Romance vs. Practicality

Should we all be drinking more vodka?

This week I was struck by this little clip from Lex Fridman. Lex has been bringing me a lot of joy lately. His egoless curious openness is contagious! Lex is generally a very Tim Ferris type. He strives to optimize his life for a set of metrics he values: performance, output, health, happiness, enlightenment, etc.

I’ve been a fan of this type of thinking for awhile. I enjoy wearing black on work days so that I don’t have to spend mental energy on outfit selection, and instead spend my precious brain calories on work problems, for example.

This clip from Lex contains a beautiful sentiment, paraphrased: a full life isn’t about optimization… sometimes when chaos occurs, that’s where life happens. In Lex’s case, this (and this Russian heritage) is why he drinks vodka, to introduce a bit of chaos into his highly optimized life.

I’m a big fan of this sentiment, and love riding the line between control and chaos, romance and practicality… Life can either be a bore, or it can also feel like doing the conga with the Tasmanian devil, but why can’t it be both?

Here’s to the dance