Take great
care to avoid mistakes when the decision is hard to reverse.
But! If you
make a mistake that is hard to reverse, there is no sense beating yourself up
about it. Your responsibility is to make the best next choice given your
current position. You must always make the most of the situation you are in.
Next play mentality.
-James Clear, from this episode
...............................with Walt Kelly
Having lost sight of our objectives, we redoubled our efforts.
God is not dead — He is merely unemployed...
Looking back on things, the view always improves.
Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
The best break anybody ever gets is in bein' alive in the first place. An' you don't unnerstan' what a perfect deal it is until you realizes that you ain't gone be stuck with it forever, either.
Halp! My powerful brain is blowed itself up!
Whenever you think that some situation of some person is ruining your life, it is actually you who is ruining your life. . . Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. If you just take the attitude that however bad it is in any way, it's always your fault and you just fix it as best you can—the so-called "iron prescription"—I think that really works.
Sit down before facts like a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived Notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
A superior man in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything. He follows righteousness as the standard.
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Here are four of the characteristics of a superior man:— in his conduct of himself, he is humble; in serving his superiors, he is respectful; in nourishing the people, he is kind; in ordering the people, he is just.
The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.
What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
I think that extreme centralization of government ultimately enervates society, and thus, after a length of time, weakens the government itself; but I do not deny that a centralized power may be able to execute great undertakings with facility in a given time and on a particular point. This is more especially true of war . . . All men of military genius are fond of centralization; and all men of centralizing genius are fond of war . . .
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume II, Fourth Book, Chapter IV
That which is necessarily and inevitably axiomatic—that upon which everything else depends—is to be touched at great peril.
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
Living within your means is a crucial financial skill for anyone. It is especially valuable to someone who just fell into big bucks.
. . . words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.
My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?"
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
The 19th century disruptions were severe, and many people suffered as their experience and skill set no longer matched the new economy. But eventually everyone, from the poorest to the rich, were better off for letting the industrial revolution run its course.
But in the 19th century, the disrupted were essentially powerless. What happens this time around, though, when the disrupted are the ruling elite themselves? These potentially disrupted professions include lawyers and doctors who already have shown themselves very willing to organize to block innovation, squash competition, and protect their high pay.
-Warren Meyer, from this blog post
The old advice of “Eat
Technique” nudges all of us to get to the point where key tasks are second
nature. We can then build from there.
-Michael Wade, as culled from here
Ferrari will always deliver one car fewer than the market demands.
-from Ted Lamade as he observes the seduction of "growth"
If you get good at something you tend to enjoy it. If you enjoy something you tend to get good at it. Which comes first? Doesn’t matter too much. . .
There are many elements of living a good life, but the first and most foundational is to love yourself and enjoy spending time with yourself.
Go do things on your own so you learn to trust your mind and view it as a welcome companion. If someone declared, “Tomorrow you must spend the day alone” the hope is that you would reply, “That sounds like a good day!”
The person who is at ease within finds every other space larger and more enjoyable.
James Clear, from this edition
No one yet has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not. Still, there are indications. Among crowds, in drawing rooms, among easements and comforts and pleasures, it is seldom seen. It likes the out-of-doors. It likes the concentrating mind. It likes solitude. It is more likely to stick to the risk-taker than the ticket-taker. It isn't that it would disparage comforts, or the set routines of the world, but that its concern is directed to another place. Its concern is the edge, and the making of a form out of the formless that is beyond the edge.
-Mary Oliver, from her essay Of Power and Time
What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness . . .
-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Bad ideas refuse to die, misinformation is everywhere, and a very profitable industrial complex has arisen to spread outrageous, inflammatory ideas — their business model IS clickbait. The mainstream media may be problematic, but social media is oh so much worse.
-Barry Ritholtz, from here
The straight-backed wooden chairs in Dottoressa Saviano's anteroom were instruments of torture. Chiara, try as she might, could find no arrangement of her limbs that provided even a moment of comfort. At present she sat with the erect carriage of a dancer, with her hands folded atop her knees and her feet together on the scuffed wooden floor. The dottoressa's secretary had cast several admiring glances at Chiarra's stylish pumps—and at her stylish husband as well. She was used to women staring at Gabriel; he was still impossible handsome. He also happened to be one of the world's finest art conservators, which conferred upon him an unwelcome local celebrity. Chiara managed the restoration company that employed him. For better or worse, they were among the most prominent couples in Venice.
