Kevin Kelly had a party earlier this month. It featured an enormous bubble-maker, a magic present, an ice cream truck, a toy practice demonstration, and a man who made balloon hats. Kelly, who turned not 6 however 71, invited visitors akin to Matt Mullenweg, Hugh Howey, Stewart Brand, and Jaron Lanier. The second-grade vibe was unintentional, Kelly says—“I was just trying to do things I thought were fun, and a stripper does not interest me”—nevertheless it was very Kelly, who’s made a profession and a lifetime of making use of a childlike openness to sophisticated problems with science, know-how, and tradition. In an age the place pervasive AI looms, it’s an perspective that would profit us all.

His new e-book, Excellent Advice for Living, tries to boil down what he’s discovered over a lifetime right into a collection of a number of hundred aphorisms. Here’s one: “Don’t be the best. Be the only.” He started compiling these just a few years in the past to share along with his children, now younger adults. It’s like Handy Household Hints from Heloise meets the Dalai Lama. The e-book consists of exhortations to advantage, sensible survival ideas, and rephrasings of well-worn chestnuts, akin to “This is true: It’s hard to cheat an honest person.” (W.C. Fields, your pocket has been picked!)

As I raced by means of his e-book, the buildup of mind-grenade bonbons, nevertheless pithy and profound, obtained a bit overbearing. I instructed Kelly it jogged my memory of pompous Polonius’ “Neither a borrower or lender be” speech in Hamlet. “I don’t know who that is,” Kelly says once I carry this up. He does admit that binging on his aphorisms in a single session may very well be overkill. “I think that their native habitat is a little tweet online,” he says. Nonetheless, consuming his almanac in a single gulp reveals a set of themes to Kelly’s thought course of. Favor high quality of life over cash. Be variety. Be sensible. Don’t let anybody cease you from being your self. And all the time reduce away from your self when utilizing a knife.

In any case, the e-book is pure Kelly, who lifehacking guru Tim Ferris as soon as mentioned may be “the most interesting man in the world.” Kelly’s a podcast star (showing on 120 pods this yr alone), an AI oracle, and a digital artist who posted an image a day for a yr. He’s the final word early adopter—pc conferencing within the early Nineteen Eighties, donning a VR headset in 1989, extolling AI for many years. After dropping out of school in his first yr, he and his digicam started a decades-long on-and-off tour of unseen Asia, which he self-published final yr in a three-volume, 30-pound photo book with 9,000 photographs. (It offered out on Kickstarter.) His This American Life episode—about discovering Jesus in Jerusalem and anticipating to die in six months—is a traditional. He is a cult determine in China. Until the pandemic, he made the majority of his revenue from paid appearances there, accompanied by bodyguards to police the hour-long selfie strains that fashioned after his talks.

He’s additionally—brace your self for the Godzilla of disclosures—a buddy, who’s edited me, given me a few of my finest story concepts, and got here up with the concept of a Hackers Conference to have fun my first e-book. Oh, and he’s the founding government editor of WIRED and continues to contribute as its official Senior Maverick. Thanks, Kevin!

Gratitude will unlock all different virtues and is one thing you may get higher at.