Few months ago I realized the importance of labeling things
I was listening to talks by Alix Pasquet iii
One recurring theme from his talks was his tendency to label things as ‘powerful’
Him labeling something as powerful meant that the thing was either one, few or all of these :
- Highly levered
- Provides insightful perspective
- An advantage not many people are aware of
- A thing that will bring positive change in your process
But this act of labelling was also ‘powerful’ for me
Because soon enough I began to notice other things that were powerful
Once my mind understood vaguely what powerful meant
It started noticing it everywhere
Thus began my labeling journey
Label something → Notice it at places you wouldn’t before
Labeling opened my mind to many critical phenomenon I would have been blind to
One of the most important ones has been Siren Songs
Sirens have been a popular legend
Half human, half something else beautiful creatures in women like form
The Sirens’ goal is to lure sailors off course and to their deaths
They would sing captivating songs to achieve that
A brave strong sailor braving the sea
With head high in sky and ambitions spanning the world
Would be hypnotized and slayed
All because of Siren Song
But we have seen one story where they outsmarted the siren songs
In Homer’s Odyssey
Odysseus told his men to cover their ears
So that they couldn’t hear the song
But Odysseus himself wanted to hear it
So he told his men to tie him to a mast
Thus he could listen to it but be physically incapable of carrying out actions under influence of the siren songs
We are surrounded by Siren calls all around us
They manifest as projects that seem lucrative but turn out to be highly concave
You take risk, but there’s no real upside
They can appear as lines of thought that are extremely looping and corrosive to decision making
They make us feel we are doing something because it stimulates us a lot
My father has his own similar heuristic to this
Be like wheel not a spinning top
For one spins fast but goes nowhere and other blitzes the world
So every once in a while
It might be worth while to ask
Is this something worth devoting your time
Or is it a siren song?
Via Negativa
Taleb describes it as a method to gain more by removing elements
We can unlock a lot by removing the siren songs
That too without adding anything new in the mix
Siren songs are gonna exist
Acknowledge them but prevent yourself from acting on them
Siren calls may not even be absolute
As I wrote in my previous article
The optimal way to navigate
Contrary to planning out
Is to always go for best current move
Thus anything that reduces your chances of making the best current move
Is a siren song.
A shift happened when I started noticing their pattern.
Siren calls weren’t just random distractions
They had structure.
A familiar emotional pull.
A manufactured urgency.
A sense of missing out if you didn’t act now.
Sometimes they wore the skin of ambition.
Sometimes curiosity.
But if you looked closely, there was always that slight distortion
Something too shiny, too eager.
And once I saw the pattern
I started spotting them everywhere.
In ideas, in people, in moods.
Not every temptation is a siren call, but every siren call is a temptation
A temptation that looks like progress but quietly chips away at your direction.
That’s the genius of the siren call.
It doesn’t need to overpower you.
It just needs to blur your compass enough so you drift.
So plug your ears or tie yourself to mast
Live so that you can have your own Odyssey