The Curious Engineer

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Sasha's 'Newsletter'

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Essays / personalGeneral

’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
271 from 6 Mar 2020 to 26 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (16 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://sashachapin.substack.com/feed

2026 9

  1. Meet my attractive single friends
  2. Releasing judgement as a practice
  3. As the sparks fly upward, we complexify
  4. Surrender as a non-stupid life strategy
  5. Without hope of resolution
  6. Utopia is a particular restaurant in Brooklyn
  7. Pre-order our book, or, what's so special about Cate?
  8. The two kinds of desire, and one of the most important things I know
  9. The rare people who are solid

2025 19

  1. Year in review 2025
  2. The three most common hallucinations
  3. Book Review: Sanity and Sainthood, by Dr. Tucker Peck
  4. Reviews Dec 7
  5. My Enneagram: 5, 8, 2
  6. My Enneagram: 4, 1, 7
  7. My Enneagram: 3, 6, 9
  8. There's trauma, and then there's Gnar
  9. The Bay Area is cursed
  10. My six stages of learning to be a socially normal person
  11. Love and death, kiki and bouba
  12. What kind of grownup I want to be
  13. Just to clarify
  14. What I'm looking for in my marriage
  15. Last year my mind exploded and now I'm in spiritual puberty again
  16. And then one day you became Comfortable Here
  17. As sweet as razor blade honey
  18. When I say I believe in God
  19. An open letter to 56 people I know

2024 20

  1. How to like everything more
  2. My mind transformed completely, and there were some tradeoffs
  3. Almost everything I've written seems wrong now
  4. Cosmic impostor syndrome
  5. Our first three perfumes
  6. I was not acting like me, are you acting like you?
  7. Come hang out with me (July update)
  8. On awful behavior from awakened people
  9. Process notes: I am becoming more annoying
  10. 50 things I know
  11. Process notes: are people not trying?
  12. What I've learned from frank conversation with parents
  13. Process notes: iso e super
  14. 10x happiness increases are possible, and this is an underrated fact
  15. Life update, March
  16. Acting like emotions don't exist is a poor strategy
  17. Talking Enneagram 7 blues
  18. Process notes: ethyl maltol
  19. Playing in the ruins
  20. What I wish someone had told me about starting a meditation practice

2023 54

  1. How to be less neurotic about getting back to people
  2. Befriending the void
  3. Certain ways that “try harder” can be a bad strategy
  4. My new course is out today, yay
  5. Completely letting go of control
  6. Should you meditate, and also, what is even meditation
  7. Connecting via the "no self"
  8. Connecting with people more easily
  9. Notes on not liking Japan as much as everyone said we would
  10. That time my dick didn't work
  11. Sasha dreams of a better sushi documentary
  12. What I've learned so far from making a perfume company
  13. The spirit does whatever it wants with you
  14. What maximum productivity looks like for me
  15. Give up: a meditation technique
  16. Have an actually fun wedding
  17. Going from being a good listener to a great listener
  18. Meeting my doppelgänger at a Whole Foods in the desert
  19. What the humans like is responsiveness
  20. My writing course is out today
  21. How to roam around your own head
  22. In praise of blowing up your life
  23. Being an extremely niche internet microcelebrity
  24. The science behind the world’s most miraculous nap, or, Nirodha Samāpatti
  25. The art of the benign pattern interrupt
  26. I asked the I Ching what I should do with this newsletter
  27. Books are subjectivity-merging devices, not efficient information transfer devices
  28. Getting married soon
  29. What I've been up to lately
  30. Hey, why aren't we doing more research about spiritual awakening
  31. I'm Embarrassed of My Writing Frequently
  32. Can GPT-4 Replace Me Yet?
  33. Notes on a Torture Party
  34. Two Modes of Being
  35. Buying Experiences Probably Doesn't Make You Happier than Buying Possessions
  36. The Newsletter Changes... Again
  37. Nyx and Kali
  38. How to Spot Cult Leader Personalities
  39. Reflections on Aphantasia
  40. How to Take a Compliment
  41. A Non-Definitive Non-Guide to Non-Duality
  42. Posting a Little Too Much
  43. A Block of Tamarind Pulp
  44. How to Be an Expert Fear-Driven Person
  45. Why Don't My Bay Area Friends Move to LA
  46. Review: CK One
  47. Things you learn dating Cate Hall
  48. When the Bulk Is Not So Fun Anymore
  49. One Year of Okayness
  50. Notes on "Julia"
  51. How to Encourage Others
  52. AI and Writing Predictions
  53. Healthy People Have Mystical Experiences
  54. A Quick Portrait of the Ironist

