Friday, March 10, 2023
Memories....................
But here’s the thing: a lot of what we think we know about how memory works is wrong. First off, it’s not a perfect video recording of what happened. Memories are a lot more like Legos, assembled and reassembled each time, and rarely in the same way twice.
And memory isn’t even one system. It’s a collection of different systems in your brain: episodic, semantic, procedural, working, sensory, etc. This is why you can maintain a memory in one type despite losing it in the other. (I doubt you have any problems tying your shoes — procedural memory — but you may find it impossible to recollect the moment you learned to tie your shoes — episodic memory.)
No, your memory is never going to be perfect. (Having a photographic – “eidetic” — memory is almost unheard of in adults, though it’s not uncommon in children.) But we can all improve our memories.
Complications..............
But most big things – companies, events, careers, pandemics, etc – are just a bunch of small, random, boring things that compound at just the right time and explode into something bigger and more powerful than anyone imagined.
Monsters................
Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, ready to believe and to act without asking questions.
-Primo Levi, from here
Thursday, March 9, 2023
If you don't check in with David Kanigan.......
.....................on a regular basis—well, you should.
The brain’s genius is its gift for reflection. What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death. That monologue often seems like a barrier between us and our neighbors and loved ones, but actually it unites us at a fundamental level, as nothing else can.
Wishful thinking.............
Throughout the eighteenth century, as we have seen, liberal intellectuals had looked forward to a new republican world in which corrupt monarchial diplomacy, secret alliances, dynastic rivalries, and balance of power would be abolished. Since the dynastic ambitions, the bloated bureaucracies, and the standing armies of monarchies were related to the waging of war, the elimination of monarchy promised the elimination of war. War, said Paine, "from its productiveness, as it easily furnishes the pretense of necessity for taxes and appointments to places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of Old Governments, and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches." Monarchies encourage war simply "to keep the spirit of the system." The reason republics were not plunged into the waging of war was the "the nature of their Government does not admit of an interest distinct to that of the Nation." A world of republican states would encourage a peace-loving diplomacy, one based on the natural concert of international commerce. If the people of the various nations were left alone to exchange goods freely among themselves—without the corrupting interference of selfish, warmongering monarchial courts, irrational dynastic rivalries, and the secret double-dealing diplomacy of the past—the, it was hoped, international politics would be republicanized and pacified.
Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different, as taken from his chapter, Thomas Paine, America's First Public Intellectual
Opening paragraphs...............
In the beginning we were wanderers.
We didn't wander because we trying to find ourselves, we wandered because we were HONGRY. We wandered with the seasons to places with more abundant roots, nuts, and berries, We wandered up and down elevation bands to forage for different plants. We followed the animal migrations because that's where the steaks were. What passed for shelter was what you could find when you needed it. Typically, we would not stay in the same place for more than a few weeks because we'd forage and hunt the yard to nothing in no time. Our stomachs would force us to start wandering anew.
The limitations of it all were pretty, well, limiting. The only power source an unaided human has are muscles, first our own and later that of a handful of animals that we could tame. Starvation, disease, and injury were common and had the unfortunately high likelihood of proving lethal. And any provided-by-nature root or rabbit that you ate was one that someone else would not be eating. So, sure, we lived in "harmony with nature" . . . which is another way of saying we tended to beat the crap out of our neighbors whenever we saw them.
-Peter Zeihan, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
What happens when.......................
.............................money is free? A list of eleven things here.
We experienced a decade of quantitative easing and declining interest rates that culminated with an unprecedented multi-trillion-dollar infusion of capital in 2020. But three years later, the party had to end.
The Fed is raising rates, money isn't free anymore, and companies have to once again rediscover the lost art of "turning a profit." Outrageous stuff, isn't it?
a glimpse.........................
As artists, we aim to live in a way in which we see the extraordinary hidden in the seemingly mundane. Then challenge ourselves to share what we see in a way that allows others a glimpse of this remarkable beauty.
-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
the great dispute................
If we sometimes spent a little consideration on ourselves, and employed in probing ourselves the time we put into checking up on others and learning about things that are outside us, we would easily sense how much this fabric of ours is built up of feeble and failing pieces. Is it not a singular evidence of our imperfection that we cannot establish our contentment in any one thing, and that even in desire and imagination it is beyond our power to choose what we need? A good proof of this is the great dispute that has always gone on between the philosophers over the sovereign good of man, and that still goes on and will go on eternally, without solution and without agreement:
-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book 1, Chapter 53
Monday, March 6, 2023
Aging like a fine wine...............
