Contracts are very powerful. We humans make contracts with others but we do make contracts with ourselves. Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.But desire is the source of un-happiness. Do your best not to have thousands of desires, and especially not to have unconscious ones. Pick one central desire of your life and let go of the rest.

Desire is a Contract

The biggest mistake in learning is memorization. When living life you want to have a deep understanding of what you're doing and why you're doing it and how it works, from first-principles.It's much more important to know the basics, the foundation really well, than really advanced concepts.

Learning ≠ Memorization

… is akin to a lion:<ul><li>You train hard.</li><li>You sprint.</li><li>Then you rest.</li><li>You reassess and reflect.</li><li>Repeat.</li></ul>Not work hard from 9 to 5. Repetitive work is for machines.

The modern Intellectual Athlete

People who talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) automating programming have never written serious code. The AI performance is blown out of proportion, it won't achieve general level in our lifetime.AI nowadays is about automating receptive tasks. There is nothing approaching general creative thinking.

AI’s Capabilities are Overblown

What you really want is freedom. Retirement = freedom from your money problems. There are 3 ways:<ol><li>You keep your burn rate under your passive income (make your money work for you)</li><li>You keep your burn rate to 0 (you become a monk)</li><li>You find a way to do what you love to do, that is play for you, and that covers your burn rate.</li></ol>

3 Ways to Retire:

<ol><li>When you get people to vote themselves money, that is a slippery slope into socialism, and that one has its issues for those that paid attention to history.</li><li>If I give you money, I made you a second-class dependent citizen. That makes them feel miserable.</li><li>UBI is wasted if it's given to people like Bill Gates a, who don't really need the money, so you get back at a well-fare system, which already exists.</li></ol>

Problems with Universal Basic Income

We used to think that our effort correlates linearly with our outcomes. The more effort we put in the greater the results. But now e live in an infinite leverage world, where your actions can be multiplied a thousand fold. By technology, good thought, good writing, writing code, etc.Because of the leverage power, good decision making and consistency is much more important than it used to be.

Infinite Leverage

Books read is a vanity metric, a signal for intellect, but a weak one. You should read books for understanding. If a book looses your interest, drop it.

Read for Understanding

"All of men's problems arise because he cannot sit in a room for 30 minutes alone"

People want freedom. But if someone has to tell you when to show up at work, how to behave, then you are not a free person. It's how things have been in the industrial age. The information age will reverse the industrial age: Most people will start working for themselves: No boss, hierarchy, hierarchy, hierarchy, all the way down. That’s because information enables Gig economy (uber, Airbnb).

The Economy of the Information Age

You have one life. We tend to define people by a few narrow identities, but humans are broader then that. We are creators, parents, partners etc. Putting people in boxes goes against human nature.

Specialization is for Insects

Social media made us into individual celebrities. But being famous is a bad objective. You want to be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous. Fame has a price, and it's not worth it.

Fame is a Liability

It's all going on in your head. Whatever you think you believe will very much shape your reality. The world reflects your own feelings back at you.However, reality is neutral. Reality has no judgement, no right or wrong. You do. You interpret them. Hence why happiness is a choice.

Life is a Single-Player Game

All people want to be rich, healthy (which in modern times means being fit) and happy. Most people focus on being rich alone. But you don't want to be rich and live a life that is high-strung high-stress where you leave emotional wreckage behind you and your family.You can learn all 3. It’s a matter of choice. Health can be a choice. <ul><li>Nutrition can be a choice. </li><li>Hard work can be a choice. </li><li>Making money can be a choice.</li></ul>

The Trifecta of Life

"A man has two lives. The second life begins when he realises that he has only one."

…and Happiness is Peace in motion.You can't achieve peace by focusing on external problems, because those are infinite. You gain peace by focusing on internal problems, and giving up on those that are not important.

Peace is Happiness at Rest

The question of meaning of life is more interesting that the answer. The answer basically is "because". We don't have a set meaning programmed, we are dynamic. Life is meant to be lived. And how you live yours is … personal.

The Meaning of Life

… the idea of the state providing a monthly pay-check to all citizens, is seen as the panacea for work displacement caused by automation. But it’s a non-solution to a non-problem.Automation is not a problem. It has been happening from the dawn of time. But what we have discovered is that there are an infinite number of jobs. Society needs will create new jobs, and they're impossible to predict.

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.