Granny's Rule.......................

 Granny’s Rule, to be specific, is the requirement that children eat their carrots before they get dessert. And the business version requires that executives force themselves daily to first do their unpleasant and necessary tasks before rewarding themselves by proceeding to their pleasant tasks. 

-Charlie Munger

Fifty years ago.................................

Billy Joel...............Streetlife Serenader full album

 

insulation....................

In ever more areas of life, algorithms are coming to substitute for judgment exercised by identifiable human beings who can be held to account. The rationale offered is that automated decision-making will be more reliable. But a further attraction is that it serves to insulate various forms of power from popular pressures.

-Matthew B. Crawford, from this essay

Fifty years ago..........................

John Coltrane............................Interstellar Space

 

our finest moments................

 

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

-M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Fifty years ago.............................

Joni Mitchell.................................Court and Spark

 

A good question...............

 In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong.  A good question to ask yourself today is, "What might I be wrong about?"  This is the only worry worth having.

-Kevin Kelly

Fifty years ago......................

Neil Young........................On the Beach

 

worry....................................

 You don't need to worry about progressing slowly. You need to worry about climbing the wrong mountain.

-James Clear, from here

Fifty years ago..........................

Steely Dan....................Pretzel Logic full album

 

an interesting collection..................

  I sought good judgment mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then pondering ways to avoid such outcomes. 

-Charlie Munger

Fifty years ago...........................

Rush..................................................Rush album

 

borrowing........................

We borrow our atoms.
The universe owns them.

The universe borrows our love and wonder.
Those belong to us.

-Jarod K. Anderson

photo via

Fifty years ago......................

Supertramp....................Crime of the Century album

 

nonetheless...........................

 

When you stop believing in God, there is no sudden explosion of light or darkness. The world continues on its accustomed course. The sky does not fall. The sun still shines. Life goes on. But something is lost nonetheless, something important that gives life connectedness, depth and a sense of purpose; that gives you a feeling of participating in something vast and consequential.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning

unsurpassable felicity...................

 Oh unsurpassed generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The brutes, from the moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ``from their mother's womb'' all that they will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings were, from the very moment of creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs through measureless eternities. But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he will there become one spirit with God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, Who is set above all things, himself transcend all creatures.

-Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, from his Oration on the Dignity of Man