2. I have realized that I am not “Atlas”. The world does not rest on my shoulders.
3. I have stopped bargaining with vegetable & fruit vendors. A few pennies more is not going to break me, but it might help the poor fellow save for his daughter’s school fees.
4. I leave my waitress a big tip. The extra money might bring a smile to her face. She is toiling much harder for a living than I am.
6. I have learned not to correct people even when I know they are wrong. The onus of making everyone perfect is not on me. Peace is more precious than perfection.
14. I am doing what makes me happy. I am responsible for my happiness, and I owe it to myself. Happiness is a choice. You can be happy at any time, just choose to be!
Habits.................
If two people have the same goal, you know nothing about the similarity of their results. But if two people have the same daily habits, you can infer quite a bit about the similarity of their results. Your results are largely a byproduct of your habits.
Rooting for "polarization".............
“There are some encouraging signs of polarization.” Nothing flippant inheres in this remark; a long and risky life has persuaded him that only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity. Conflict may be painful, but the painless solution does not exist in any case and the pursuit of it leads to the painful outcome of mindlessness and pointlessness; the apotheosis of the ostrich.
I'm sure this will end well...............
.............. California Department of Health is building a "Decision Intelligence Unit."
Back story here. Why do I think that "we will secure grants" was the driving factor of the story.
Reconditioning....................
My most surprising discovery in the last five years is that peace and happiness are skills. These are not things you are born with. Yes, there is a genetic range. And a lot of it is conditioning from your environment, but you can un-condition and recondition yourself.
You can increase your happiness over time, and it starts with believing you can.
It's a skill. Just like nutrition is a skill, dieting is a skill, working out is a skill, making money is a skill, meeting girls and guys is a skill. It starts with realizing they're skills you can learn. When you put your intention and focus on it, the world can become a better place.
When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you.
When playing, surround yourself with people happier than you.
On changing "reality".................
Once one realizes the reality of reality’s vast and incomprehensible-in-its-concrete-details complexity, one is naturally humble about what one can do to ‘change’ reality. Schemes for using the coercive powers of government to achieve economic and social betterment are then naturally viewed with enormous skepticism. How do you know? How will you acquire the knowledge you must acquire if your scheme is to work as promised? Such questions are instinctively asked by the wise and stubbornly ignored by the schemers.
-Don Boudreaux, from this post
Sunday, March 5, 2023
History may not repeat itself.......
................................but it often rhymes:*
Shortly after Jackson's death, one unforgiving New York Whig damned the General as "the undisputed head of a violent, proscriptive party . . . He did more to break down the republican principles of the government and enslave the minds of the people than all the rulers who went before him." Here reigned a virtual dictator, he continued, a master of "that pernicious popular homage called popularity." Fifteen years later, however, in the perilous secession winter of 1860, another Yankee, a New Hampshire Democrat, thought that only an indomitable Jackson-like leader could save the nation. "Would to Heaven," he wrote, "we had another Andrew Jackson . . . at the head of this Government . . . instead of James Buchanan." Both of these observers anticipated, in their divergent views, a sharp and seemingly endless debate over the meaning of power and populism in Jackson's America. The notion of the people preventing social elites and financial aristocrats from bullying, bestriding, or otherwise buying Congress is altogether attractive. And yet common man democracy's erratic energy collaterally legitimized Indian removal, slavery's expansion, and the troubling growth of presidential fiat. In important moments, as when Jackson ignored the Supreme Court in the Cherokee case or refused to honor the government's obligation to deposit monies in the National Bank, the rule of law appeared imperiled.
-David S. Brown. The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson
*this saying has been attributed to Mark Twain, however . . .
