The life-changing Sarah Paine framework

Summary

This is super unedited! Quantity and speed over quality today, just wanted to serve these pancakes while they’re still hot. Thanks to Anna and Nancy for the Dwarkesh event drop last night and to my high school English teacher for teaching me that sometimes the best writing comes when you get out of your head and just start putting words on paper. Thanks to all my readers for your continued support. Love you xoxo Don’t forget to call me beep me on X I describe many things as “life-changing”. Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! was life-changing, as was Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars, as was learning that Akbar and Orange “[traded pages] every Friday [while writing these books], and… called it band practice”. This Rolling Stone Australia feature of a relative newcomer to the indie scene (Borderline) was life-changing. So was Khruangbin’s Fender Signature Session (yes! I’m so basic and I love it!) that reminded me of the meditative power of improvisation and letting an instrument of choice carry you forward (guitar here, but can also be freeform writing, walking meditation, etc.). I once repeated the phrase to describe a salad so many times over the course of one dinner that it was presented at the next one as Life-Changing Salad (the life-changing ingredients are insiders-only but I’ll tell you if you DM me). I say that things are life-changing, that I’m obsessed, that I’ve fallen in love with something, about once a week. It’s true every time, which is why I’ll continue to say these things whenever I want. Naturally, after two hours listening to Professor Sarah Paine and Dwarkesh Patel last night the first thing out of my mouth was “I’m literally in love”. “With what?” our OG Dwarkesh lecture series attendee asked, to which I said “all of it, everything, everyone”. As much as I stand by these statements, it also means I struggle to communicate the gravity and intensity of this life-changing moment, which is why I’m writing about it now. Yesterday’s session (“Why Russia Lost the Co...