I’m listening to Boyce Avenue’s cover of an Aerosmith classic: I Dont’t Want To Miss A Single Thing. Note by note, word by word as the tunes play, I feel some sort of tingle in my soul.
The song is not the sole reason. The conversation that’s happening on Reading Supply’s telegram chat with Jim is most of the reason why.
We spoke about Behzod’s tweet https://twitter.com/beh_zod/status/1232360700900564992 that led me to share something rather personal (I’ve no idea why but there’s something about Jim and the community he built that makes it easier to be open about things):
One of my secret dreams I don’t say to friends because its embarrassing (and not so realistic):
https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1232169542253793280?s=21
As the conversation happened, Jim asked something really deep and I thought this would be nice to go into an essay.
If you want to get deep on this, ask yourself: who do you serve? what do you serve?
A part of me will always be selfish out of self interest. But over the years, I’ve mellowed and started to feel that there’s a lot of joy in serving others.
I love building communities, taking part in good ones and learning from great people. It’s like wandering into an Rainforest and seeing how all creatures and living plants as an ecosystem is helping one another to thrive. Everyone is different but in a community we tend to have similar goals, be it to learn something or to find company or whatever else.
i hate takers who only take things and don’t contribute anything back. They’re like detestable people who destroy forests without care for the lightning creatures and things in it.
so a huge part of me is to serve people who can be great stewards or people who are “go givers” who are invested in the success of others. It brings me great joy beyond measure to see those I’ve helped have helped others to succeed, and in turn ... by perhaps what we Chinese call Karma, they succeed in turn.
beyond that success, they have also found a way to live forever. It’s by passing on a legacy. I don’t care for living eternally, but I care for living purposefully, so that I know my time on earth has been spent meaningfully by helping others discover their meaning in life, and finding peace and happiness.
the best gift is myself really. I have no material possessions that might be worth much. But the best I can offer is help in anyway I can that’s within my reasonable means.
It’s a personal policy of mine to never tell someone his or her idea won’t work. It’s too pretentious to think I would know all the answers for certain.
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