Opening paragraphs......................
 |
| The sarcophagus of John Paul Jones at the Naval Academy |
When I walked into the United States Naval Academy on a hot summer's day in the early 1970s, the first thing that happened to me was that I got a quick and brutal haircut. It was not only a sudden induction into military life but a way for the Navy to emphasize that my own power to decide anything, including the length of my hair, was emphatically terminated. Alongside twelve hundred classmates from every state in the Union and a smattering of foreign countries, we were then lined up in a very rough formation, broken into small groups—squads of about a dozen—and marched around the Academy grounds. The highlight of those first hours was an introduction to Captain John Paul Jones, or, more accurately, to his crypt in the heart of the massive Naval Academy Chapel—the de facto high church of the US Navy.
-Admiral James Stavridis, To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision
"turning inside"....................
In all of Colonel Boyd's writing he emphasizes that victory in combat accrues to the decision-maker who can "get inside the decision loop" of his or her opponent. This is precisely what happened in the climactic moment of the battle—Jones, despite having the weaker hand of cards, was moving more quickly to assess the situation (observe), analyze where the combat process was moving (orient), make swift choices (decide), and execute those decisions (act). In this process Jones anticipated the celebrated OODA loop developed by Colonel John Boyd two centuries later to categorize airborne fighter combat. In essence, Jones was "turning inside" the decision loop of his opponent, Captain Pearson. And it made all the difference, meaning he was observing/orienting/deciding/acting much more quickly.
-Admiral James Stavridis, To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision, as extracted from his chapter describing how John Paul Jones and his ship, Bonhomme Richard, salvaged victory from certain defeat in the battle against the British warship, Serapis. One version of the back story on the defining naval battle of the American Revolution may be found here.
Lessons from......................
...........................Major Dick Winters:
Even if you’re an older man, who never had the chance to try-out a period of full-on monk mode and now finds himself enmeshed in mature responsibilities, you can, and should, draw from the way of the monastic warrior. Find ways to periodically escape from the noise and distractions of the world to find solitude and “sharpen your saw.” Whether it’s a lonely morning run, an evening meditation, or a solo camping trip, such solitary retreats will clear your mind, rejuvenate your body, and leave you prepared to face life’s battles with heart and strength.
-via
Even us introverts need to get out and about....
Being isolated in your home, even with animals and the Internet for company, isn’t good for you, as millions of Americans have learned.
-Glen Harlan Reynolds, from here
Saturday, March 4, 2023
Tim Ferriss.................
..........consulted with Warren Buffett and learned some things:
(7) If we assume the point of investing is ultimately to improve your quality of life and the quality of life of those you most care about, investments that consistently add stress over long periods of time probably don’t make sense. Money is traded for things or experiences that catalyze certain feelings. If your investments are generating the opposite spectrum of feelings, it might be time to reassess.
It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees. Money is a means, not an end.
And in the end, most things matter very, very little. Do what helps you sleep at night and wake up with a low heart rate. To me, those are the hallmarks of a world-class investor who gets the big picture.
On the essence of identity............
But when meaning has been disciplined out of language, and the pride of doing something better than other people banished, and the superficial clarity of being a man or a woman prohibited, and the practical instinct of protection and of self-protection disallowed, and life’s simple practices shamed out of existence—when all these timeless human things, all created out of the senses, melt into air, then nothing in our experience will remind us of anything else in our experience, and we will lose the ability to discriminate, to cherish, to judge. Instead of continually expanding our sympathies by helping us to follow the thread of truth through dissimilarity, the moral imagination will shrink to nothing. And then any comparison, and any equivalence, is possible.
-Lee Siegel, from this post
Who needed research to know this.......?
Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response.
-as cut-and-pasted from here
Friday, March 3, 2023
Richard Dawkins....................
...................asks some important questions:
Who are these cringing little wimps whose ‘safety’ requires protection against free speech? What on earth do they think a university is for?
Thursday, March 2, 2023
The short answer................be nice
Maybe the broadest way to protect yourself is the simple rule that the luckier you are, the nicer you should be.
The more successful you are, the nicer you should be.
The better things are going, the nicer you should be.
That’s probably the best – or only – way to guard against entitlement, which is the main thing that blindsides you when luck turns the other way.
-Morgan Housel, from here
Evergreen.......................
If you’re going to sit back and wait for opportunities to come to you, guess what, they’re not coming.
A little bit.......................
..........................about William Morris:
 |
| William Morris Strawberry Thief Textile Design 1883 |
Morris speaks to us today because, for all his seemingly disparate activities, he was never diffused.
Both practical and idealistic, Morris was prodigious in his output, but, unlike Taylor, output was not his goal.
