Nick Sainato

Daily musings

  1. 2 min read

    Art That Overwhelms the Senses

    A friend of mine told me a story about a Michelin star restaurant he visited in Europe. Course after course was truly delicious. Then came one dish with flavors so complex and multifaceted that it literally brought him to tears. It made him realize that the highest forms of cuisine could become art. Awe-inspiring natural structures like mountains and rivers and forests and canyons can bring about a similar wonderful feeling, and climactic events like F-16s flying over as the national anthem is sung live at a sporting event can nearly sweep you off your feet. But it’s rare to be taken by surprise by such overwhelming feelings. Except with art—something another human crafted as a way of expressing an idea, a feeling, an experience. Sometimes it is a photograph, or a story, or a painting, or perhaps a dish at a restaurant. Occasionally created just for oneself, but more often created so that others can empathize directly with the subject at hand. My favorite artist, Dominic Fike, just released his new album, HOW TO QUIT SMOKING, and midway through my first listen I felt these same emotions. It wasn’t even the lyrics, just the beauty of the sound itself. I chuckled at myself, involunta

    Read post

  2. 2 min read

    Trash Everywhere (Bring Back Shame)

    I don’t know when it happened, but at some point a huge number of people just stopped caring about throwing literal garbage all over the ground, out of car windows, in parking lots, even inside buildings. There will be a garbage can like 10 feet away, yet somebody throws trash on the floor instead. It makes no sense to me. Why do you want to live in filth? There are probably some people that will blame a shift in city populations, mass migration, etc, and it’s possible some of that is at play. But I think a bigger factor is just that people have no shame about this anymore. We need to bring back shame. Gen Z and Gen Alpha sure have none. They will think it’s funny to stream “pranks” going up and slapping people in the face or acting like they stole money from unsuspecting shoppers by playing fake Apple Pay noises. I guess it’s a little funny? But more so it’s just pathetic unemployed behavior. How about actually get up and work? How about stop leaving trash everywhere? The nihilistic view of the world that many of them hold is leading to lower and lower trust societies. Let’s not become boomers and blame the kids for everything. It is our responsibility to bring back shame and show

    Read post

  3. 5 min read

    Some Things Have No Tradeoffs

    Now that you're here, I will add the nuance; okay, sure, almost all things have some tradeoffs for some people some of the time. I'm not talking about edge cases and n'th-order effects. I'm talking about a category of things or decisions that have basically no tradeoffs for most people, most of the time. Ones where when you add up all the pros and cons, it's just obviously better overall expected value. We have seemingly forgotten that some things can really just be better, full stop. A few years back I talked about one example of this: refillable soap/shampoo bottles in hotels. Versus single-use soaps left on the counter, they are: Less wasteful (no single-use packaging, better for environment) Better experience (no fidgeting with packages, finding a shelf to put them on, etc.) Often higher quality product/soap Far less likely to run out (massive supply bolted to the wall) Probably overall cheaper for hotels This is what I mean by an "all-win" scenario. They exist! We have to stop pretending they do not exist. And we shouldn't get caught up on some mental gymnastic objection to that classification, like "now the non-profit that turns leftover hotel soap bars into recycled soap bar

    Read post

  4. 2 min read

    Gate Lice

    Several years ago a friend was at the airport, texting me complaining about gate lice. When I asked what that meant, he just dropped me the Urban Dictionary entry for the term: Passenger, often inexperienced flyers in Kettle Class, who crowd around or line up at a gate at an airport completely blocking the boarding area and preventing First and Business Class passengers from being able to get on the plane when they’re allowed to. They can also cause delays and confusion if a passenger in a wheelchair needs to board as the chair has to plow through the mass of gate lice hovering around the gate. When it’s time to board, they have to be shooed from the front boarding area to the back of the line, delaying the flight for everyone. I will forgive the use of the term within the definition… a bit circular… but I digress. I’ve traveled a lot lately. So much that I started thinking about how it’s a lot less stressful to fly when you think of flights like a bunch of bus routes that use the sky instead. Yes, I literally had an epiphany realizing that’s where “Airbus” got its name. Anyway, here’s probably where I’d make some travel tips or something. And I will do that someday. But not becomi