-Daniel Silva, An Inside Job
As a result, Franklin was able to draw up a bill in the Assembly to pay for street paving, and he accompanied it with a proposal to install street lamps in front of each house. With his love for science and detail, Franklin even worked on a design for the lamps. The globes imported from London, he noticed, did not have vent on the bottom to allow air in, which meant the smoke collected and darkened the glass. Franklin invented a new model with vents and a chimney, so that the lamp remained clean and bright. He also designed the style of lamp, common today, that had four flat panes of glass rather than one globe, making it easier to repair if broken. "Some may think these trifling matters not worth minding," Franklin said, but they should remember that "human felicity is produced . . . by little advantages that occur every day."
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
These organizations also don't realize the criticalness of using speed and timing as a strategy to stay ahead of these monumental shifts barreling down on our culture. As a result, when faced with competitive threats or sudden consumer shifts, many established organizations pause, debate, set up task force committees, and get caught in analysis paralysis. When this happens, their more nimble and agile competitors find a hole in their defense system and exploit this weakness by picking off the most valuable customers.
-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together
.................electric bill. Yeow. Apparently the cool-make machine was working on overtime. Last time the bill was this large was like last July. Hmmm.
There are absolute masterpieces that move us intensely: Mozart's Requiem, Homer's Odyssey, the Sistine Chapel, King Lear. To fully appreciate their brilliance may require a long apprenticeship, but the reward is sheer beauty—and not only this, but the opening of our eyes to a new perspective upon the world. Einstein's jewel, the general theory of relativity, is a masterpiece of this order.
-Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Every so often I would raise my eyes from the book and look at the glittering sea: it seemed to me that I was actually seeing the curvature of space and time imagined by Einstein. As if by magic: as if a friend were whispering into my ear an extraordinary hidden truth, suddenly raising the veil of reality to disclose a simpler, deeper order. Ever since we discovered that Earth is round and turns like a mad spinning-top, we have understood that reality is not as it appears to us: every time we glimpse a new aspect of it, it is a deeply emotional experience. Another veil has fallen.
-Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Einstein wrote an equation that says that R is equivalent to the energy of matter. That is to say: space curves where there is matter. That is it. The equation fits into half a line, and there is nothing more. A vision—that space curves—became an equation.
But within this equation there is a teeming universe. And here the magical richness of the theory opens up into a phantasmagorical succession of predictions that resemble the delirious ravings of a madman but all have turned out to be true.
-Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Perhaps the most indispensable thing we can do as human beings, every day of our lives, is remind ourselves and others of our complexity, fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness.
-Antonio Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
Sometimes, the only qualification you need is the willingness to figure it out.
-Shane Parrish, as extracted from here
Underrated
life skill: Surrounding yourself with people who make you feel better.
Overrated
life skill: Surrounding yourself with people who make you look better.
“Tech Sector Sees 64,000 Job Cuts This Year Due to AI Advancement.”
“Quitting programming as a career right now because of LLMs would be like quitting carpentry as a career thanks to the invention of the table saw,”
-Cal Newport, from this episode suggesting No One Knows Anything About AI
That we are spirits that have descended into our bodies, of this Emerson was sure. That each man was utterly important and limitless, an "infinitude," of this he was also sure. And it was a faith that leads, as he shows us again and again, not to stasis but to activity, to the creation of the moral person from the indecisive person.
-Mary Oliver, from her essay Emerson: An Introduction
Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips.
-The Holy Bible, Proverbs 22:17-18, King James Version
But roughly every 120 years, global leadership shifts hands.
Why? Because success breeds complacency. Great societies, like great countries and companies, eventually get comfortable. They ride on the coattails of their success. They offshore everything to developing countries because they have the luxury of prioritizing returns and efficiency over resilience. It’s easy to chase lower costs abroad when the threats seem far away. But when it matters most, these societies find they’ve lost the capacity to build anything that counts.
-Chris Power, as culled from here
Since he burst onto the Latin American political scene a few years ago, Milei has added immeasurably to both the gaiety of nations and the public stock of harmless pleasure. With his shaggy sideburns and loopy facial expressions, there is more than a hint of the Mad Hatter about him.
Yet
there is a method to Milei’s madness. While the world fixates on Donald Trump’s
populist cocktail of reciprocal tariffs and big, beautiful deficits, Milei is
delivering a man-made miracle that should gladden the heart of every classical
economist and quicken the pulse of all political libertarians.
