Some might say, "In some seasons, you need novelty."
In other seasons, I would argue you need a tighter loop with fewer inputs, better filters, and "always" more intention.
To be honest this is one of those tighter loop seasons for me, and the stack I’m leaning on is unexpectedly coherent for a change.
The work that stays holds up when nobody’s watching.
The Confessions of Saint Augustine, circa 401 AD. Text, Audio
On the inner life side, I’ve been sitting with St. Augustine’s Confessions.
Gosh.
When I brought this up to a fellow Catholic Bitcoiner he had nothing but great things to say about it, that was earlier this month.
It’s brutally honest about motivation, ego, restlessness, and what actually drives a man. It reads like someone watching himself think, then refusing to lie about what he finds.
Feels cathartic, I can see now why it is praised so highly.
It has the raw self exposure of Nausea but with a holy compass instead of a nihilistic void.
As a founder, that hits.
Not because Augustinus is giving “business advice,” but because founders tend to be basically professional rationalizers.
We can build entire worlds around stories that protect our ego, and call it “vision.”
Augustinus is a mirror. He keeps asking the question underneath the question.
What do you really want?
What are you actually worshipping with your time?
Why are you restless, even when things are going well?
That kind of reflection changes how you show up at and in the work. It tightens your sense of honesty.
It raises the cost of self-deception and it reintroduces the idea that the goal isn’t just output, it’s alignment.
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