2022 67

  1. How I Wish Trauma Had Been Explained to Me
  2. Cultivated Charm and Its Limits
  3. Enlightenment
  4. Comments on My Current Fragrance Rotation
  5. After a Month-Long Twitter Break
  6. Pure Pleasure Isn't What You Want, or, Notes on the Jhānas
  7. On Taking a Little Twitter Break
  8. Update on the Direction of the Newsletter
  9. Notes on Vexatious Systems
  10. My Video Course Is Available Now, Again
  11. Giving You the Gift of Deafheaven
  12. London Notes
  13. We're All Capable of Missing Something Obvious
  14. This Post Not Sponsored By Unbound Merino
  15. Montreal, Again
  16. Some Painful Questions We Ask Ourselves
  17. So What's a Happy Life, Anyway
  18. My Next Move
  19. Posting Bad Things Is Healthy
  20. Maybe Opportunism Is an Underrated Success Factor
  21. A Brief Feeling of Apartness
  22. Becoming a Genius of Loss
  23. Montreal Diary
  24. Review: Meditation from Cold Start to Complete Mastery
  25. General Prohibition on Aliveness
  26. Making Normal Conversations Better
  27. Mexico City Notes
  28. Have a Nice Mistake
  29. Loyal paid subscriber, what would you like from subscriber content?
  30. When Safe, Let It Hurt
  31. Discarding My Mental Tension
  32. Lost on Purpose
  33. When My Existence Inverted Instantly
  34. Divorce Brain
  35. Damaged, Doomed, and Fleeting Things
  36. You Can Buy My Course Now, Until It Sells Out
  37. Announcing Next Week's Course Launch
  38. Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks
  39. Brief Note on the Nearness of Ghosts
  40. My Recent Divorce, and/or Dior Homme Intense
  41. Disagreeableness Is a Part of Sincerity
  42. Parties
  43. America I've Given You All and Now I'm Slightly Different
  44. A Brief Personal Introduction to the Enneagram
  45. Everything Everywhere All at Once Could Teach Hollywood a Lesson, but It Won't
  46. You Can Now Buy My Video Course (until 75 slots run out)
  47. How Satanic Is Dall•E 2?
  48. Brief Note on Autistic Monotony
  49. Self-Love Doesn't Require You to Become Huggy and Passive
  50. Sorry I didn't respond to your email,
  51. Being Too Old Is a Beautiful State of Mind
  52. The Sacred Practice of Cringe Equanimity
  53. Cloudy Los Angeles Distant Atrocity Blues
  54. Ask Sasha, Feb 28
  55. Loving Awareness as Anti-Meme
  56. Stater Bros
  57. On Possessing NPR Physiognomy
  58. Notes Against Las Vegas
  59. The Strategy of Anti-Strategy
  60. Some Conclusions About the High Desert After Five Months of Desert Life
  61. A Few Dispatches from Okayland
  62. Notes Against Note-Taking Systems
  63. House of Gucci Is Bad in Instructive Ways
  64. Always Crush Me
  65. How I Attained Persistent Self-Love, or, I Demand Deep Okayness For Everyone
  66. Announcing My New Coaching Program
  67. Legally Blonde's Elle Woods Is My Hero

