Sunday, December 7, 2025
return.........................
The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh. The strength of that principle is not measured in ounces and pounds: it tyrannizes at the centre of Nature. We may well give skepticism as much line as we can. The spirit will return, and fill us. It drives the drivers. It counterbalances any accumulations of power.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as culled from his essay, Worship
with keener avarice..........
For Emerson as for Thoreau, economy means how to live. Failure to understand that means missing Emerson's main point. "The true thrift," he concludes, "is always to spend on the higher plane, to invest and spend, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritual creation, and not in augmenting animal existence."
-Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson: The Mind on Fire
peculiar............
Back in 1975 the musician Brian Eno and the artist Peter Schmidt created a curious artifact, a set of cards containing peculiar instructions: "Honour thy error as a hidden intention." "Ask your body." "Work at a different speed." These were meant to help artists, especially musicians, who had come to an impasse in their work. Eno and Schmidt call the card deck Oblique Strategies because they knew that when an artist is blocked, direct approaches meant to fix the problem invariably make it worse. In a similar way, sometimes you can get better at thinking only by turning your attention to matters other than thinking.
-Alan Jacobs, How To Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
asking......................
Asking leads to answers, and answers lead to more questions. From not knowing, we get to knowing, and eventually to the truth. This is why we must understand that there is no such thing as a dumb question. In fact, a person becomes smart only by asking questions. The more impertinent and relentless the better.
-Ryan Holiday, Wisdom Takes Work
cornerstone.....................
The cornerstone of the company's culture was a philosophy Danny called Enlightened Hospitality, which upended traditional hierarchies by prioritizing the people who worked there over everything else, including the guests and investors. This didn't mean the customer suffered; in fact, the opposite. Danny's big idea was to hire great people, treat them well, and invest deeply into their personal and professional growth, and they would take great care of the customers—which is exactly what they did.
-Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
When "elites" aren't very elite..........
Out of disorder and discontent come leaders who have strong personalities, are anti-elitist, and claim to fight for the common man. They are called populists. Populism is a political and social phenomenon that appeals to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are not being addressed by the elites. It typically develops when there are wealth and opportunity gaps, perceived cultural threats from those with different values both inside and outside the country, and "establishment elites" in positions of power who are not working effectively for most people.
-Ray Dalio, Principles for Dealing with The Changing World Order
this bifurcation of perception.............
In the wake of the scientific revolution and certain deadening forms of modernist presumption, the trend has been to sever the bond between objectivity and subjectivity. Consciousness in the modern West has been informed by trends the follow this severance. Subjectivity and objectivity are commonly viewed as opposites, even at odds, rather than being component parts of an already reconciled whole. The hard sciences have sided with objectivity against subjectivity. The human sciences have done the opposite. Errors of all kinds follow from this bifurcation of perception and being into two seemingly incompatible worlds of meaning, especially when one side of the dichotomy is elected over the other for arbitrary reasons. But this is not how Chesterton experienced the world. Arguably, this is not how anyone experiences the world, despite rationalizations to the contrary.
-Duncan Reyburn, The Roots of the World: The Remarkable Prescience of G. K. Chesterton
Saturday, December 6, 2025
sinking or swimming...................
I like people coming into any orbit of mine without any experience, particularly without any necessarily expertise, without having been quote, made. And then you give people more responsibility than they qualify for because in that forge you find out who swims and who doesn't. And if you have that kind of environment out of it's going to come pretty good people.
Barry Diller, as quoted in this post
honestly.......................
The only way to live it is to be as truthful as you can be. With others, of course. But mostly with yourself.
Doing anything else is not living or being in the moment. Anything less than truthfulness is an attempt to distort the past or control the future.
unwavering..................
Let your energy impact the people you're talking to, as opposed to the other way around.
For a recent and slightly cynical college graduate, Randy's sunny optimism could sometimes stretch the limits of belief. Ask him how his day was going, and he would say, "You know, man, I'm trying to make today the very best day of my life." I might have rolled my eyes, but that kind of unwavering positivity turned out to be impossible to resist . . .
-Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality
the hand of order..................
