My Content List #3, Sunday 6/2

4 min readJun 3, 2019

Whew; where did May go…?! Doesn’t it feel like time accelerates more the older we get?

It actually, scientifically, does. I looked into this question in a few different psychology and economics classes; has to do with neurobiology, the two ways that humans perceive time (“prospective” and “retrospective” vantages ), and how awful we are at comprehending/recollecting time in the past tense. Maybe Steve Miller was onto something when he said, “time keeps on slippin’ into the future…” The main takeaway, per Scientific American, is this:

“ From childhood to early adulthood, we have many fresh experiences and learn countless new skills. As adults, though, our lives become more routine, and we experience fewer unfamiliar moments. As a result, our early years tend to be relatively overrepresented in our autobiographical memory and, on reflection, seem to have lasted longer. Of course, this means we can also slow time down later in life. We can alter our perceptions by keeping our brain active, continually learning skills and ideas, and exploring new places.” [emphasis added]

This finding has real ramifications for how we should invest our most finite resource: time… and money, but especially time. I said con(grad)ulations to many close friends these past few weeks, and time really has flown since I was where they were (just two years, but still it’s gone by in a blink). My takeaway of all this resonates most with the last sentence above… no matter how busy/stressful/”real” life gets from a work perspective, it’s ever more important to strive for equanimity, continue learning and engaging with the environment in different ways, and to broaden perspectives.

Anyway, I’m rambling. Here are a few articles on the topic above (#1 and #2), and a lot more cool content thereafter:

My Content List, Sunday 6/2

Why Does Time Seem to Speed Up with Age? (Scientific American)

2. Physics Explains Why Time Passes Faster As You Age? (QZ)

3. The City That’s Giving People Money (The Atlantic)

4. Free Delivery Apps are Drowning China in Plastic (NYTimes)

5. Jeff Bezos: Big Things Start Small (FarnamStreet)

I forget where I heard him say it, but in one interview Bezos was getting pandered by some interviewer about all his “overnight successes”, then Bezos dropped this line:

“It’s funny — all these ‘overnight successes’ you’re talking about took, like, 10–15 years…”

That man clearly embraces the slow grind, and it (clearly) pays off

6. Private Equity Drove Two Canadians Crazy. At BlackRock, They’re Trying to Fix It (Institutional Investor)

7. Sex Toys are Finally Getting the Update They Deserve (Lux Alptraum | OneZero)

8. Burnout is Making Us Worse At Our Jobs, According to the WHO (QZ)

9. LA Developers Have a Big Problem: Too Many New Megamansions (WSJ)

I mean… I’ll gladly take that off their hands free of charge if this is such a “problem”…

11. Salesforce Success Rides on One Man’s Gut (Bloomberg)

12. How is the GDPR Doing? (Slate)

13. Technology Drives Deals Because No One Wants to Be the Next Blockbuster (WSJ)

14. It’s the Middle of the Night… Do You Know Who Your iPhone is Talking to? (Washington Post)

15. We Are Nowhere Close to the Limits of Athletic Performance (Nautilus)

16. The Attention Economy Crisis: The Future of Content, Commerce, and Culture (ReDef)

17. The Race to Replace Larry Fink (Institutional Investor)

18. Do Productivity Playlist Actually Work? (Elisabeth Sherman | Elemental)

Another topic near and dear to my heart is music’s impact on our psychology and neurobiology; one of my favorite undergrad classes I took was titled “Music and the Mind” (other favs were “California in the ‘60s”, “Impression Management and Social Influence,” “Growth ,Technology, Inequality, and Evolution,” “Sports and the Law,” “Disruptive Innovation,” “The Psychology of Close Relationships” etc. etc.)
The productivity one can attain when in a “flow state” has been well documented, and music undoubtedly facilitates the transition into that state. Can you feel it?

19. Huawei’s Yearslong Rise is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics (WSJ)

20. Which PE Owned Retailers are Still at Risk? (RetailDive)

21. The Power Players that Dominate Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (WSJ)

22. It’s Never Been Easier to Be a C.E.O., and the Pay Keeps Rising (NYTimes)