Ancient wisdom and modern psychology on death, time, and the paradoxes of living well. Short concepts with long implications.
Memento Mori Practices
Daily death meditation. “Remember you must die.”
Historical practices:
- Roman generals: Slave whispered “memento mori” during victory parades
- Monks: Kept skulls on desks
- Medieval practice: Regular graveyard visits
- Steve Jobs: Asked daily “If today were my last day…”
Sounds morbid. Actually clarifying.
What happens:
- Trivial problems disappear
- Petty arguments feel absurd
- You stop postponing what matters
- Fear of death decreases (paradoxically)
Modern practice:
- Daily 2-minute reflection on mortality
- Imagine your funeral. What do people say?
- Ask: “What would I regret not doing?”
Why it works: Death is the ultimate forcing function.
When you truly internalize that you’ll die:
- Status games feel pointless
- You stop caring what strangers think
- You call your parents more
- You create instead of consume
Not morbid. Clarifying.
The Stoics weren’t depressed. They were the most productive philosophers in history.
Because they never forgot they were mortal.
The Backwards Law
Alan Watts’ observation: The pursuit of happiness makes you miserable.
The paradoxes:
- Try to be confident → Feel more insecure
- Seek happiness → Become unhappy
- Chase success → Feel like a failure
- Try to sleep → Stay awake
- Force creativity → Block flows
Why: Effort implies you lack the thing.
Trying to be confident = “I’m not confident” Seeking happiness = “I’m unhappy”
The act of pursuing creates the feeling of absence.
The fix: Accept where you are.
Stop trying to be happy. Be interested. Stop trying to be confident. Be curious. Stop chasing success. Do meaningful work.
The backward pattern: What you chase runs from you. What you accept comes to you.
This isn’t mysticism. It’s psychology.
Acceptance reduces anxiety. Anxiety blocks performance. Reducing anxiety improves outcomes.
You can’t force your way to peace.
That’s the backwards law.
Amor Fati
Nietzsche’s concept: “Love of fate.”
Beyond acceptance. Beyond gratitude.
Actively wanting your exact life, including the suffering.
Not:
- “I accept my struggles”
- “I’m grateful despite hardship”
But:
- “I want my exact struggles”
- “I wouldn’t change my pain”
The practice: Look at your worst experiences. The trauma. The failures. The losses.
Now say: “I want this. I wouldn’t change it.”
Sounds insane. Actually liberating.
Why it works: Resistance to past creates suffering in present.
“This shouldn’t have happened” = Arguing with reality = Permanent pain
“I want this to have happened” = Alignment with reality = Peace
The difference: Acceptance = Tolerating what happened Amor fati = Wanting what happened
One is passive resignation. The other is active embrace.
Your past is unchangeable. Your relationship to it isn’t.
Amor fati doesn’t change your past. It changes your present.
Via Negativa
Improvement by subtraction, not addition.
The concept: Most problems are solved by removing, not adding.
Examples:
Health:
- Don’t add supplements → Remove sugar
- Don’t add exercise → Remove sitting
- Don’t add meditation → Remove phone first thing in the morning
Productivity:
- Don’t add tools → Remove distractions
- Don’t add tasks → Remove commitments
- Don’t add hours → Remove meetings
Life:
- Don’t add possessions → Remove clutter
- Don’t add friends → Remove toxic people
- Don’t add goals → Remove obligations
Why it works: Bad habits subtract more than good habits add.
Removing stupidity beats adding brilliance.
Michelangelo: “I simply remove everything that isn’t David.”
Your life is already a masterpiece. It’s just buried under junk.
Via negativa: Sculpt by subtraction.
The Dichotomy of Control
Epictetus’ core teaching. 2,000 years old. Still revolutionary.
Two categories:
Things you control:
- Your thoughts
- Your reactions
- Your effort
- Your character
Things you don’t control:
- Other people’s opinions
- Outcomes
- The past
- The future
- Other people’s behavior
The teaching: Focus 100% on what you control. Detach from everything else.
In practice:
Don’t control:
- Whether you get the job
Do control:
- Your preparation
- Your application quality
- Your attitude in the interview
Don’t control:
- Whether someone likes you
Do control:
- How you treat them
- Your authenticity
- Your kindness
Don’t control:
- The weather
Do control:
- What you wear
- Your attitude about it
The shift: From “Why did this happen to me?” (victim) To “How will I respond to this?” (agent)
Sounds simple. Changes everything when truly internalized.
