Digital Nomading in Spain

Hey friends,

I spent this week in Javea, a beautiful, lazy and sunny, coastal town north of Alicante, Spain, at a fantastic co-working / co-living space.

After a long pandemic stretch in Sweden, it was lovely to go abroad. We skillshared, hiked, had tapas and drank too many cappuccinos in cozy town squares. A fantastic kick-start to Q4.

What I’m reading

Why web3 matters - Because I'm in a deep rabbit hole related to web3 and crypto, a lot of my reading has geared to insightful Twitter threads. Chris Dixon's gives a fantastic overview of web3 in this thread.

The Erosion of Deep Literacy - A fantastic read on the importance of reading deeply, and how it intersects with our ability to participate in democracy. An ode to deep reading and thinking.

On the benefits of books: "A book is a large intellectual construction; you can't hold it all in mind easily or at once. You have to struggle mentally to internalize it. Now there is no need to internalize because each fact can instantly be called up again on the computer. There is no context, no motive. Information is not knowledge. People are not readers but researchers, they float on the surface....This new thinking erases context. It disaggregates everything. All this makes strategic thinking about world order nearly impossible to achieve."

On the importance of deep literary skills to uphold democracy: "Populism of the illiberal nationalist kind is what happens in a mass-electoral democracy when a decisive percentage of mobilized voters drops below a deep-literacy standard."​

What I’m watching

Raoul Pal has become one of my favorite people in the macro / crypto space. This 90 min video called "An Introduction to the Exponential Age" is well worth the watch.

He paints a picture of the overall macro trends and describes the upcoming exponential age as it relates to bitcoin and digital assets.

Favorite quote: "It's not obvious to people how they're getting screwed, but everybody knows they're getting screwed."​

What I'm listening to

This recent Impact Theory episode with Ryan Holiday, with a discussion on stoic principles.

One of my main take-aways is Aristotle's concept of 'the golden mean' - the golden middle way between two extremes - as it relates to courage.

Courage is not the extreme of cowardness. Recklessness is. Being courages is the middle ground of being cowardly vs. being reckless.

This song is my let's-get-started song this week.

Have a great Sunday!

Cheers,
Cecilia