To answer an aspect of your question that other commenters haven't addressed, the snatch works hip and shoulder mobility in a way that deadlifting and squats do not. The barbell is driven by the explosive hip hinge (unhinge?) directly up, so it is a departure from deadlift even if it looks like it would train the same muscles. Training your snatch lift in a non-competitive sense really exposes imbalances the lifter has. Your hesitance is really reasonable though, it's a non-trivial lift so coming into lifting completely new and trying to throw a snatch up isn't a very good idea.
> Trying to extract value from a spiritual tradition you're not willing to live is ghoulish.
I don't understand this sentiment at all. Identifying positive aspects in existing religions is perfectly fine (I'd even argue there is some amount of virtue to it). How is it possibly ghoulish to see good in other cultures/religions and bring that into your practice? One example that comes to mind are religions where consumption of meat is eschewed. If you find that the rationale that Jainism provides for a vegan lifestyle resonates with you, why can't you incorporate that into your life for those reasons?
Identifying, sure, why not, it's good to expose yourself to ideas.
Again though, and I think this is enough information to understand my position, I simply reject the notion that you can build anything worthwhile by picking and choosing bits you like from the collection of religions spread before you.
They are traditions whose fullness is only experienced as part of a community of other practitioners. By trying to extract an appealing bit and apply it to your own life outside of that context and separated from that practice, you're doing an entirely different thing and imo not what you think you're doing. I simply don't think this practice is worthwhile, valuable, or worthy of respect.
If you don't want to eat meat then don't eat meat. If a jain convinces you not to then that's as good a way to find out as any other. Does that begin to convince you that we are all part of an eternal cycle made up of different substances? Maybe you should convert to jainism!
I don't want to assume anything about you and I'm not really. But I often see this amalgamated spirituality concept coming from non-religious people. The idea that you can take the parts you like from anywhere, leaving the parts you disagree with. I simply don't think you can come out of this with anything meaningful, and in fact I think it's a trap. You'll think you've found wisdom when all you're doing is laundering your beliefs & preferences through the hard-won ancient traditions of the world.
There is courage necessary to commit to a path without possibly being able to understand it or even begin to know where it will lead. When you build your own religion you trade that in for mistaken confidence, and the feeling that you know what all the parts do and why they're there. You're not supposed to know why they're there! You're supposed to just live it.
All religions consist of a blend of faith & practice (there's that Quaker title again). In some, faith is ascendant over practice, and in others practice is considered more important than faith. If you lean toward the practice side of things, then presumably picking practices from different traditions would be less of an issue, so I would tend to conclude that for you, faith is the primary component of religious affiliation.
It is certainly true that feeding at the buffet of world religions isn't the same as being a committed member of a particular religious community. But that doesn't mean that you don't get some value from it, and potentially different value than that found by the more committed members.
I personally take great inspiration from Hesse's Siddhartha, the titular character of which explores a variety of spiritual and religious traditions, finds them all lacking and ends up being most inpired by a river ferry man. But that doesn't mean that the character gained nothing from his experiences with Buddhism, Jainism, ascetism and more.
Choosing and picking parts that you like and building chimera out of it is literally ghoulish. You don’t evolve something this way, you are willy-nilly feeding on something.
> Immigrants in the U.S. _as a whole have lower levels of education than the U.S._-born population. In 2018, _immigrants were over three times as likely as the U.S. born to have not completed high school_ (27% vs. 8%). However, _immigrants were just as likely as the U.S. born to have a bachelor’s degree or more_ (32% and 33%, respectively).
> Educational attainment varies among the nation’s immigrant groups, particularly across immigrants from different regions of the world. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America are less likely to be high school graduates than the U.S. born (54% and 47%, respectively, do not have a high school diploma, vs. 8% of U.S. born). On the other hand, immigrants from every region except Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America were as likely as or more likely than U.S.-born residents to have a bachelor’s or advanced degree.
Not the OP you're responding to but your own source disagrees with your assertion. Relevant quotes above, emphasis mine. Also, I'm not against immigration but it gets old seeing accusations of xenophobia when someone is trying to have a reasonable conversation about the very real macro-level challenges involved in immigration. Stifling this sort of discourse also ends up being a disservice to people that have worked very hard to immigrate to the US as it can lead to people sweeping under the rug the challenges people will face when arriving.
I've had an interest in taking on a project for a while and your comments have sparked something for me. I'd be interested in chatting with you about your project if you'd like. I'll buy a coffee/beer/tea/beverage of choice just for the trouble of a call. Contact info in my profile if you're interested!
Note: my experience is in private equity from VC backed companies. ESOPs are a bit different in ways I don't have experience with.
The monetary value of private equity is in most cases nonexistent. If it is a private company that is not already riding high (think airbnb when everyone knew it had struck gold) then the equity offer is nothing but a lottery ticket. I took a pay cut at a startup that sold me on accepting the offer with the pitch: "if we were to sell for $100 million like XYZ company, you'll be a millionaire". We ended up unable to raise another round of funding and my equity became worthless. Obviously this is my own biased personal experience and if you believe in the company and think the experience + shot at growing something is worth it to you, go for it! My experience was financially less ideal, but it led to a number of opportunities down the line that I wouldn't take back. But understand that trying to convert your esops into a direct monetary value isn't easy to do because they aren't terribly liquid (unlike vested equity in a publicly traded company).
Things to ask: Have they recently raised a round of funds and at what valuation? Why are they raising the money? What sort of operational runway do they have?
Keeping a notepad and taking time to write down impressions after a reading session (or after finishing a section/chapter/book) has been helpful in retaining key takeaways from texts. It's also surprisingly enjoyable to write about what impact non-fiction had on you as well so I definitely think this works for all sorts of reading. And of course if something strikes me in the middle of reading, I've got a notebook to in as well.
Besides that, and somewhat related to your question, starting/joining a book club was one of the more enjoyable things I did in my reading life. Get a group of people together and spend some time talking about what you're reading! In my case, we weren't even reading the same books, it was just another place to talk through things that really hit home while we were reading.
edit: and of course I come across an article about a silent book club here on HN right after writing this. Book clubs are for everyone but I think the format here can help broaden the audience https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22023996
