Cicero's archer teaches the discipline of a lifetime: master everything within your control, then release the arrow and make peace with wherever the wind takes it.
Meaning
This issue of Sahil Bloom's Curiosity Chronicle gathers five short reflections. A "high agency" thought experiment asks who you'd phone to get you out of a foreign prison—and whether you are that person. A Suzy Kassem quote argues self-doubt kills more dreams than failure. Cicero's Stoic Archer metaphor urges you to focus only on what you control (preparation, craft, mindset) and treat hitting the target as "selected but not sought." A productivity trick shrinks an intimidating task by telling yourself "I'll just do X" to get past the hard "state change." Finally, Jenny Wood's inverted Maslow pyramid makes physical health the unstable base that everything else rests on.
The author, in their own words
Question to unlock high agency:
Who would you call to get you out of a foreign prison?
This question is from my friend George Mack's incredible essay, High Agency.
Imagine you wake up in a foreign prison. You get one phone call. Who do you call to give you the highest chance of getting out of there?
This thought experiment requires you to think about the people in your life who have a unique blend of attributes that collectively comprise high agency. These are some of the things I'd be considering in this situation:
Bias for Action: I need someone who will get started NOW.
Intellectual Horsepower: I need someone to work with incomplete information and still make thoughtful decisions.
Rebellious Spirit: I need someone to question default authority and have an aversion to being told no.
Self-Permission: I need someone who won't wait for others to give them permission to get things done.
Extreme Resourcefulness: I need someone scrappy who can work with limited resources and still get it done. I need someone to be able to make the right phone calls to the right people, working their way to a real decision-maker.
Adaptability: I need someone who avoids plan continuation bias and can roll with the punches that will inevitably come.
This thought experiment––and the list of attributes it sparks––provides an interesting way to summarize the traits we should aim to embody if we want to thrive in our professional and personal endeavors.
In other words: Are you the type of person that you would call if you were stuck in a foreign prison? If not, what attributes are you lacking and how can you focus on building those?
High agency is about recognizing and asserting your control over your life.
Goal for 2025: Be the type of person who can get a friend out of a foreign prison. I like the sound of that.
I highly recommend the full essay––it's long (~30 minute read), but truly one of the best things I've read on the internet this year.
Quote on the impact of self-doubt:
It's not the sheer difficulty of achieving something that stops you.
It's the ease of continuing to tell yourself the story that you can't.
Framework for a better life: The Stoic Archer
In On the Ends of Good and Evil, the ancient Stoic philosopher Cicero shares a beautiful metaphor of an archer shooting an arrow (emphasis mine):
The metaphor offers a compelling visual with a powerful set of lessons for all of our lives.
You are the archer.
Your focus should be centered on that which is within your control:
Your preparation
Your mastery of the craft
Your mindset
After you release your arrow, it is out of your hands (metaphorically and literally). Sometimes, it will fly straight and hit the target. Sometimes, a burst of wind or a bad break will send it off course.
In either case, you must only judge yourself on the basis of what was within your control, not what was outside of it.
Cicero's final line is an important one worth restating:
Hitting the target is preferred, but it is not the goal to be chased.
Be the Stoic Archer.
Your goal: Mastery with the controllable––and peace with the uncontrollable.
Productivity hack I liked:
I recently came across this Reddit post from six years ago with a neat reframe for improved productivity...
The idea is grounded in the fact that the "state change" is the hard part:
Going from sitting on the couch to starting the run
Going from scrolling your phone to working on the project
Going from lying in bed to getting into the cold shower
You can play a little mental trick by saying "I'll just do [X]" (where X is something less burdensome than the full thing) to lower the intimidation factor associated with that state change.
Once you're outside and moving, the run feels easier. Once you're at your desk, the work feels easier. Once you're in the shower, a few seconds on cold feels easier.
Give it a shot and see if it helps with that state change friction in the week ahead.
Image that made me think:
I stumbled upon this interesting image during my free-reading this week in a great new book called Wild Courage by Jenny Wood.
The traditional visual of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is an upright pyramid with physiological needs at the base.
Wood's counterintuitive insight is that it should be inverted:
I like this notion a lot. Physical health is a catalyst for every other area of your life. When you take care of yourself physically, you're better equipped to take care of every other area of your life.
Invert the pyramid. Take care of the three pillars of Physical Wealth (move daily, eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods, and sleep 7+ hours per night) and you'll be ready for whatever life throws at you.
Source: Wild Courage
Key Passages
"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." - Suzy Kassem
"Take the case of one whose task it is to shoot a spear or arrow straight at some target. One's ultimate aim is to do all in one's power to shoot straight, and the same applies with our ultimate goal. In this kind of example, it is to shoot straight that one must do all one can; nonetheless, it is to do all one can to accomplish the task that is really the ultimate aim. It is just the same with what we call the supreme good in life. To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought."
"To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought."
"Unfortunately, this [traditional view] conveys a false impression of stability. As living creatures, we aren't stable. A night of poor sleep or a missed meal can disrupt a job or relationship. A few minor issues with that bottom layer can topple the whole pyramid."
"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." - Suzy Kassem
"To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought."
Your goal: Mastery with the controllable––and peace with the uncontrollable.
In other words: Are you the type of person that you would call if you were stuck in a foreign prison?
Physical health is a catalyst for every other area of your life.
High agency is about recognizing and asserting your control over your life.