Just Joshin' #116 (Following)
1 Family Photo:
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This week, Calvin and Lawrence met the neighbor kids who moved in next door.
The neighbor kids are 5 & 8, so they're a step ahead of Calvin and Lawrence on the growth chart. Calvin saw the eight-year-old riding her (geared) bicycle in front of the house and he rushed inside find his helmet (and socks, and shoes) so he could show her how he rides his (training-wheeled) bicycle.
Reemerging, he was disappointed to find she had already taken off on a ride with her dad.
"We should follow her," Calvin said.
It's hard to follow someone when you don't know where they went. We circled the block, but their route seemed to have escaped the grasp of our perimeter. Returning home empty-handed, Calvin had an idea.
"I have an idea!" Calvin said. "We should ring their doorbell and see if they're home."
This seemed like a silly idea to me—the neighbor's open, bike-less garage proved the girl and her dad were still out riding bikes. But Calvin was insistent, so we went next door and rang their doorbell.
True: the girl and her dad were still out riding bikes. Also true: the boy and his mom were home.
Calvin invited the boy to play in the front yard, which he accepted. Calvin and Lawrence waited for him to put on his shoes and socks, then the three of them played soccer in the front yard until his sister and dad returned. Then everyone played soccer in the front yard until it was dinnertime.
The next day, the neighbor kids followed Calvin and Lawrence's example, ringing our doorbell. Calvin and Lawrence excitedly answered the door, invited them inside, and offered them a complete tour of our house before all the kids got down to the very serious business of building forts and running an imaginary pizza delivery operation.
I guess that's all it takes to make friends.
1 Dad Joke:
Following Nature
Highlights:
Try To Follow
​As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (1945)​
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Selection by association, rather than indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.
​Commencement Address, American University in Beirut by Nassim Nicholas Taleb​
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​I will tell you what tricks I employ: ​
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​- Do not read the newspapers, or follow the news in any way or form. To be convinced, try reading last years’ newspaper. It doesn’t mean ignore the news; it means that you go from the events to the news, not the other way around.
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- If something is nonsense, you say it and say it loud. You will be harmed a little but will be antifragile — in the long run people who need to trust you will trust you.
​The Serendipity Machine by Nabeel S. Qureshi​
If you’re curious about practically any topic, you can follow 10-20 experts in it, and immediately get a felt sense of some of the ‘live issues’ on the edge of that field. That’s amazing!
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But a well-curated Twitter feed is worth a lot of IQ points -- so I think it's worth doing.
Although you can use Twitter in read-only mode and get value out of it, if you're a curious person who wants to make friends and meet people in your niche, writing tweets is also a good practice. I think of each tweet as an option with uncapped upside and little downside; each tweet is thus a ‘free option’, in finance-speak. So I think you should tweet more!
​Here are some rules I try and follow. Maybe they’ll be helpful to you:
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- Follow people who post insightful or interesting or amusing things.​
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- Tweet for the kinds of followers you want.
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- Think of tweeting as summoning up a virtual conference on a topic, at will.
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- Don't get sucked into culture wars. The algorithm can be your friend of you train it, but it's not your friend by default.
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- Don’t take Twitter too seriously; treat it like a fun game.
​How to fix college finances? Eliminate faculty, then students by Gary Smith (2024)​
iamJoshKnox Highlight:
​Figuring it Out - What's the best advice you have for future adults to follow?
Follow-up!
Grab some time on my calendar and share a story this week:
​Let's Chat!​
Book some time even if you don't know what you want to talk about:
​https://calendly.com/iamjoshknox​
Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​​
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Josh Knox
Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇
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