Morris "believed that eternity resides in the unique detail rather than in some Newtonian world of infinitely reproducible parts."
For Morris, taking pleasure in one's work was the essential ingredient of a good life, and its destruction the main crime perpetrated by the factory system.
Both George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats called Morris a prophet. His genius lay in the totality of his efforts and his ability to see clearly the steep costs of an age that values the material and the efficient above the immeasurable and the human.
-As culled from Maggie Jackson's Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
In the background..........................
Ah, "success".................
5) A surplus of “success” in one area almost always comes with a deficiency somewhere else.
The world’s 10 richest men have a combined 13 divorces. Buffett, Musk, and Gates, despite their financial and entrepreneurial successes, all suffer from somber personal lives. Naval Ravikant once said, “Envy is an illusion. The part of the person that we envy doesn’t exist without the rest of that person. If we aren’t willing to trade places with them completely - their life, their body, their thoughts - then there is nothing to be envious about.”
Extreme levels of outward success often come with similar levels of internal turmoil. More often than not, the most public successes aren’t living the most enviable lives. They are just better at hiding the skeletons in their closets.
The World Economic Forum..................
.............as understood by Joel Kotkin:
“WEF is a sitting target (of misinformation)—very expensive to attend, invitation only,” said Claire Wardle, co-director of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University. “It’s playing out the foundation of every conspiracy theory, which is that the world is being controlled by a secret elite and you’re not part of it.” But suspicions like these misunderstand the problem. A transformation of the world economy is occurring, but not because a bunch of elite business, political, and media folk preen on stage while enjoying Swiss comforts. Rather, the world is changing because the tectonic plates governing economics and politics have moved, and they are likely to continue moving.
No Pollyanna he.......................
Not only have we never experienced a Fed trying to fight an inflation problem under an abundant reserve regime, we’ve never seen M2 grow so fast for so long, or decline so rapidly, at least since the Great Depression. If the recent data are accurate, the economy is in for a very rough time in 2023-24. We have already seen some weakness in production reports but are not close to feeling the full brunt of the tighter money that started last year. Investors must be cautious; a storm is headed our way.
-Brian Wesbury, from this post
On the plus side.....................
Older brains aren’t as good at remembering details but they’re very good at recalling the gist of things. So as you get up there in years, you can actually be better at “seeing the forest for the trees.” Just like when it’s difficult to find something on your computer because there are too many files, having too many details can make getting to what’s relevant harder. Older brains can also be better at seeing commonalities between situations and discerning what’s key.
-Eric Barker, from this post
Warren Buffett talks taxation............
During the decade ending in 2021, the United States Treasury received about $32.3 trillion in taxes while it spent $43.9 trillion.
Though economists, politicians and many of the public have opinions about the consequences of that huge imbalance, Charlie and I plead ignorance and firmly believe that near-term economic and market forecasts are worse than useless. Our job is to manage Berkshire’s operations and finances in a manner that will achieve an acceptable result over time and that will preserve the company’s unmatched staying power when financial panics or severe worldwide recessions occur. Berkshire also offers some modest protection from runaway inflation, but this attribute is far from perfect. Huge and entrenched fiscal deficits have consequences.
The $32 trillion of revenue was garnered by the Treasury through individual income taxes (48%), social security and related receipts (34 1⁄2%), corporate income tax payments (8 1⁄2%) and a wide variety of lesser levies. Berkshire’s contribution via the corporate income tax was $32 billion during the decade, almost exactly a tenth of 1% of all money that the Treasury collected.
And that means – brace yourself – had there been roughly 1,000 taxpayers in the U.S. matching Berkshire’s payments, no other businesses nor any of the country’s 131 million households would have needed to pay any taxes to the federal government. Not a dime.
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Is this a great country, or what..........?
Envisioning U. S. Presidents with mullets. Ike made me laugh.
Fifty years ago........................
Advice I won't be taking...........
It's worth reading a microeconomics textbook from start to finish.
deliberately......................
Now, what we call technology is simply an array of tools laid out on the bench for us. Technology is therefore a form of wealth. The reason this is important is because the Bible says very little about technology as such, but it gives us a great deal of blunt and pointed teaching on the subject of wealth. If we learn how to deal with wealth scripturally, then we will have learned how to deal with technology. . . .