Philip [King of Macedon, 359-336 BC] had no sympathy with the individualism that had fostered the art and intellect of Greece but had at the same time disintegrated her social order; in all these little capitals he saw not the exhilarating culture and the unsurpassable art, but the commercial corruption and the political chaos; he saw insatiable merchants and bankers absorbing the vital resources of the nation, incompetent politicians and clever orators misleading a busy populace into disastrous plots and wars, factions cleaving classes and classes congealing into castes: this said Philip, was not a nation but only a welter of individuals—geniuses and slaves; he would bring the hand of order down upon this turmoil, and make all Greece stand up united and strong as the political center and basis of the world.
-Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
On coping properly.......................
When I started law practice, I had respect for the power of genetic evolution and appreciation of man’s many evolution-based resemblances to less cognitively-gifted animals and insects. I was aware that man was a “social animal,” greatly and automatically influenced by behavior he observed in men around him. I also knew that man lived, like barnyard animals and monkeys, in limited-size dominance hierarchies, wherein he tended to respect authority and to like and cooperate with his own hierarchy members while displaying considerable distrust and dislike for competing men not in his own hierarchy.
But this generalized, evolution-based theory structure was inadequate to enable me to cope properly with the cognition I encountered. I was soon surrounded by much extreme irrationality, displayed in patterns and subpatterns. So surrounded, I could see that I was not going to cope as well as I wished with life unless I could acquire a better theory-structure on which to hang my observations and experiences.
-Charlie Munger, from the opening of his speech, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
beyond........................
How do I stave off the cynic's disease and still remain a hopeful skeptic? . . .
Let's sing more that we might make sense, believe in more than the world can conclude, get more impressed with the wow instead of the how, let inspiration interrupt our appointments, dream our way to reality, serve some soul food to our hungry heads, put proof on the shelf for a season, and rhyme our way to reason. Forget logic, certainty, owning, or making a start-up company of it; let's go beyond what we can merely imagine, and believe, in the poetry of life.
-Matthew McConaughey, Poems & Prayers
Cured me of my fear of heights..........
.........Actually, I was more afraid of Mr. Reed, our gym teacher, than I was of being 30' in the air. Losing the fear of heights was just one outcome; I was still afraid of Mr. Reed.
Rules for rules.....................
Freedom is a vital food for the human soul. In the concrete sense of the word, freedom means the possibility of choice. A real possibility, naturally. Wherever there is communal life, it is inevitable that choices will be restricted by rules that are necessary in the interest of the common good. . . .
Rules must be simple and reasonable enough for anyone who wishes to do so, and who has an average faculty of attention, can both understand the utility to which they correspond and the necessities of fact that impose them. Rules must emanate from an authority regarded not as a stranger or an enemy, but which is loved and seen to belong to those it governs. They must be stable, few and general enough to be assimilated into thought once and for all, and not create a conflict each time a decision has to be taken.
-Simone Weil, The Need for Roots
Friday, December 5, 2025
Whatever happens..................
Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.
-Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 1998
Not so sure about this................
We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care.
-Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Can I get an amen................?
The ultimate goal of human action is always the satisfaction of the acting man's desire. There is no standard of greater or lesser satisfaction other than individual judgements of value, different for various people and for the same people at various times. What makes a man feel uneasy and less uneasy is established by him from the standard of his own will and judgment, from his personal and subjective valuation. Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.
-Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
As has been well-said...........
..........a number of times in our corner of the blogosphere, the problem is not too many books, the problem is too few bookshelves. Judging by this post and list, Barnes & Noble will be sending some additions to the collection shortly.
"I think that someone on the left who went through this curriculum would come away with more admiration for conservatism and some doubts about leftism."
Thursday, December 4, 2025
'Tis the season.......................
The Licking County Courthouse is all dressed up for the holiday.
Tonight was the 25th edition of "Sights & Sounds", a fund-raising walking tour of eight downtown churches. Each of the eight offers up a bit of Christmas music and cheer. Several hundreds of local folk braved the chilly night air for the tour. It has become a fun tradition.
Start........................
Many
situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you
start walking.
You don't
need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have
the courage to get started.
-James Clear, from this edition
Intuition....................
Intuition appears to be something that, while inevitably fallible, is often more reliable, much quicker, and capable of taking into account many more factors, than explicit reasoning, including factors of which we may not even be consciously aware. It also underlies motor, cognitive and social skills, and is the ground of the excellence of the expert. The attempt to replace it with rules and procedures is a typical left hemisphere response to something it does not understand – a response that is, alas, powerfully destructive. We inhabit a world in which reason is needed more than ever before, yet in which reason is so narrowly conceived that it drives out true understanding. For that we would have had to learn respect for the power of intuition, not as opposed to reason, but as both grounding it, and the means for it to fulfill its potential in making judgments in life.
-Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World
a daily challenge........................
Aristotle described virtue as a kind of craft, something to pursue just as one pursues the mastery of any profession or skill. "We become builders by building and we become harpists by playing the harp," he writes. "Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions."
Virtue is something we do.
It's something we choose.
Not once, for Hercules's crossroads was not a singular event. It's a daily challenge, one we face not once but constantly, repeatedly. Will we be selfish or selfless? Brave or afraid? Strong or weak? Wise or stupid? Will we cultivate a good habit or a bad one? Courage or cowardice? The bliss of ignorance or the challenge of a new idea?
Stay the same . . . or grow?
The easy way or the right way?
-Ryan Holiday, Wisdom Takes Work
Freedom—it's not so easy.................
A free political order is possible only when the fundamental political act is a mutual promise between governor and governed. But no human being can be trusted to keep his or her word when he or she has access to power—a power not available to opponents. Sooner or later, if not in the lifetime of the ruler, then in that of his or her descendants, there is an inescapable risk of tyranny. Freedom can only be guaranteed in a political system where the constitution sovereign is God himself, where he has sought and obtained the free consent of the governed, and where he has bound himself to respect human freedom.
-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning
seen and valued......................
So whether you're in retail, finance, real estate, education, health care, computer services, transportation, or communications, you have an incredible opportunity to be just as intentional and creative—as unreasonable—about pursuing hospitality as you are about every other aspect of your business. Because whether a company has made the choice to put their team and their customers at the center of every decision will be what separates the great ones from the pack.
Unfortunately, these skills have never been less valued than they are in our current hyperrational, hyperefficient work culture. We are in the middle of a digital transformation. That transformation has enhanced many aspects of our live, but too many companies have left the human behind. They've been so focused on products, they've forgotten about people. And while it may be impossible to quantify in financial terms the impact of making someone feel good, don't think for a second that it doesn't matter. In fact, it matters more.
The answer is simple, if not easy: create a culture of hospitality. Which means addressing questions I've spent my career asking: How do you make the people who work for you and the people you serve feel seen and valued? How do you give them a sense of belonging? How do you make them feel part of something bigger than themselves? How do you make them feel welcome?
-Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Good luck with that.................
To devise a method of barring incompetence and knavery from public office, and of selecting and preparing the best to rule for the common good—that is the problem of political philosophy.
-Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
More about that affordability thing..............
Perhaps the largest barrier to housing availability and affordability in places like California are permitting rules, land use restrictions, and construction codes that make it absurdly expensive, or even outright impossible, to construct new single or multi-family housing. Part of this is a conspiracy of current homeowners to protect and increase the value of their property -- after all, new home construction inevitably reduces their property value (or future escalation) by adding competing inventory and/or by creating congestion and loss of property-value-enhancing open space. Another part of this is "everything bagel liberalism" where every program has to achieve every Leftish goal -- eg we want new housing but it has to have solar and appliances with a minimum SEER and use recycled materials and have a certain number of units set aside for protected groups and create a conservation easement on part of the land, etc etc -- until even units that can get permitted are too expensive for all but the very wealthy.
-Warren Meyer, from this post
the secret sauce..............
It doesn’t matter if you are trying to pick a new skill, or get fit. Discipline is the secret sauce. Do it long enough and it becomes a part of who you are. Then rewards compound. Every seed of talent, when watered with consistent input grows to bear multiple fruits.
-Tanmay Vora, from here
Can I get an Amen...........................?
And it's still the undisputed champion..........
We live in a world of unintended consequences.
-Michael Wade, as he posts on technology and AI
P. S. Check his recommended reading list at the end
Ben Carlson.......................
...........takes a look at the housing affordability crisis:
It won’t make you feel any better as a young person in the U.S. to know that it’s even harder for people to afford homes in other countries around the globe.
But these numbers help put things into perspective that things can always get worse.
If the government doesn’t make this a priority the housing affordability crisis likely will get worse in the coming years.
Editor's Note: The only thing the government can do to relieve the housing affordability crisis is to remove many of the regulatory barriers to new development. At the end of the day, supply versus demand still rules. If it were easier to build new housing, more housing would be built. Once supply exceeds demand, or even matches it, prices will moderate. Any attempt to subsidize home buyers or tenants, will only cause prices to keep increasing. Trust me on this.
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