-Niall Ferguson, as cut-and-pasted from here
...............................September 11th and the collapse of the Trade Towers, "Shock and Awe" in Iraq, and maybe the mini-series Roots to this list.
Stories that stir our emotions involve situations that feature both sides of a debate—the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, and the light and the dark sides of humanity. Real-world conflict between positive and negative emotions brings up the issues of values, which make a story engaging.
-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together
Each day, we get to make a new decision about how to invest our time, our attention and our effort. If a community that used to appreciate our work doesn’t respond in a way we are hoping for, we can use that information to reallocate our work. “Thank you” is an appropriate response to a lack of appreciation, because we learned something useful. The audience didn’t owe us anything, but if they don’t want to dance with us in the way we hope, we can choose to find a new partner.
I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blond, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes, the result was satisfactory. "Aren't you Nick Charles?" she asked.
-Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Franklin, however, was no Malthusian pessimist. He believed that, at least in America, increased productivity would keep ahead of population growth, thus making everyone better off as the country grew. In fact, he predicted (also correctly) that what would restrain American population growth in the future was likely to be wealth rather than poverty, because richer people tended to be more "cautious" about getting married and having children.
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, An American Life
........................more than a summer, but this is a mighty fine reading list. Read half, looking forward to the other half.
Mamdani has also said that he’s intent on “seizing the means of production,” which sounds alarmingly like he wants to invade China.
-Martin Gurri, It's Gurri, read the whole thing
Economists in the 19th
century described production as using tangible resources, notably land,
unskilled labor, factories, and business equipment. But by the 21st century, it
was evident that intangibles increasingly matter. Human skill level, business strategy,
innovation, and the institutional environment determine how wealth gets
created.
-Arnold Kling, from this episode
Compensation follows autonomy.
When you need to be managed, there’s a cap on what you can earn. When you know how to create value and do it without being told, there’s no cap. This is structural, not personal.
The compensation gap isn’t about performance; it’s about autonomy.
-from this week's Farnum Street newsletter
All intelligent people should think primarily in terms of opportunity cost. When deciding whether to do something compare it with the best opportunity you have.
-Charlie Munger, from here
Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.
-George Washington, as he concludes his inaugural inaugural address
The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.
-Mark Weiser, from here
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.
30. Look down from above on the numberless herds of mankind, with their mysterious ceremonies, their diverse voyagings in storm and calm, and all the chequered pattern of their comings and gatherings and goings. Go on to consider the life of bygone generations; and then the life of all those who are yet to come; and even at the present day, the life of the hordes of far-off savages. In short, reflect what multitudes there are who are ignorant of your very name; how many more will have speedily forgotten it; how many, perhaps praising you now, who will soon enough be abusing you; and that therefore remembrance, glory, and all else together are things of no worth.
-Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Book Nine
The problem with democracy is that it does not always produce the outcome you want.
-Jonathan Turley, from this opinion
What matters is the moral. If you got everything else wrong from The Odyssey, but you left understanding the importance of perseverance, the dangers of hubris, the risks of temptation and distraction, then you really learned something.
-Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic
7. Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six
Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being.
-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Impatience is an expensive emotion.
Every app wants your decision in seconds. Every employer wants
results this quarter. Every investment platform profits when you trade.
Meanwhile, the boring investor who indexed and touched nothing decades ago owns
your neighborhood. Who's winning?
The patient inherit everything the impatient leave behind.
-from this week's edition of the Farnum Street newsletter
It seems to me that in the
current media environment, both envy and suspicion have become supercharged.
We’re all steeped in resentment. We’re all conspiracy theorists. Can we get
past that?
It turns out that one key to aging is learning to live in a future you didn't see coming.
-Marty Goldensohn, from here
I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.
-Ben Franklin, speaking at the Constitutional Convention, September 1787
Where I get frustrated, though, is the binary debate I see in business, boardrooms, and books declaring that the ruthless efficiency of Amazon or Shopify has finally won out over the romance of life and that retail is dead. Retail is not dead, but utilitarian retail is dead because there's now a much faster, cheaper, and more convenient way to acquire cheap commodities online if that's all you're looking to purchase. Human beings, however, want more than commodities and have desires greater than their possessions.
The debates between function versus emotion, literal versus imagination, and rock-bottom prices versus high-fidelity curation have been going on for generations in retail and will continue long into the future. Fortunately, there's enough room in the market for many players and positions to win.
-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together
And plumbers and electricians were usually more skilled in their trades than most journalist graduates were in their reporting.
