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mental world of ideas, constructs, concepts, models, myths, patterns, and rules that we’ve developed and passed from generation to generation—sometimes for thousands of years. This is where concepts such as marriage, money, religion, and laws reside. This is relative truth because these ideas are true only for a particular culture or tribe.
Many of these beliefs and systems are dysfunctional, and while the intention is that these ideas should guide us, in reality they keep us locked into lives far more limited than what we’re truly capable of.
The world of absolute truth is fact-based. The world of the culturescape is opinion-based and agreement-based. Yet even though it exists solely in our heads, it is very, very real.
Once you understand that the rules aren’t absolute, you can learn to think outside the box and live beyond limits imposed by the culturescape.
The culturescape is so strong, so self-reinforcing that it convinces us that life must unfold in a particular way. This is fine if you’d like to live a regular, safe
What if life was not meant to be safe?
Safety is overrated; taking risks is much less likely to kill us than ever before, and that means that playing it safe is more likely just holding us back from the thrills of a life filled with meaning and discovery.
Law 1: Transcend the culturescape. Extraordinary minds are good at seeing the culturescape and are able to selectively choose the rules and conditions to follow versus those to question or ignore. Therefore, they tend to take the path less traveled and innovate on the idea of what it means to truly live.
The dips contain amazing learnings and wisdom that lead to sharper rises in the quality of life afterward. But you will need to brave the momentary pain of these dips.
You can be 12 or 80—it’s never too late to question the rules and step out of your comfort zone.
the things that could go “wrong” if you continue reading this book: You might anger loved ones as you decide to question their expectations of you. You might decide to leave your current relationship. You might decide to raise your kids with different beliefs. You might choose to question your religion or create your own customized religious system. You might rethink your career. You might become obsessed with being happy. You might decide to forgive someone who hurt you in the past. You might rip apart your current goal sheet and start anew. You might start a daily spiritual practice. You
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Just as disease is spread by contagion from host to victim, so ideas are spread in the same way.
We often take on ideas not through rational choice but through “social contagion”—the act of an idea spreading from mind to mind without due questioning.
The evidence shows that we inherit and transmit behaviours, emotions, beliefs, and religions not through rational choice but contagion.
We think we’re making a rational decision. But often, the decision has little to do with rationality and more to do with ideas our family, culture, and peers have approved.
While religion can have immense beauty, it can also have immense dogma that causes guilt, shame, and fear-based worldviews.
Authority has proved to have an astonishing, and potentially dangerous, hold over us.
We’re a tribal species, evolved to find security and kinship with each other in groups.
this need for belonging at its strongest when looking at the irrational beliefs people take on when they join cults. The desire to be accepted causes them to shut down their ability to question, and they accept highly illogical, irrational beliefs. Tim Urban, who runs the amazing blog waitbutwhy.com, calls this blind tribalism.
The meaning-making machine in our heads is constantly creating meaning about the events that we observe in our lives—particularly when they involve people we are seeking love or attention from. Have you ever created meaning in your head about someone’s attitude or feelings toward you because of something they do? That’s the meaning-making machine in action.
Computational thinking trains you to look at problems from all angles—to break down problems into processes and parts (decomposition), spot patterns (pattern recognition), and solve them in a very logical, linear fashion (algorithms).
Computational thinking makes you highly logical—and a very good problem solver. It’s what gives programmers and hackers their edge.
while your beliefs make you, your beliefs are NOT you. You can use consciousness engineering to swap out old beliefs, swap in new ones, and take on new understandings of the world that might serve you better.