2021 89

  1. Novice Meditator's Notes, Late December
  2. What I'll Do in 2022
  3. 2021 Year in Review
  4. Stranded on the Space Mountains of Self-Loathing
  5. Letter from Landers, CA, #2
  6. Announcing My New Discord Channel, the Sassy Ranch
  7. I Object to the Concepts of Introversion and Extroversion
  8. Letter from Landers, CA, UFO Capital of the World, North of Joshua Tree
  9. Some Advice Gathered from People Smarter than Me
  10. Let's All Go to Panera Bread
  11. Some Not Entirely Mainstream Tips for Meeting a Partner
  12. Some Non-Sociopathic Sales Ideas for Solo Entrepreneurs Who Hate Sales
  13. If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying
  14. Try Asking People Why Things Matter to Them
  15. My Life With Cube
  16. Inner Warfare, or, It's Ishita Arora's World and I'm Just Living in It
  17. No, Really, You Should Do Strength Training
  18. Selected Art Writing, Volume 1
  19. Notes on Three Weeks in Peru
  20. NFTs, ICOs, and Puts on SPY: The Neo-Prospecter Lifestyle
  21. Thank Your Socks, Idiot (Kondo-pilled part 2)
  22. Quantity Is More Important than Quality
  23. Having a Good Life Involves Partially Dying Several Times
  24. First Place, Worst Place
  25. Strain Versus Effort, or, Contra Jacob Falkovich Contra Sasha Chapin
  26. Creativity Isn't Hard Work
  27. Animal Fries and Sociopathy
  28. Things You're Allowed to Do, Epicurean Edition
  29. Living Through Cigarettes
  30. You Are Too Conservative
  31. Self-Help Books Are Good, Actually
  32. City Notes: Subjective Bangkok
  33. Liking Every Photo on Instagram Is Loving-Kindness
  34. The Biscuits of Bezos
  35. Life Is Always Sliding Out of Control
  36. One Important Lesson About Creative Work from Taylor Swift
  37. The Forever War of Art
  38. How to Crush it on Twitter When You Don't Want to Do That
  39. I Get Most of My Clients from Shitposting on Twitter
  40. Getting a Major Book Deal Won't Solve Your Problems
  41. I'm a Lizardman
  42. Heal America, Run Dwayne Johnson and Oprah
  43. Notes on Living in Los Angeles
  44. Today Is the Day for Nautica Voyage
  45. Why People Are Scared of Marie Kondo (Kondopilled, part 1)
  46. Step One Make Noise Step Two Profit
  47. A Brief Practical Guide to Being an Infinite Player
  48. I Do Not Recommend the Litter-Robot
  49. Write in the Morning
  50. Some of Scott Alexander's Writing Tricks
  51. Bullying and the Depths of Self-Hatred
  52. The Moat of Low Status
  53. Dumb Ideas Are Powerful
  54. The Craziest Thing That Ever Happened to Me, or, Existential Kink and My Shadow
  55. This Is All Tim Ferriss' Fault
  56. Letter to James Stuber (or, Why Writing Is Hard Sometimes)
  57. Dating Sites Are Not Built for Men
  58. Write What Scares You
  59. Paul Graham Isn’t a Simple Writer, and Here Are Some of His Cool Tricks
  60. 30 Things About 30 Posts in 30 Days (30/30)
  61. Who I Am and What I Should Do (29/30)
  62. Notes on One Year of Writing Coaching (28/30)
  63. On Six Randomly Chosen People from Twitter (27/30)
  64. It's Weird that We Tolerate School (26/30)
  65. How I Feel About Some of My Writing (25/30)
  66. Slay the Summer (24/30)
  67. A Tale of Two Chads (23/30)
  68. When Meditation Was Very Bad for Me (21/30)
  69. Emojis Are the Great Softener of Communication (20/30)
  70. Wokeness Has Important Tactical Advantages Over Liberalism (19/30)
  71. Miscellaneous Contemplation Practices (18/30)
  72. The Tiny Titillating Oddity (17/30)
  73. Boring Post, Don't Read (16/30)
  74. Asking Someone For What You Want Is Helpful For Them (15/30)
  75. My Ridiculous Car (14/30)
  76. Hot Privilege Is Complicated (13/30)
  77. Productivity Tip: Acquire a Secret Nemesis (12/30)
  78. Kirpa Sudick, the Smartest Bachelor Contestant (11/30)
  79. Important Writing Isn't Important (10/30)
  80. Ensemble Effects, or Why Secular Church Sucks (9/30)
  81. Take What a City Gives You (8/30)
  82. Coaching Case Study: Jasmine Wang (7/30)
  83. 'Omit Unnecessary Words' Is Terrible Terrible Terrible Terrible Advice (6/30)
  84. I Wrote Something Bad Today (4/30)
  85. Chesa Boudin Is a Dazzling Talker (3/30)
  86. The Jordan Peterson We Deserve (2/30)
  87. Write Faster (1/30)
  88. Creativity as Burger Mistake
  89. You Should Probably Be More Extroverted

2020 13

  1. A Database of Spooky Ghosts
  2. MealSquares and the Void
  3. Cats, Love Languages, Love Amplitudes
  4. Why We Scroll
  5. Leaving San Francisco
  6. The New Friend Poison
  7. Dubious Life Strategies of a Dumbass
  8. Costco Allen Zimmerman
  9. Congratulations, Jew Played Yourself
  10. Become a Writing Coach, and Despair
  11. On Loving the Valley, Oh
  12. Jacques
  13. Five Brief Remarks About Le Labo Santal 33