Top all-time · #1575
Sasha Chapin
Personal blog · sashachapin.substack.comwritingphilosophyculture
Sasha Chapin writes Sasha's 'Newsletter', a personal blog at sashachapin.substack.com about writing, philosophy and culture. Since 2021, 48 different Hacker News readers have linked it 84 times, most often “I Attained Persistent Self-Love, Or, I Demand Deep Okayness for Everyone”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
a jpg of water in a dry municipality. Click to read Sasha's 'Newsletter', by Sasha Chapin, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- I Attained Persistent Self-Love, Or, I Demand Deep Okayness for Everyone6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-02-12
- Making Normal Conversations Better5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-08-19
- Notes against note-taking systems5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-01-31
- The Moat of Low Status3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-03
- How to Like Everything More3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-12-31
- The Bay Area is cursed3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-10-08
- What the humans like is responsiveness3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-06-27
- /p/things-you-learn-dating-cate-hall2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-13
- If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-10
- Some conclusions about the high desert after five months of desert life2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-10
What Hacker News says?
I've saved a link to more or less every thought-provoking article I've read since the last 12 years (first in Evernote, and now Obsidian). I have two notes, one "links", the other "article notes", that's just a bare minimum note-taking system for stuff I read on the web. Both notes are huge, and undoubtedly contain many tidbits of advice, perception shifting ideas, or "subjectivity merges" ( https://sashachapin.subs…
Comment linking /p/books-are-subjectivity-merging-devices
on “You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it”Submitted My stages of learning to be a socially normal person as a story · 631 points
HN discussionAll of my personal 5 whys like the one in the article end the same way. "I'm always busy but I don't feel productive with my time" Why? "Because I get distracted by email, refactoring, slack, .." Why? "Because I don't really want to be doing any of this, but I feel like I should be at my computer trying to force myself to do it." Why? "Because I have a job and therefore some responsibilities, and I wasted a lot of t…
Comment linking /p/if-you-have-writers-block-maybe-you
on “The "five whys" productivity technique”Submitted Notes against note-taking systems as a story · 311 points
HN discussionWell I default to the views of Cate Hall, who wrote the article, and she agrees that it’s all about luck and little about agency. https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c... Cate views her own life through a frame of responsibility: she takes responsibility for what happens to her. At the same time, she is genuinely not proud, and genuinely doesn’t think she’s better than anyone else. She credits…
Comment linking /p/things-you-learn-dating-cate-hall
on “How to Be More Agentic”Submitted Advice gathered from people smarter than me as a story · 221 points
HN discussionI’m saying you don’t even understand what Cate is talking about because even Cate agrees with me: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c... “ Cate views her own life through a frame of responsibility: she takes responsibility for what happens to her. At the same time, she is genuinely not proud, and genuinely doesn’t think she’s better than anyone else. She credits luck for her good fortune and…
Comment linking /p/things-you-learn-dating-cate-hall
on “How to Be More Agentic”Submitted If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying as a story · 157 points
HN discussionCate believe success is all about luck. She said it herself. https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c...
Comment linking /p/things-you-learn-dating-cate-hall
on “How to Be More Agentic”Submitted Some conclusions about the high desert after five months of desert life as a story · 95 points
HN discussionThis piece about how she lives, by her husband Sasha, is also great: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c...
Comment linking /p/things-you-learn-dating-cate-hall
on “How to Be More Agentic”Submitted Dating Sites Are Not Built for Men as a story · 57 points
HN discussionhttps://sashachapin.substack.com/p/the-moat-of-low-status-68...
Comment linking /p/the-moat-of-low-status-68a
on “On doing hard things”Submitted Notes on Living in Los Angeles as a story · 54 points
HN discussionFor me, it was an intentional MDMA session focused on shame that spontaneously cracked open my self love. The result is extraordinary - I really don’t care what people think about me because I no longer need validation and “love” from strangers. I’m now free to fully express myself without fear and love others without judgement. Another similar result from intentional MDMA use: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how…
Comment linking /p/how-i-attained-persistent-self-love
on “Learning to Love Myself”Submitted How to Spot Cult Leader Personalities as a story · 34 points
HN discussionReminded me of this essay: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/notes-against-note-taking...
Comment linking /p/notes-against-note-taking-systems
on “Writing summaries is more important than reading more books”Submitted The Bay Area is cursed as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSomewhat related, there are people who say aphantasia can be cured: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/i-cured-my-aphantasia-wit...
Comment linking /p/i-cured-my-aphantasia-with-a-low
on “Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea”Submitted How to Like Everything More as a story · 13 points
HN discussionActually the author has another post about dealing with negative self-talk: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how-i-attained-persistent... And later posted about jhanas. Having read those, I do think his understanding of meditation is deeper than it might appear from reading this article alone. I don’t think his position is really that different from what a lot of critics here are arguing.
Comment linking /p/how-i-attained-persistent-self-love
on “Five Mildly Anti-Buddhist Essays”Submitted There's trauma, and then there's Gnar as a story · 12 points
HN discussionThis person is part of a weird New Wave of Twitterati Buddhists-not-Buddhists who are happy to throw out huge chunks of the dharma in the name of going their own way. It's not bearing good fruits. This person also wrote a long screed on divorce that was really about spritzing their favorite perfume scent and barely mentioning the person they divorced except as backdrop to the great “I”. [1] It's a new wave that thri…
Comment linking /p/my-recent-divorce-andor-dior-homme
on “Five Mildly Anti-Buddhist Essays”Submitted The Bay Area is cursed as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted What I've learned from frank conversation with parents as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Paul Graham Isn't a Simple Writer, and Here Are Some of His Cool Tricks as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Notes Against Note-Taking Systems (2022) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted You’re abusing yourself by default. Do strength training as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Strategy of Anti-Strategy as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Some Conclusions About the High Desert After Five Months of Desert Life as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