So if technology is wealth, then we are all surrounded with astounding amounts of it. This is what I refer to as tangible grace. If you have a smartphone, you have more wealth in your pocket than Nebuchadnezzar accumulated over the course of his lifetime. We have a responsibility to turn a profit on these astounding resources—and that is what is meant by productivity. We have a responsibility to do this methodically, deliberately, and intentionally. This is what I mean by ploductivity. This is deliberate faithfulness: working in the same direction over an extended period of time. Our electronic servants may be super fast, but we should be as deliberate as ever.
-Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth
a raggedy coherence (sort of like this blog?).....
Now most of us are information-age workers, doers and planners both. No men stand over us with stopwatches. We are our own efficiency experts, relentlessly driving ourselves to do more, ever faster. This relentless quest for productivity drives the nascent but rapidly burgeoning field of "interruption science," which involves the study of the pivot point of multitasking. For multitasking is essentially the juggling of interruptions, the moment when we choose to or are driven to switch from one task to another. And so to dissect and map these moments of broken time is to shed light on how we live today. That emerges, in the jargon of leading interruption scientist Gloria Mark, is a portrait of "work fragmentation." We spend a great deal of our days trying to piece our thoughts and our projects back together, and the result is often an accumulation of broken pieces with a raggedy coherence all its own. After studying workers at two West Coast high-tech firms for more than one thousand hours over the course of a year, Mark sifted the data—and was appalled. The fragmentation of work life, she says, was "far worse that I could ever have imagined."
-Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
Of the vanity of words..............
A rhetorician of times past said that his trade was to make little things appear and be thought great. That's a shoemaker who can make big shoes for a small foot. They would have had him whipped in Sparta for professing a deceitful and lying art. And I believe that Archidamuus, who was king of Sparta, did not hear without astonishment the answer of Thucydides when he asked him who was better in wrestling, Pericles or he: "That," he said, "would be hard to establish; for when I have thrown him in wrestling, he persuades those who saw it happen that he did not fall, and he wins the prize."
-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book 1, Chapter 51
Awareness.......
Through detached noticing, awareness allows an observed flower to reveal more of itself without our intervention. This is true of all things.
Awareness is not a state you force. There is little effort involved, though persistence is key. It's something you actively allow to happen. It is a presence with, and acceptance of, what is happening in the eternal now.
-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Physician, heal yourself.................
Unless doctors start treating whole people, AI will displace them, and no one will know the difference.
-Steven Goldsmith, from The Profession Formerly Known as Medicine post
Monday, February 27, 2023
Ouch..............
I grew up in the age of duck-and-cover. I find it galling that issues such as "safe spaces" in colleges devoid of divergent viewpoints, transgender bathroom policy, and vaccine benefits have ever crossed into the proverbial town square, much less all but crowded-out issues such as nuclear proliferation or America's place in the world. Sometimes it feels as though American policy is pasted together from the random thoughts of the four-year-old product of a biker rally tryst between Bernie Sanders and Marjorie Taylor Green.
-Peter Zeihan, from the Introduction to The End of the World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
No idea about his prospects..........
..................but I'll root for this attitude:
“I took the mindset that it was time for us to stop asking for a seat at the table. And we were going to build our own table,” Smith says.
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Riding the tiger..................
By the year 2020, every major institution of American culture had converted to the cult of identity.. . . As I have noted elsewhere, the motive force behind the mass conversion of the elites was a longing for control. Identity is a minority sect that imposes itself by shaming and silencing contrary opinions, even among those it purports to protect. Most Blacks don’t wish to defund the police. Most Hispanics don’t believe in open borders. Most Democrats don’t think government programs should discriminate based on race or sex. But old-fashioned liberalism is dying away with the boomer generation, and the elites, distrusted by the public, deprived of institutional authority, have gambled on riding the tiger of rule by internet mob.
-Martin Gurri, from this essay
Twilight.........................
Twilight cultures begin to show a preference for veneer and form, not depth and content; a stubborn blindness to the consequences of actions; from the leadership on down. In other words, an epidemic erosion of attention is a sure sign of an impending dark age.
-Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
On civilisation and belief.....
Civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity—enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence—confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one's own mental powers. . . .Vigour, energy, vitality: all of the great civilisations—or civilising epochs—have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists of fine sensibilities and good conversation and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilization, but they are not what makes civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.
-Kenneth Clark, Civilisation
Like it's not 100%....................?
Cutting calories by 25% can slow the rate of aging in humans and lead to a significant reduction in mortality risk, according to a new study from Columbia University.
Could have fooled me....................
Every day is April Fools from now on, let’s not get fooled.
-Seth Godin, from this post on the ease of manipulation
Yep..........................
People love familiarity. That’s true not just for faces but products, careers, and styles. It’s almost like nature’s risk-management system.
-Morgan Housel, cut-and-pasted from here
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
I'm sure this makes sense...............
Let's hope this continues; let's hope the Fed doesn't feel compelled to squeeze the economy just because inflation is a little higher than they would like to see. The truth is that on the margin, inflation pressures are receding (and by some measures inflation is already back down to 2%—see Chart #1 in this post) and the best way to keep inflation low is to allow the economy to continue to grow while keeping interest rates high enough to keep the demand for money from plunging. A greater supply of goods and services, after all, will help absorb any extra money that is still sloshing around.
Monday, February 20, 2023
On getting what you deserve................
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, nor a liberal or conservative one; it is an existential one for the country. . . .
If only he had been elected...........
There is one policy I regret not having promoted, however; for no one else seems to have taken it up. This is to make the tax system, at every level, entirely voluntary.
Sunday, February 19, 2023
learn.................
 |
| Claude Monet The Bodmer Oak Oil on Canvass 1865 |
When we shout at the oak tree, the oak tree is not offended. When we praise the oak tree, it doesn't raise its nose. We can learn the Dharma from the oak tree; therefore, the oak tree is part of our Dharmakaya. We can learn from everything that is around, that is in us.
for a war of their own....................
Things move slowly, for a long time, and then very fast. Europe has long become a museum to its own past; which is why we love it. We walk the cobblestone streets; dine in the ancient taverns under empty castles drinking wine that was made when life was lived then, raging all around and not in the rear view mirror. When people looked to the future, not the past for their ideas of the west.
-Joel D. Hirst, from here
Fifty years ago.......................
Checking in again.................
.....................with Naval Ravikant:
The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.
Intentions don't matter. Actions do. That's why being ethical is hard.
Embrace accountability and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.
Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now.
If they can train you to do it, then eventually they will train a computer to do it.
You're never going to get rich renting out your time.
Earn with your mind, not your time.
You will never be worth more than you think you're worth.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
. . . build your character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.
remove the barricade of knowledge.....
There's a great power in not knowing. When faced with a challenging task, we may tell ourselves it's too difficult, it's not worth the effort, it's not the way things are done, it's not likely to work, or it's not likely to work for us.
If we approach a task with ignorance, it can remove the barricade of knowledge blocking progress. Curiously, not being aware of a challenge may be just what we need to rise to it.
-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Makes perfect sense to me...........
Nonetheless, what Nagel compels us to confront is the very real possibility that the most fundamental problems of philosophy are insoluble but, crucially, no less meaningful and important for that. Taking on board Nagel’s view of philosophy can be an unnerving experience since it asks us to doubt some of our most strongly held pre-theoretical as well as theoretical assumptions, not least the common presupposition that every authentic problem must have a definitive solution or, put negatively, that only spurious problems lack genuine solutions.
it is up to us......................
Among the functions of the soul there are some lowly ones; he who does not see that side of her also, does not fully know her. And perhaps she is best observed when she goes at her simple pace. The winds of passion seize her more strongly on her lofty flights. Moreover, she gives all her being to each matter, and concentrates all her strength on it, and never treats more than one at a time. And how she treats a matter not according to itself, but according to herself.
Things in themselves may have their own weights and measures and qualities; but once inside, within us, she allots them their qualities as she sees fit. Death is frightful to Cicero, desirable to Cato, a matter of indifference to Socrates. . . .Wherefore let us no longer make the external qualities of things our excuse; it is up to us to reckon them as we will. Our good and our ill depend on ourselves alone. Let us offer our offerings and vows to ourselves, not to Fortune, for she has no power over our character; on the contrary, it drags her in its train and molds her in its own form.
-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book 1, Chapter 50
Studies show.................
Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.
-as culled from here
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