Inclinations...................

 

     We are inclined to see history through the lives of great men.  That inclination blinds us to the real complexity of politics, business and finance.  So we find intentionality and design where there is only chance and improvisation; directness where there is obliquity.

-John Kay, Obliquity:  Why our goals are best achieved indirectly

My uncle is pretty smart..................

 

He collected over 28,000 forecasts made by 284 political analysts, economists, foreign policy bigwigs, and all the usual loud-talking necktie people. What Tetlock found (and I’m condensing 20 years of depressing data here) is that the average talking head was terrible at predicting real-world outcomes.

Not “mildly off.” Not “in the ballpark.” I mean barely better than chance. Turns out your uncle screaming at the TV is statistically equivalent to a CNN pundit in a bowtie.

-Eric Barker, from his post, 4 Secrets to Smarter Thinking

the quiet moments....................

 

    Why me?

    Why was I spared when so many others weren't?

    Why was I gifted with this extra time?

    And what do I do with this gift?

    This kind of introspection isn't merely a luxury of age, it's a necessity, a way to reconcile the randomness of existence with the purpose I sought.  I realized that the answers weren't in the grand events, but in the quiet moments, in the decisions made when no one was watching, in the way I chose to face each new day.

-George Raveling, What You're Made For: Powerful Life Lessons from My Career in Sports

rare fabric....................

 

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance?

-Anatole France

enlargeable image, with description, via

On leaving room for error and humility....

 The line between “inspiringly bold” and “foolishly reckless” can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight. But it’s easy to view the process that led to successful outcomes as something to emulate, and the process that led to failures as something to avoid.

-Morgan Housel, from here

Checking in with Wendell Berry.........

While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row

'Chance' is a poor word among
the mazes of causes and effects, the last
stand of these all-explainers who,
backed up to the first and final Why,
reply, “By chance, of course!” As if
that tied up ignorance with a ribbon.
In the beginning something by chance
existed that would bang and by chance
it banged, obedient to the by-chance
previously existing laws of existence
and banging, from which the rest proceeds
by logic of cause and effect also
previously existing by chance? Well,
when all that happened who was there?
Did the chance that made the bang then make
the Bomb, and there was no choice, no help?
Prove to me that chance did ever
make a sycamore tree, a yellow-
throated warbler nesting and singing
high up among the white limbs
and the golden leaf-light, and a man
to love the tree, the bird, the song
his life long, and by his love to save
them, so far, from all the machines.
By chance? Prove it, then, and I
by chance will kiss your ass.

by chance..........................

'Chance' is a poor word among
the mazes of causes and effects, the last
stand of these all-explainers who,
backed up to the first and final Why,
reply, “By chance, of course!” As if
that tied up ignorance with a ribbon.
In the beginning something by chance
existed that would bang and by chance
it banged, obedient to the by-chance
previously existing laws of existence
and banging, from which the rest proceeds
by logic of cause and effect also
previously existing by chance? Well,
when all that happened who was there?
Did the chance that made the bang then make
the Bomb, and there was no choice, no help?
Prove to me that chance did ever
make a sycamore tree, a yellow-
throated warbler nesting and singing
high up among the white limbs
and the golden leaf-light, and a man
to love the tree, the bird, the song
his life long, and by his love to save
them, so far, from all the machines.
By chance? Prove it, then, and I
by chance will kiss your ass.

-Wendell Berry,  While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, The Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row

The adventure-monitor creeps up .......

      The risk-averse society denies the very idea of freedom's role, it stops chance throwing a wild card, it kills the free play of luck.  The adventure-monitor creeps up. pouring cold water on every fire-pit, banning people from bringing home-made cakes to school fetes.  In the otherwise important UNICEF report into childhood well-being in 2007, the authors comment that health and safety "did not feature highly in children's priorities".  Who knew?

-Jay Griffiths, A Country Called Childhood

conceptually malevolent................

      This is why the risk-averse attitude of modernity is not only annoying but conceptually malevolent.  It works against the correct instinct children have that they must find a working relationship with chance and risk . . .