    Read post

  5. 8 min read

    The Synergies of Intensity

    “It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do it well.” That is completely false. It does matter what you do. You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. — Peter Thiel, Zero to One If Thiel is right, then I have done everything wrong. My life has been a series of long, intense, physically and mentally challenging stretches followed by brief stints of recovery, almost accidentally finding what's next: From 12 to 16 I had a DJ business, and I worked basically every Friday and Saturday night on top of going to school and other hobbies. From 16 to 20 I worked as a busboy, a food runner, an operations lead, and a graphic and web designer while serving as student council president and editor-in-chief of the yearbook, then finished high school and began college where I became a Peer Adviser and tutor for first-year students. From 20 to 25 I was a digital and performance marketer, and through some weird series of events ended up starting and scaling a SaaS training platform. I also lost 65 pounds during this time and maintained a pretty rigid gym schedule for a few years. From 25-3

    Read post

  6. 3 min read

    You Cannot Possibly Care About Everything

    You cannot possibly care about everything. Pick a few things and give it your all. — me, in 2023 It’s taken real restraint as a Type 7 to wait until my third post to discuss the Enneagram. It will take even more restraint to only hyperlink out to it and wait for some other post to delve into why I built a site about the Enneagram that I can hyperlink out to. What is relevant for today’s topic is why I’ve kept the tweet above pinned to my profile for more than three years. “Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, in 2022 This quote got Chamath into a lot of hot water when he used it to explain why he and many other people don’t care about China's persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority, including allegations of genocide and mass detention. He later clarified: “In re-listening to this week's podcast, I recognize that I come across as lacking empathy...As a refugee, my family fled a country with its own set of human rights issues so this is something that is very much a part of my lived experience...To be clear, my belief is that human rights matter…Full stop." — Chamath Palihapitiya, in the aftermath I'd like to think "we can all agre

    Read post

  7. 5 min read

    The Case for the Old Guard

    I have been best man at two weddings. First for my brother and again for my best friend. My brother’s wedding was late 2020, so things were still in flux from COVID. He and his now-wife lived here in New Jersey, but she grew up in North Carolina, so the wedding would be in Wilmington. Due to the pandemic, by that time gatherings were allowed, but they were capped around 50 people. Point is, things were hectic. It was the first time most of us were going to be traveling since the start of the pandemic, it was being planned from several states away, and it meant there was no single home base for anyone. For the groomsmen’s attire, the default choice would have been to go to a local tux shop that’s been around for decades. But given all the complexity, it was decided that we’d try an online service instead. It seemed straightforward; provide sizing, select a few options, and your tux arrives ahead of schedule to try on and make potential alterations ahead of the event. In the end it was not. Two received the wrong shoes, one was missing a belt, and the sizes were acceptable at best. Shipping wouldn’t make it back in time and we had to scramble to find close comps locally, all while no

    Read post

  8. 2 min read

    Channel the Whirlwind

    Some years ago I came across @AlmostMedia’s daily writing habit. Even then I thought it would be a good practice, but through a combination of procrastination and self-consciousness, I never tried it. Since then I’ve become at least a little more focused and consistent, plus a lot less worried about how I’d come across. Or whether anyone would care to read along. It’d be more for me than some supposed audience anyway. Over the summer I read Several Short Sentences About Writing and was inspired again to try. But I was feeling the whirlwind of everything, and I wasn’t sure where I was headed or what I’d write about. Now, I thought, wouldn’t be the time to try either. Then I saw @alexlmiller, the habit-maker’s husband (and recent ran-into-on-a-random-connecting-flight-through-DC founder friend), had started writing too, as he transitions into a new phase of his professional career. I’m settling into another one of my own. The whirlwind is still here, and it feels stronger than ever. But all of this is fresh enough in my context window that it feels like the universe is simply begging me to give it a go. Or something like that. Well, you’ve got to start somewhere and somehow. And it b

    Read post