Some problems aren’t meant to be solved
Accept the friction. Tolerate the nonsense. Stay on the path. This week: on control, inefficiency, and the art of mastery.
December 6th, 2025 - Issue #146 - read online
👋 Welcome to Pursuit—your weekly pause for intentional living, self-discovery, and inner clarity. My name is Amir, and every week I share four carefully chosen ideas to help you design a more fulfilling life.
This week’s reflections:
😩 The hidden drive behind overwork
🚫 Some problems aren’t meant to be solved
🏆 In praise of mastery
Last week, I came back from Tehran. I hadn’t been to my hometown in four years—the last time was before the Woman, Life, Freedom uprisings.
When I entered the airport, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Women at customs, standing in front of authorities, weren’t wearing their scarves. In the streets, more than fifty percent of women weren’t wearing hijab. In my entire lifetime growing up in Iran, I had never seen such a scene.
The city was beautiful. I saw people smiling at each other, quietly communicating something unspoken—a shared acknowledgment that we triumphed in the first step of our battle. A victory over more than thirty years of oppression.
Right now, there’s a new renaissance happening in Iran. Young people are out all the time, filling cafes. There are so many coffee shops where people simply hang out. DJs are playing vinyl in cafes across Tehran and people are dancing!
I could never have fathomed that one day Iran would look like this. That I would see it with my own eyes.
This makes me want to return more frequently—to firsthand experience this tectonic societal change and feel the energy in the city.
If you’re Iranian and you live outside of Iran, and you haven’t been back since this pivotal time, I highly recommend going. Experience it firsthand. It might soften something in you toward your own country—and plant small rays of hope for long-term change.
😩 The hidden drive behind overwork
Status isn’t about how many followers you have or how famous you are. At its core, status is the feeling that you are of value to others.
In the past, this was built into daily life. In hunter-gatherer tribes, everyone knew their role—whether as a forager, a hunter, or a caregiver. Your contribution was visible and essential.
Today, many of us live disconnected from any real sense of belonging. We move away from communities for opportunity, but often pay the price of feeling unseen.
Without clear proof of our value, we chase it elsewhere—through overwork, through achievements, through constantly trying to prove our importance.
Religious practices, regardless of belief, often create built-in ways to serve others—to feel needed. Without these structures, many people today are facing a value deficiency.
And that over-reliance on feeling important? It’s quietly pushing a lot of us past what we can handle.
🚫 Some problems aren’t meant to be solved
Some people live as if frustration itself is an injustice—like life should run perfectly if only everyone else would just cooperate. But real life doesn’t work that way.
There’s a level of hassle and inefficiency built into the world that no amount of control can eliminate. Trying to stamp it out entirely doesn’t make you powerful—it blinds you to reality.
Imagine running a grocery store: you could eliminate shoplifting entirely by strip-searching every customer. But you’d also eliminate your business. Some problems aren’t meant to be solved completely—they’re meant to be tolerated wisely.
The healthiest mindset isn’t demanding a frictionless life. It’s accepting that a little nonsense, a little inefficiency, is the true cost of living freely. And when you stop denying that truth, you see the world more clearly—and handle it with a lot more grace.
Think about your past week. Which inefficiencies or nonsense tipped you off and made you frustrated? Can you see it in yourself to tolerate it wisely instead of trying to eliminate it?
🏆 In praise of mastery
It resists definition, yet can be instantly recognized. It comes in many varieties, yet follows certain unchanging laws. It makes us, in the words of the Olympic motto, ‘Faster, higher, and stronger,’ yet is not really a goal or a destination but rather a process, a journey.
We call this journey mastery and tend to assume that it requires a special ticket available only to those born with exceptional abilities. But mastery is not reserved for the super talented or even for those who are fortunate enough to have gotten an early start. It is available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it—regardless of age, sex, or experience.
The problem? We have few, if any, maps to guide us on the journey or even show us how to find the path. The modern world can be viewed as a prodigious conspiracy against mastery. We’re bombarded with promises of instant success, immediate gratification, and fast relief—all of which lead in exactly the wrong direction.
Learning something new involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher than what preceded it. You must be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.
What is mastery? At its heart, mastery is staying on the path. Starting on the path requires qualities more commonly found in children than in adults—curiosity, being present, and lack of ego. Specifically, not caring if you fail.
One who renounces immediate goals for the sake of diligent practice generally ends up reaching higher goals than one who shoots for quick results. One who takes the path of mastery is likely to end up a winner more often than one who thinks about nothing but scoring points.
But winning for a true master isn’t something to use as fuel for a depleted ego or to gloat about with cries of “number one.” It’s simply part of a process that began long ago—one that will continue as long as life goes on.
🎵 Music I’m listening to
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🦥 Slow rave: Sleepy techno for tired danced
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
