Nova Daily - 13 March 2025

Hi!

Earlier today I read a blog about the road to GM. In this case the letters GM stood for Growth Mindset, as opposed to a Fixed Mindset. It's a fun read that I can really recommend.

Towards the end of the blog, the author said, "[M]y road to GM (...) is now complete!" I couldn't let the opportunity pass by to ask the childish question whether that would mean that it's fixed now.

But jokes aside, there are a few thoughts that popped up in my head. These thoughts are still a bit chaotic, and the course of the day has prevented me from structuring them properly. So this might be one of the most uncoordinated blogs I've written so far.

Nothing grows forever

One of the most profound, lucrative and dangerous illusions that exist is the idea of infinite growth. Although infinity is the name of the game in mathematics (with the natural, whole, and rational numbers all being an infinitely large set, and the real numbers even larger), in the physical reality there is no such thing as infinite growth. A quick observation tells us that we live on a finite planet. The resources that exist on this planet may be abundant, but they are ultimately limited. The economy contracts and expands, but it simply doesn't keep growing forever.

In a way it is a good thing that we don't have limitless supplies of everything. It means that what we do have becomes more precious, simply because it's more scarce.

A good lesson on humility can be wrapped up in even the worst kinds of popular entertainment.

The truth is, without can'ts and don'ts, it's hard to know where the fun is.

- Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Time

The most existential thing that we have a limited supply of, that differs from person to person, is time. Life has a literal deadline, and each and everyone of us will eventually part ways with life on this planet. When our time runs out, it's not that the party stops. We have to leave, and the party will carry on without us.

There is so much to write on the matter of death that I'd prefer to keep most of it for another moment. But very often it's the people who embraced their mortality who manage to make the most out of their time. Mark Manson is one of the authors who has written about this in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. So has Robert Greene in The 50th Law and in The Laws of Human Nature. The fact that he managed to survive a horrific car accident made Hal Elrod realise how precious his life really is, which prompted him to write his bestseller The Miracle Morning.

I've never had a near-death experience, neither clinically nor mentally. I'm not looking forward to having one either. But I try to constantly remind myself that my life is the only one that I have, that my time on this oblique spheroid called Earth is limited, and that if I ever want to achieve anything in my life, the place is here, the time is now, and the responsibility is entirely my own.

The game

I'll upload the game without annotations for now. It was a very nice win indeed.

Hopefully I'll complete the analysis tomorrow.