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Premium Post #6
Happy New Year!
Do you remember what you were doing when Kobe Bryant died?
I do.
That fateful day was a Sunday my freshman year of college, so I was on the brink of death myself. I was playing Call of Duty in my friends dorm when my phone started buzzing. The group chat became flooded with Tweets from TMZ and other infamous bearers of bad news.
“Nah, ain’t no way.” I probably said.
But it was way. The world lost number twenty four.
The year 2024 is now upon us. In other words, it is Civilization’s “Kobe year.”
However with that in mind, do you think the Black Mamba ever made New Year’s Resolutions? Or do you think he scoffed at people who wanted some arbitrary calendar change to help them improve their habits?
Wouldn’t he think that is a lazy attitude?
“I can’t relate to lazy people.” Kobe once said. “We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.”
Let us not make new year’s resolutions, but life resolutions. Let us become someone who Kobe could understand, someone fluent in the language he once spoke.
Fearless Spanish Episodes
Yari Alvarez: An English teacher from the Dominican Republic who loves language learning and the United States.
Lewis Bingham: My friend from Ireland who works in finance in Spain. We met while studying abroad in Barcelona, where we lived in the same apartment building near the Plaça de Catalunya.
Suelen Toledo: A language learning master from Brazil. A native speaker of Portuguese, she is fluent Italian and has taught Spanish throughout Latin America.
Language Lessons
Learn a new language so that your brain will be a new brain.
If I Wanted to Learn Spanish in 2024, I’d Do This - this week
The Gospel of Nasal Breathers
Nasal breathing improves:
your facial structure
oxygen uptake
your presence and mindfulness
the strength of your immune system
your mouth hygiene
the quality of your sleep
Mouth breathing improves:
none of those things
nothing
can actually be quite harmful in so many different ways
For one year plus I have been using mouth tape while I sleep. It has been life-changing. I now use hostage tape, but there are cheaper options on Amazon.
Once you feel the benefits of breathing through your nose—while awake and asleep—you will also want to spread The Gospel of Nasal Breathers.
Whiplash
Whiplash is highly-rated movie that came out in 2014. It tells the story of an aspiring drummer who attends a prestigious music school.
The film is not too long. It has excellent acting. Most importantly, it leaves a powerful message on your mind.
“The next Charlie Parker wouldn’t have got discouraged.” If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean. If you haven’t seen it, it is worth a quick watch, so you’ll know what I mean.
Roll The Dice
By Charles Bukowski
if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.
if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.
go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.
if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.
do it, do it, do it.
do it.
all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.
True Genius
In 1821, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia.
The hardships this man went through are heart-wrenching.
A fearless writer, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death by firing squad, but was saved at the last moment.