The most important thing today

On Sunday Mornings, “Brain Food” arrives in my inbox. “Brain Food” is a weekly newsletter from Farnam Street Blog. It contains links to articles, podcasts, and books worth considering.

One of the links this morning led to an article about Ayn Rand’s short book “Philosophy, who needs it” with links to articles on “Grey Thinking” which led to “Second-Order Effects“ and other tools for critical analysis of the way that we think and the conclusions we arrive at.

For the past couple of weeks, Daniel’s been prodding me to identify the Most Important Thing Today (MITT) and focus on getting it done.

So today, I want to think more about this.

What is today’s MITT?

How do I decide?

Why does it matter?

One of the Most Important Things to do, one that never appears on my list, is “keep breathing.”

Writing this post is less important.

And in the Grand Scheme of Things (GSOT), neither matters all that much.

To an objective observer—should such a thing exist—I’m just a bit of chemical scum on a tiny rock spinning around a second-rate star.

But to me, I’m the center of the universe, and the most important things in the universe are the things that I do and the things that happen to me.

A wise observer can see that. It must be clear that I am the center of my universe. And so is that observer, and so is every other viewpoint.

We are each at once of near-zero and near-maximum importance.

It helps me to maintain those two viewpoints in my mind together.

It creates a framework or coordinate system. Everything that I do is both important and unimportant, vital and inconsequential.

And thus, everything also occupies all points between those extremes.

So what’s the MITT?

Right now, it’s writing this. Then it will be publishing it.

And after that? Let me think a bit.

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