most profound mysteries...........

 

     But for all the impressive scholarship that has been marshaled in an effort to determine the Sistine Ceiling's elusive meanings and to unmask its secret author, the evidence strongly suggests that Michelangelo himself was almost entirely responsible for what we see, and that he developed the elaborate program organically in response to the demands—technical, conceptual, and esthetic—that confronted him when he discarded the pope's simplistic plan and opted for a more elaborate scheme.  What we see is the product of Michelangelo's genius, not merely the skills of a consummate craftsman illustrating a theological text, but a passionate, unconventional vision of an artist who thought deeply about the miracle of Creation and developed his own unique language to confront life's most profound mysteries.

-Miles J. Unger, Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces

Debatable...............?

 

The standard of carving, of both the flesh and the draperies, is without precedent in human history, and it is not hard to imagine the astonishment and respect it produced among both cognoscenti and ordinary men and women alike.  The youth of the sculptor made him a wonder, and the acclaim given to the work was the beginning of Michelangelo's reputation as an artistic superman, larger than life—like some of his works—and endowed with godly qualities.

     Whether it benefits an artist to have this kind of reputation is debatable.

-Paul Johnson, The Renaissance: A Short History

Could work.....................

 

    more fun here

genius.......................

Napoleon’s definition of a military genius was quote, the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind. I’m going to repeat that because it is such a ridiculously good quote. A military genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.

It is the exact same in investing to be a good investor over time. You don’t need to make a lot of genius decisions. You just need to be merely average when everyone else is making bad decisions, as many people are.

-Morgan Housel, from this blog post

People just don't.........................

 ..................talk that way anymore:

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, - let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.  Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as excerpted from The American Scholar

Chaplin......................

I stood where Sennett could see me.  He was standing with Mabel, looking into a hotel lobby set, biting the end of a cigar.  "We need some gags here," he said, then turned to me, "Put on a comedy make-up.  Anything will do."

     I had no idea what make-up to put on.  I did not like my getup as the press reporter.  However, on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat.  I wanted everything a contradiction:  the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.  I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small mustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression.

     I had no idea of the character.  But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was.  I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.  When I confronted Sennett I assumed the character and strutted about, swinging my can and parading before him.  Gags and comedy ideas went racing through my head.

     The secret of Mack Sennett's success was his enthusiasm.  He was a great audience and laughed genuinely at what he thought was funny.  He stood and giggled until his body began to shake.  This encouraged me and I began to explain the character: "You know this fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.  He would have you believe he is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo player.  However, he is not above picking up cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy.  And, of course, if the occasion warranted it, he will kick a lady in the rear—but only in extreme anger!"

-Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography

     

Checking in......................................

........................................with Morgan Housel:

The line between "inspiringly bold" and "foolishly reckless" can be a millimeter thick and only visible with hindsight.

We have brains that prefer easy answers without much appetite for nuance.

. . . financial success is not a hard science.  It's a soft skill where how you behave is more important than what you know.

There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don't have and don't need.

A plan is only useful if it can survive reality.  And a future filled with unknowns is everyone's reality.

Napoleon's definition of a military genius was, "The man who can do the average thing when all those around him are going crazy."

-all snippets from his book, The Psychology of Money

Complicated geniuses........................

 ...............Social norms are for normal people.

The genius of knowing what to ignore...............

 Einstein reportedly once said that his own major scientific talent was his ability to look at an enormous number of experiments and journal articles, select the very few that were both right and important, ignore the rest, and build a theory on the right ones.  In that assessment of his own abilities, Einstein was very likely overly modest.  But part of his genius was an instinct for what mattered and the ability to pursue it vertically and connect it horizontally.

-John M. Barry, The Great Influenza:  The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

Fun with math......................

via

The wiki for Euler's Identity is here, just in case you're curious.

Wouldn't you love to come up with a sentence like "Also, as a pragmatic matter it's very useful for shutting down emotional conversations that occur while gazing upon the vault of heaven in a mystic coalescence of wonder and fear"?   Genius.

My dream headline reads.................

Structured Procrastination:  Do Less, Deceive Yourself, And Succeed Long-Term.

"This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you."
-John Perry, as extracted from here.
Genius.
via

God bless the laypersons...........................

“The stock market is an inexact phenomenon.  Laypersons’ opinions often seem as worthy as professionals’, and shoeshine men and brokers compete for genius.” 

-Michael Steinhardt

Genius.................................

via

Apparently there is not much................

.........elation contained in geniusness.  Full calibration here.

Opening paragraphs...............

"All his life, Charles Darwin believed that inheritance was much more important in shaping a man or woman than education or environment.  Nature rather than nurture was formative, in his view.  Though he knew nothing of the science of genetics, and never used the word gene, which was first recorded in English in 1911, more than a quarter century after his death, he is a classic case of genetic inheritance.  Indeed, two of his grandparents and his father can reasonably be classified as geniuses."
-Paul Johnson, Darwin: Portrait of a Genius

I refuse to fetch..................

"I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I'm rooting for the machines."
-Claude Shannon

Claude Shannon was one smart dude.  Much of our digital and cellular world has Shannon's work at its foundation.  This Michigan native gets some serious respect from the folks at Wikipedia, who state he:  "is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical, numerical relationship. It has been claimed that this was the most important master's thesis of all time."  Wow.  Hope that makes thing clear.  

Shannon is also quoted as saying, "Information:  the negative reciprocal value of probability" and "Information is the resolution of uncertainty." If I am doing my calculations correctly that means that the negative reciprocal value of probability equals the resolution of uncertainty.  What?

I'm rooting for the humans.

Well, this explains a lot...............

“One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos.”
-John Nash

image via apod