-Jay Griffiths, A Country Called Childhood

How I came to be a writer......................

...................................Morgan Housel.

 So much of history is driven by chance, accident, and flukes. That’s true for the big stuff and the personal journeys.

Love..................................

But the world's problems are very simple.  They are the lack of love between human beings, the lack of compassion, of tolerance, of humility, and of acceptance.  They are the arrogance, hatred, and violence that have polluted human hearts.  They are prejudice and intolerance.  If a person has no peace in their heart, there can be no peace around them.  Such a person will always find a reason to argue and fight.  Only when a person's own heart is peaceful can their interactions be peaceful.
     How to solve the problem of hatred?  Is there any political solution?  Can love and acceptance be legislated and enforced?  Can any law change the human heart?   The heart only changes when it decides to change.  And that is a personal choice that each person must make for themselves.  We cannot enforce it upon them.  We can only inspire them and offer them the tools.
     Therefore, rather than trying to transform others, let us devote ourselves to our own transformation.  As for others, let us be nondemanding of them.  Let us be content to love them as they are, to accept them as they are, and to be ever ready to serve them as we would members of our own family.  This is the humanity that the world sorely needs.
     Only love can make it possible to accept another person's flaws.  Have you ever seen a mother give up on her children?  Even if her child constantly misbehaves, getting thrown out of school or worse, the mother remains by their side, even after everyone else is fed up.  This is due to the mother's love.  Where there is love, there is forgiveness.  Where there is love, there is compassion.
Love is the root of every noble quality.  Therefore, when there is love, do you need any other quality?  When love is present, acceptance, forgiveness, and compassion all become redundant.  Love alone is sufficient.  No other quality is required.  We all know this.  The great teachers of the past and present have all said so.  But if teachings were enough, wouldn't we be transformed by now?

-Kamlesh D. Patel and Joshua Pollock,  The Heartfulness Way:  Heart-Based Mediations for Spiritual Transformation

Gladly............................

21.  If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change.  I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody.  It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.

-Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations, from Book Six

Take a chance.............................

"Someone to inspire, to connect with, to lead. A system to transform. An idea to share. Responsibility is often just lying around, waiting for someone to take it."


-Seth Godin, as extracted from here

Improbable.......................

    The United States in 1804 still felt improbable.  The states had been separate colonies for generations before they had bound themselves together in a federation a quarter of a century earlier.  The Constitution has been in force for fifteen years.  Travel between north and south was almost unheard of.  Thomas Jefferson never stirred more than a few miles north of Washington, nor did John Adams ever venture below it.  A citizen of Massachusetts might feel more at home in England than in Virginia or certainly than in Kentucky.  The forces that drove these men apart were strong, and the habit of accepting adverse political outcomes - even of believing in legitimate difference of opinion - was very new.  The power of Virginia would only grow over the ensuing years, and New England's leaders would seriously contemplate separation again in 1810, and yet again in 1814.  The doctrine of secession was born not in South Carolina, but in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Adams would resist Northern threats to the union as fiercely as he later would the threat from the South.

-James Traub,  John Quincy Adams:  Militant Spirit

This has the feel of truth about it...........

.....................................................(at least to us history majors):

"... it is becoming increasingly apparent that progress tends to arise from the evolution of decentralized trial-and-error processes more than from grand schemes launched by planners and revolutionaries."
-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from here

via

Take a chance or two.......................................

via

Better..................................

Regrets ... I've got a few.............................

So here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny, and I don't quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering and I responded ... sensibly.  Reservedly.  Mildly.

-George Saunders,  Congratulations, by the way:  Some Thoughts On Kindness

A chance......................................

"There's no human condition, however humble or wretched it may be, that doesn't have a chance for happiness offered to it every day:  to achieve it, all that you need is yourself."
-Jean Giono

Uncertain.......................................

“The emotionally mature individual should completely accept the fact that we live in a world of probability and chance, where there are not, nor probably ever will be, any absolute certainties, and should realize that it is not at all horrible, indeed—such a probabilistic, uncertain world.” 
-Albert Ellis

cartoon via