🤯Unknown Unknowns #51 - Context

May 14, 2022

I saw my extended family for the first time in two and a half years. If I told you that two and a half years ago, you might have been concerned. Or you might have thought I went on a round the world adventure. But since we all know about Covid, we're not surprised. Context brings understanding.

It was really good to see my grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins. There were two cousins I hadn't met before and two cousins that went from being shorter than me to way taller.

As always, our family celebrations revolved around food. Here's my contribution. They're called 咖喱角, beef curry pastries.

Discoveries:

Context isn't just useful for understanding. if you can control the context, you can actually change reality.

1️⃣

Visa shares this lesson from a musician named Victor Wooten. He demonstrates that every wrong note has a right note, right next to it! And then he shows how he can make a wrong note into a right note, just by changing the context of it. By changing the rhythm or presentation of a note, Victor can make any sound sound right. (Click through to see the whole thread)

Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv

"When there's a note that doesn't work, there's a note on either side of the note that DOES work." NOBODY TELLS YOU THIS. "It's always easy! but we make it hard!". "A minute ago this note didn't work, but now it does. I can *erase* the wrong note by *making music*." Amazing

2️⃣

Arvid Kahl talks about how he's an introvert but becomes an extrovert in the right context.

It’s all about control: when you know that your audience —however large it may be— understands your “why” and where you come from, it feels much safer to open up.

I've talked about Luck Surface Area before. It's the idea that the more you do, and the more you tell people what you did, the luckier you are. My friend John Nicholas wrote a great essay on this topic. And fair or not, those who are extroverted have a hand up on Luck Surface Area. After all, they're constantly telling people what they're doing. If you can understand what contexts make you extroverted, this gives you a leg up.

=> Article Here

3️⃣

In the last session of Newsletter Launchpad, Louie Bacaj and I talked about the different spectrums of comfortableness. There's a spectrum by medium - I'm much more open in this newsletter to this audience than on LinkedIn or Facebook. And there's a spectrum by topic - I can talk about the weather or sports with anyone but there's topics I'll only talk about with my wife. Newsletters give you a controlled environment to freely express yourself and be vulnerable. It's an ideal way to get the benefits of being an extrovert while controlling your vulnerability. It's all about context.