This one's quite dense, so I've made an outline to hopefully help you track the moving pieces: https://fieldnotesforafriend.substack.com/p/invisible-beliefs

The references for all the people, essays, and books I mention are also in that same link.

Heartfelt thanks to Carmen for your feedback!

Episode links:

All related material to this video essay (transcripts, references, etc): https://fieldnotesforafriend.substack.com/p/invisible-beliefs

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKWkFoWWr4I

Find me elsewhere:

- everything: https://linktr.ee/vincent_li

- writing: https://substack.com/@vincentli

- personal site: https://vincentli.space/

- photos: https://www.are.na/vincent-li/vincent-s-photographs

- twitter: https://x.com/vincent_yc_li

Timestamps:

00:00 - [Intro]

00:18 - process over product + finding our deepest beliefs through felt contact

00:42 - [Chapter 1] The life-long values that drive you

00:53 - final ends are our irreducible beliefs

01:09 - ecosystem of final ends

01:25 - what runs us is what we cannot see

01:54 - the belief diagram

01:59 - vitality of beliefs: alive vs. dead

02:17 - a belief can die through habit alone

04:00 - source of beliefs: internal vs. external

05:09 - adaptive preferences: what we desire changes based on what we can get

06:11 - the diagram are diagnostic lenses

06:26 - [Chapter 2] Seeing the invisible beliefs that run us

06:33 - the sacred & the profane

06:58 - we treat other’s self as a little god, and act accordingly

08:42 - friction-chasing: where the suppressed self points

10:13 - the holy cows within us: unquestioned ways we perceive

10:37 - meditation: dehabituating reactivity

12:48 - emotional friction is where the gold lies

13:28 - resources for untangling emotional knots

14:01 - art as tool for self-investigation

15:18 - befriending the unoriginal, the psychotic, and the obscene

15:47 - [Chapter 3] Greatness through curiosity, not self-coercion

16:07 - okay, but how do you actually find your final ends?

16:46 - when you simply don’t know what you want

17:06 - curiosity as drive, boredom as clarification

19:12 - research is what happens when curiosity meets the unknown

19:44 - winning the Nobel Prize through piddling around with the wobbling plate

20:31 - greatness does not come solely from pushing yourself into it

21:08 - willpower of the head, willpower of the heart

21:19 - attention as mechanical, scarce resource vs attention as blooming, growing process

21:54 - the cure to addiction is a life worth not escaping

22:18 - orthodox priest on lust: don’t fight sensuality with anti-sensuality

23:12 - why did most Vietnam war soldiers give up heroin spontaneously

24:59 - paying careful attention to what enlivens you

25:14 - unfolding over imposing

25:58 - [Chapter 4] Disciplined play to change your life

26:16 - constraints are not the enemy of creativity

26:21 - discipline is not a lack of freedom, but a harmonious relationship with time

27:18 - playful rigorous experimentation

27:50 - morning pages as a laboratory

28:43 - social anxiety experiment: leave 5 conversations

30:25 - why morning pages over other journalling practices?

30:50 - realizing writing wasn’t actually my medium

31:54 - changing your life through intentional playful experimentation

32:24 - constraints are both subtractive and additive

32:59 - heat sinks: solving procrastination

34:37 - building instinct and self-trust to successfully pursue your true desires

35:22 - [Recap & outro]

Episode Links

All related material to this episode, including the transcript and references: https://fieldnotesforafriend.substack.com/p/good-art-provokes-you-into-experiencing

Youtube: https://youtu.be/b81qu9tGYDY?si=9ln0TfGvLr2z1dwA

Find me elsewhere:

* everything: https://linktr.ee/vincent_li

* writing: https://substack.com/@vincentli

* personal site: https://vincentli.space/

* photos: https://www.are.na/vincent-li/vincent-s-photographs

* twitter: https://x.com/vincent_yc_li

Timestamps

* 00:00 - good art provokes us into the here-now, in an embodied way, to consider the things that matter

* 01:06 - art history is a study in how our attention has changed over time

* 01:39 - art as inhabiting the world of the artist from their perspective

* 02:26 - flattening of the value hierarchy: from Jesus the King to just the color red

* 03:05 - Medieval art: spiritual hierarchy

* 03:33 - the Renaissance: the dignity of the human

* 04:20 - the Baroque: the Catholic Church engineers attention

* 05:06 - the Dutch Golden Age: where modernity, domesticity, and the stock market were born

* 06:24 - Romanticism: meaning after God

* 06:42 - Realism: the unadorned truth of ordinary life

* 07:05 - Impressionism: painting how perception feels

* 07:53 - the Cambrian explosion of modern art

* 08:21 - Rothko paints landscapes of meaning

* 08:47 - Cubism: embodied seeing

* 10:33 - Hockney’s collages: seeing as fragmented snapshots

* 10:44 - Light and Space: the environment is never neutral

* 12:01 - John Cage’s 4’33”: the coughing is the music

* 12:53 - perception itself is the art act

* 13:32 - Marina Abramović: presence as medium

* 14:10 - games as crafted modes of being, transforming through play

* 15:28 - metaphor versus presence

* 16:05 - being here now is uncomfortable, and that’s what makes you alive

* 17:00 - a little more aware of how beautiful the world is