chris Williamson with Louise Perry & Mary Harrington

The Sexual Recession and Digital Distractions

The United States is experiencing a sexual recession, with only 37% of American adults having sex weekly, a decline from 55% in 1990. This reduction is occurring across the board, agnostic to relationship status, affecting both married and unpartnered people. This trend exists despite apparent permissiveness towards casual sex. One potential explanation is that fewer people are in long-term partnerships, which typically involve more frequent sexual activity, meaning Gen Z might be having casual sex, but very little of it (e.g., one hookup per year). Possible contributors to this decline, even among married couples, include obesity, xenoestrogens, or, more practically, excessive phone usage. Smartphone use is highly absorbing and is considered at least as plausible as "exotic biological explanations" for reduced sexual activity. The decline in fertility across the world also tracks with smartphone usage, fueling the theory that people are so preoccupied by the "joys of limbic capitalism" delivered via their phones that they "forget to behave like normal human beings and reproduce".

Shame Solved - Mark Manson

The Evolutionary Origin and Fundamental Nature of Shame

Shame is deeply ingrained in human nature, serving as a fundamental survival mechanism evolved during prehistoric tribal life. In that context, living up to social norms and expectations was a matter of life or death, as ostracisation meant starvation, freezing, disease, or attack by predators. The feeling of shame is an internal radar designed to detect violations of social norms, loss of social status, and avoid social rejection. This mechanism explains why people are highly sensitive and anxious about how others perceive them.

Shame is often considered the ultimate topic that everyone needs to address, yet it is simultaneously the last topic people want to confront because of the intense discomfort it causes. It is a core aspect of self-improvement and a primary reason individuals seek therapy, attend self-help conferences, or join groups like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). The paradox of shame is that the more one attempts to hide it, the greater power it gains over them.

A crucial distinction is made between shame and guilt: guilt implies "I did something wrong" (focused on action), while shame implies "I am something wrong" (focused on identity). Furthermore, there is a difference between healthy shame, which acts as a moral compass guiding one back to their values and motivating corrective behavior, and toxic shame, which is internalized as a belief that "I am a bad person," leading to withdrawal and paralysis.

Psychological Consequences and Behavioral Responses

Comparing Yourself to Others Solved - Mark Manson

The Unavoidable Nature and Psychological Purpose of Comparison

Social comparison is an incredibly pervasive and common phenomenon, described as a universal topic that never stops. The core problem is not how to stop comparing yourself to others, but rather how to change the nature of that comparison and manage it better. Comparison is constantly relative, meaning that satisfaction often depends on who is around you; for instance, making $70,000 a year feels great unless your best friend makes $90,000. Although comparison causes suffering, it quietly serves a hidden psychological purpose. However, chronically experiencing negative social comparison is linked to stress disorders, higher stress hormones, inflammation, depression, and anxiety. There is no evidence that reaching a certain level of wisdom, success, or enlightenment will make an individual stop comparing themselves to others. True wisdom, exemplified by figures like the Dalai Lama, lies in being aware of the comparison and choosing not to identify with it, recognizing it as transitory. Isolating oneself is not a solution, as cutting off social contact merely replaces the problem of insecurity with the problem of loneliness and isolation. The comparison never stops, and there is no end to it.

Evolutionary Roots and Emotional Regulation

Friendship Solved - Mark Manson

The Contemporary Crisis of Friendship

Friendship is considered a crucial topic that is often discussed least, especially compared to romantic relationships, physical health, and career development. Social life fundamentally drives mental, physical, and emotional well-being. The sources highlight that the number of people without a close friend has quadrupled in the last 30 years. Furthermore, the amount of time the average person spends alone has grown by 25%, and time spent socializing has dropped by 60% in the last 20 years. An all-time high of 20% of adults report feeling lonely on a daily basis. There is also a cultural issue where a certain amount of shame is attached to needing help making friends, causing people to self-judge and remain silent about their isolation. Friendship is maybe the highest leverage part of your life for overall well-being. Chronic loneliness and social isolation can be as detrimental to health as smoking 15 to 20 cigarettes a day.

The Evolutionary Basis of Connection

My workout routine

I have a 3 way split:

• Day 1: Legs and lower back
• Day 2: Arms
• Day 3: Chest and upper back
• Day 4: Repeat day 1
• Day 5: Repeat day 2
• Day 6: Repeat day 3

I often start a workout with a deadhang and cobra poses to lossen the lower back and some dynamic stretching for the whole body. I end 50% of workouts with some foam-rolling and a few sets of abs and calves.

My supplement stack

Supplement	Instructions
Creatine Monohydrate	10g scoop with morning drink.
Inessa Multi Vitamin and Mineral	1 tablet with a meal.
Inessa Omega 3 or Nordic Supplements Omega 3	Inessa 2 capsules (2400mg) with a meal or Nordic Supplements 3 capsules.
Inessa Magnesium	2 capsules (306mg) with a meal.
Additional D3 and K2	2 tablets with a meal
Electrolytes (Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium)	3 tablets with 1L of water during sauna.

Notes:

• A 10g dose of creatine helps with cognitive abilities in addition to increasing gains from strength training, with the first 5g used by the muscles and additional creatine going to the brain.
• A diet low in omega 3s can be the equivalent of smoking regularly, so don't forget your omega 3s.
• Multi-vitamin and mineral tablets do not have enough magnesium (nor potassium and calcium, as these are macro-nutrients and it is impossible to fit the amounts required into a single tablet or capsule). It's better to get magnesium in the form of glycinate and threonate.
• Higher doses of vitamin D3 have positive health effects, but it should be balanced with vitamin K2.
• Some minerals should only be taken if you are deficient in them as excess can contribute to chronic health problems, e.g. iron and copper.
• As some of the vitamins are fat-soluble, they should be taken with a meal to ensure they are absorbed and not just excreted. I take them with my brunch.

The Best Deep House Music Mix

If you like Deep House music, hopefully you'll like this mix.

What Embryo Selection Means for Humanity - Chris Williamson with Dr Jonathan Anomaly

The Nature of Embryo Selection and Public Perception

• Embryo selection technology is still new, leading to some justifiable skepticism from the public and doctors.
• It is often confused with gene editing (adding new genes or editing existing ones), which is not what embryo selection involves.
• The practice involves revealing more information about the natural genetic variation that already exists within a batch of embryos, allowing prospective parents undergoing IVF to choose which one to implant.
• Existing IVF procedures already involve doctors "eyeballing" embryos and using a morphological score to select the one that looks the most normally shaped and healthiest, though the correlation between morphology and viability is not huge.

Taboos, Morality, and the Disease vs. Trait Divide

The science of randomness, flukes, and fate - Big Think with Brian Klaas

Control, Influence, and the Limits of Agency

There is a distinction between control and influence, which challenges the widely held belief that individuals are in charge of their destiny:

• It is untrue that we are completely in control of our path through life. The core argument is that we control nothing but we influence everything.
• When people accept that they have profound influence but very limited control, they start to see the world and behave differently, accepting the limits of what they can and cannot do.
• Western modernity has an obsession with the delusion of individualism, which is comforting because it suggests people are driving change and their lives will unfold the way they want them to.

The Mistake of Believing "Everything Happens for a Reason"