Most suffering comes from trying to control what you can’t.
Freedom comes from accepting what you can’t change and mastering what you can.
Chronotype Optimization
You’re genetically a morning person, evening person, or somewhere between.
Fighting this is self-sabotage.
The science: Your body has a biological clock (circadian rhythm).
Three main chronotypes:
- Larks: Peak 8am-12pm, dead by 9pm
- Owls: Dead until 11am, peak 9pm-2am
- Hummingbirds: Somewhere in between
Determined by genetics. Not willpower.
The problem: Society is designed for larks.
- Morning meetings
- “Early bird gets the worm”
- 9-5 schedule
If you’re an owl, you’re labeled lazy.
The fix: Align your life with your biology.
If you’re an owl:
- Schedule deep work late
- Don’t force morning routines
- Find remote work or flex hours
- Stop feeling guilty
If you’re a lark:
- Protect your morning
- Don’t schedule evening creativity
- Go to bed early without shame
Fighting your chronotype is like fighting your height.
Futile and exhausting.
Optimization beats discipline.
Dead Time vs. Alive Time
Robert Greene’s concept: Time is either moving you forward or killing you.
Dead time:
- Scrolling
- Complaining
- Waiting passively
- “Killing time”
Alive time:
- Learning
- Creating
- Building
- Planning
- Connecting
The shift: Waiting at DMV = Dead time Waiting at DMV + reading a book = Alive time
Commute = Dead time Commute + audiobook/podcast = Alive time
Scrolling before bed = Dead time Writing before bed = Alive time
Greene’s rule: No neutral time exists.
Every minute is either:
- Moving you toward who you want to be
- Moving you away
You can’t save time. You can only spend it.
The question: Are you investing or wasting?
Time Confetti
The fragmentation of time into useless minutes.
3 minutes here. 7 minutes there. 12 minutes before the meeting.
Feels like: “Not enough time to do anything meaningful.”
Reality: Adds up to hours daily.
The problem: Your brain needs unbroken time for deep work.
Fragmented time = Shallow work only = Scrolling, email, tasks.
The math: 10 fragments of 10 minutes = 100 minutes But useless for anything requiring focus.
1 block of 100 minutes = Deep work, writing, coding, thinking.
The fix:
- Batch small tasks (emails, messages)
- Protect large time blocks
- Say no to meetings that fragment your day
- Time-blocking: Schedule 2-4 hour blocks
Time confetti isn’t lack of time.
It’s fragmentation of attention.
Collect the confetti. Make whole pieces.
Future Self Continuity
Some people feel deeply connected to their future self.
Others feel like their future self is a stranger.
This single variable predicts:
- Savings rates
- Health behaviors
- Education levels
- Life outcomes
Better than IQ. Better than personality tests.
The concept: People with high future self continuity make better long-term decisions.
They feel like: “Future me is still me. I should help them.”
People with low future self continuity treat future self like a stranger: “That’s not my problem. Future me will handle it.”
The research: Brain scans show different regions activate when thinking about:
- Your current self
- Your future self
- A stranger
For some people: Future self = stranger.
The fix: Increase connection to your future self:
- Write letters to future you
- Visualize your future life in detail
- Use age-progression apps (see yourself older)
- Make decisions by asking “What would future me want?”
You’re not undisciplined.
You just don’t feel connected to the person who’ll suffer from your choices.
Build the connection. Decisions improve automatically.
Key Patterns
Death clarifies. Time reveals. Paradoxes liberate.
The meta-lessons:
- Memento mori: Death is the forcing function for life
- Backwards law: Chasing what you want creates its absence
- Amor fati: Fighting reality creates suffering
- Via negativa: Remove before adding
- Dichotomy of control: Focus where you have power
- Chronotype: Work with biology, not against it
- Time quality: No neutral time exists
- Future self: Connection predicts outcomes
The ancient wisdom, modernized:
Stoics weren’t pessimists. They were realists who refused to suffer unnecessarily.
They saw clearly:
- You’ll die (memento mori)
- You can’t control outcomes (dichotomy of control)
- Fighting reality creates pain (amor fati)
- Less is more (via negativa)
2,000 years later, psychology proves them right.
The practices work whether you philosophize about them or not.
You don’t need to be a Stoic.
You just need to remember you’ll die, accept what you can’t control, and stop arguing with reality.
Everything else is downstream from that.