-as culled from this VDH post
Brooks asks Hughes what he most would like to have more of than an average person: power, money, pleasure, or honor. They go through a process of elimination. What does Hughes care least about having in excess of the average person? Power. Then what? money. Then what? pleasure. So Hughes cares most about honor. He wants to be respected by people who are important to him. I also would have eliminated power first and ended up caring most about honor, but I care more about money than pleasure. Money to me represents security for my wife and family.
-Arnold Kling, from here
Ours
is a country where you can hear 800 languages spoken in New York City, drive
two hours, and end up among the Amish in Pennsylvania. We are 342 million
people, from California to New York Island, gathered together as one.
Each
of those 342 million will tell you that ours is not a perfect country. But we
suspect most of them would agree that their lives would not be possible without
it.
-from this episode of The Free Press
The essence of Franklin is that he was a civic-minded man. He cared more about public behavior than inner piety, and he was more interested in building the City of Man than the City of God. The maxim her proclaimed on his first trip back from London—"Man is a sociable being"—was reflected not only in his personal collegiality, but also in his belief that benevolence was the binding virtue of society. As Poor Richard put it, "He that drinks his cider alone, let his catch his horse alone."
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent struggle in America between two opposing impulses: the spirit of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community and association building. Franklin would have disagreed. A fundamental aspect of Franklin's life, and of the American society he helped to create, was that individualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were interwoven. The frontier attracted barn-raising pioneers who were ruggedly individualistic as well as fiercely supportive of their community. Franklin was the epitome of this admixture of self-reliance and civic involvement, and what he exemplified became part of the American character.
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Social mobility was not very common in the eighteenth century. But Franklin proudly made it his mission—indeed, helped it become part of America's mission—that a tradesman could rise in the world and stand before kings.
-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
What Alice Longworth said of her father, Theodore Roosevelt, is true of Mr. Trump, at least as far as his approach to international and domestic politics. He wants to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening. . . .
The 47th president loathes crusades for democracy, despises multinational institutions, and treats international courts with the contempt he believes they deserve. While he genuinely hates war, Mr. Trump believes in pressing America’s economic, technological and military advantages as far as he can in pursuit of an expansive vision of the national interest.
-Walter Russell Mead, from here
Our elders tell us, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Though well-intentioned advice, it doesn't entirely reflect the primitive parts of our brains that have had to make snap judgments for thousands of years to survive and thrive in our habitats. We're hardwired to judge things by their covers because, in previous eras of lions, wolves, and marauding tribes, that's how our ancestors stayed alive.
As evolved as we might seem today, this split-second context scanning and decision-making process never left us. It's still a core part of our environmental awareness and innate survival system. While we're not conscious of it, we prefer the world around us to be stable and predictable because it gives us a sense of control over our environment. But deep down, we know stability isn't always possible. So no matter where we are, we're constantly on the lookout for contextual clues and the slightest changes in our environment.
-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together
Humans, like all other animals, are selective creatures; that is, our survival and flourishing depend on our ongoing, mostly unconscious, selection of aspects of our environment for attention, interaction, and transformation. So, objects are events with meanings that 'stand out' within the context of a situation.
-Mark Johnson, The Aesthetics of Meaning and Thought
. . . What am I to make of this? Where did it come from to the weary human who'd rather parse the mysteries of oatmeal topped with strawberries, but then any kid knows that during the long night the imagination thumbs its nose at civilization as the lid of a jar screwed on too tight that has no idea what its true contents are.
-Jim Harrison, Old Times
...........................reading cursive is now a superpower. My kids can't read my parents' letters—and they were really good letter writers.
The failure to teach cursive in many of our schools may eventually be more harmful than we realize.
You
don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be the one who
shows up. Who is true to their word. Who can figure it out. Who does the boring
things well. Who takes pride in their work. Who is reliable. Old fashioned
things never go out of style.
All
of this has left them with an excessive need for control, which makes them
unable to deal with scenarios where being out of control is the whole point.
-Suzy Weiss, as culled from here
Jonathan Haidt gave a
platform to Emily Brownlee, M.Ed to deliver a rant against
technology in schools. Contrarian that I am, my reaction to her screed was to
think the solution is not to ban tech, but to ban schools.
-Arnold Kling, from this episode
Everyone wants the summary. But the summary is what's left after
someone else decided what matters. Their priorities aren't yours. Their filters
aren't yours. When you operate on summaries, you're thinking with someone
else's brain.
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