Whenever I get to know someone who seems perfect, I end up disappointed. Whenever I get to know someone who I think is the worst of the worst, I'm pleasantly surprised. Angels and demons aren't real.

1. Pain is a normal human experience. Pain disorders are not, yet they are real. 2. Mental suffering is a normal human experience. Mental disorders are not, yet they are real. For some reason, no one has a hard time believing #1, yet #2 is wildly controversial.

Happiness is not about reaching your goals. It's about aligning your goals with your values. Progress without purpose is empty. Achievement without impact is fleeting. Success is most rewarding when it serves the people and principles that matter to you.

Be optimistic in general, but skeptical about the specifics.

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of freedom - Albert Camus

Most of the time you don't need more information, you need more courage.

No one ever, when they're old, wishes they hadn't spent so much time with their kids.

If you want to make a dent into rates of mental health problems, make sure people have a roof over their heads, health insurance coverage, enough food to eat. Let's start there. And let's not forget Kendler: "You would not explain hypertension at the level of quarks".

When To Do What You Love: paulgraham.com/when.html

You don’t fix anxiety, you fix your finances, your diet, your habits, your relationships, your sense of purpose, then anxiety goes away.

The truth [✏️ Visualize Value]

My new favorite word: sonder. It's the profound awareness that every person you encounter has experienced a lifetime of hopes, fears, loves, and heartaches that you'll never know. Each moment of sonder is a reminder to appreciate how little we truly grasp about others' lives.

SCIENCE: Exercise such as walking, jogging and strength training, particularly when intense, are 'an effective treatment for depression' and 'could be considered alongside psychotherapy and antidepressants as core treatments', according to Australian research published in BMJ.

One way to tackle the mental health epidemic is by identifying new targets and developing new medications to treat mental illness. Another is to determine the underlying causes of the mental health epidemic and address them directly. I believe the latter holds greater promise.

What to Do: paulgraham.com/do.html

There are two primary orientations: Dualistic - You are separate from the universe. Non-Dualistic - You are the universe. Both are paradoxically true at the same time—we all carry an “ego,” call it agency or soul. We all flow between these perspectives through our life.

Without a psych-diagnosis, access to support is denied. The neoliberal state thus demands you accept yourself as dysfunctional before it will 'help', capturing your suffering in an ideological move where the fault is located in you rather than in your environment or unmet needs.

I’m excited to share I’ll be speaking at #PS2025 (June 19 at 2:30 PM on Rick Doblin's stage) in Denver, sharing insights on lived experience in psychedelic care. I'm part of a groundbreaking panel, a first at Psychedelic Science led by MDMA-assisted therapy trial participants.

Grateful to have contributed to this publication in Nature Medicine helping improve the setting in psychedelic clinical trials. Thank you Leor Roseman 🦋 @leorroseman.bsky.social Chloé Pronovost-Morgan for the opportunity.