Sixty years ago...............

 

Dave Brubeck Quartet............Three To Get Ready

transmissions..............

 

     We have said that a great civilization does not entirely die—non omnis moritur.  Some precious achievements have survived all the vicissitudes of  rising and falling states: the making of fire and light, of the wheel and other basic tools; language, writing art, and song; agriculture, the family, and parental care; social organization, morality, and charity; and the use of teaching to transmit the lore of the family and race.  These are the elements of civilization, and they have been tenaciously maintained through the perilous passage from one civilization to the next.  They are the connective tissue of human history.

     If education is the transmission of civilization, we are unquestionably progressing.  Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

-Will & Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History

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

reforming.....................

 

There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves.  Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us.  Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.  The tendency to look for all causes outside ourselves persists even when it is clear that our state of being is the product of personal qualities such as ability, character, appearance, health and so on.  "If anything ail a man," says Thoreau, "so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even . . . he forthwith sets about reforming—the world."

-Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

perceptions awry................

 

Captured by a blend of multiculturalism and white guilt that has infected so many at the highest levels, their leaders never perceived that importing large numbers of military-age single men from nations that regard women as chattel and freedom of expression as a joke might not be a wise plan, especially over the long-term.

-Michael Wade, from this substack

Meaning........................

Again and again, people said that life was busy but not meaningful. That experiences and relationships felt meaningless. Or that they didn’t know what they were meant to do in work and life. And it’s worse for the strivers than anyone else: The richer, more technologically advanced the country, the greater the percentage of the population that answers “no” to the question “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?”

Here’s why: Strivers are great at solving technical problems and answering specific, hard questions. They have been educated and trained to believe that, while the world is incredibly complicated, with enough knowledge and hard work, every problem can be solved.

The truth is, many big, complicated problems can be solved with sheer intellectual horsepower. But meaning is not one of them. “What is the meaning of my life?” is a question that cannot be answered like “How do I build an app for finding concert tickets?” or “How do I create an effective six-month weight-loss program?” Meaning is a question that must be lived, not solved with a Google search or simulated using artificial intelligence. It requires deep contemplation and a commitment to living a real life, full of unsolvable secrets, puzzling riddles, unexplainable bliss, and terrible suffering.

But in all their technical excellence, strivers trivialize their humanness by reducing life’s magnificent inscrutability to a series of complicated but solvable problems. They aren’t just living in a simulation; they are also creating the simulation they are living in.

So, if you’re a young striver, here’s what you need to know: Your life does have meaning, and you can find it. But to find it, you’ll have to think and live fundamentally differently from how you’ve been trained by school, work, media, entertainment, and culture.

-Arthur Brooks, from this edition of The Free Press

If only.................

 

When you claim the merit for all the good that occurs, you incur responsibility for all the harm that arises.

-Frédéric Bastiat,  Economic Sophisms and "What is Seen and What Is Not Seen"

Choice..................

 

Remember, each individual has a choice.  You are always the one in control.  The cause of irritation—our notion that something is bad—that comes from us, from our labels or our expectations.  Just as easily, we can change those labels; we can change our entitlement and decide to accept and love what's happening around us.  And this wisdom has been repeated and independently discovered in every century and every country since time began.

-Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

Action...................

 

The questions whether society or the individual is to be considered as the ultimate end, and whether the interests of society should be subordinated to those of the individuals or the interests of the individuals to those of society are fruitless.  Action is always action of individual men.  The social or societal element is a certain orientation of the actions of individual men.  The category end makes sense only when applied to action.  Theology and the metaphysics of history may discuss the ends of society and the designs which God wants to realize with regard to society in the same way in which they discuss the purpose of all other parts of the created Universe.  For science, which is inseparable from reason, a tool manifestly unfit for the treatment of such problems, it would be hopeless to embark upon speculation concerning these matters.

-Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

dogma vs truth...........

 

However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

still shaping...........................

 

The society of the modern world, which I have sought to delineate and which I seek to judge, has but just come into existence.  Time has not yet shaped it into perfect form; the great revolution by which it has been created is not yet over; and amid the occurrences of our time it is almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the revolution itself and what will survive its close.  The world that is rising into existence is still half encumbered by the remains of the world that is waning into decay; and amid the vast perplexity of human affairs none can say how much of ancient institutions and former customs will remain or how much will completely disappear.

-Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy in America, Book Two, Chapter VIII, 1840

On guessing/investing.............

 

The difference between a good investor and a bad one isn’t access to some hidden truth. It’s the quality of the process. How disciplined is your research? How well do you manage risk when you’re wrong? How honest are you with yourself when a thesis breaks down? Good investors aren’t right more often because they know more. They’re right more often because they’re more rigorous about how they guess, and quicker to admit when they’ve guessed wrong.

-Eric Soda, from this newsletter

AI and the real estate business...................

 

The tools are getting smarter. The question is how do we get smarter about using them.

-Joe Stampone, from this "writing is thinking" post

We can be.................

 

........................................hard to please.

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

 

Queen............................You're My Best Friend

a craft.....................

I start my valuation classes with a question of whether valuation is an art or a science, and I argue that it is neither; it does not have the precision that characterizes a science and unlike an art, it does come with principles that constrain you on what you can and cannot do. I describe valuation as a craft, where you learn as you value companies, and in the process, there are times where you question how it is practiced, and try to find ways to do it better. I have learned my share of lessons in the four decades that I have practiced valuation, and I have often abandoned standard practices, in the hope of developing better ones.

-Aswath Damodaran, from this episode

wanting incompatible things.............

 

Individual voters bears essentially no cost for holding inconsistent political beliefs — wanting generous pensions and robust public services and low taxes is essentially free, since no single vote determines the outcome. The irrationality is individually rational and collectively ruinous. Voters are not necessarily confused about what they want; they simply face no price for wanting incompatible things.

-Alex Tabarrok, from read-worthy this post

All my life.....................

 

On the first night of the millennium, remnants of the tremendous blizzard that tore through northern France the day after Christmas claimed the Pyrénées and tumbled down the mountainsides, chilling the village in which I live.  the wind that followed was thin and bitter—nothing like the full-bodied storms of my native region—and for the first time since I retired here a year ago I wanted a dog at the end of the bed to warm my feet.

     I packed a sandwich in the pocket of my hunting jacket the next morning and followed a game trail a thousand meters up the steep slope behind my house until I reached the meadow that saddles the snow-capped peaks closest to the village.  There I witnessed a spectacle long since disappeared in Normandy: a pair of golden eagles soaring, long wings cupping and releasing the wind, yellow talons tangling in midair like old men shaking hands.  Icy clouds sailed past the raptors in shreds.  I smoked and watched and flapped my arms and closed my eyes.  All my life I've wanted to fly and for an hour that morning I was the monarch of the sky.  When I looked through the binoculars Vincent has given me for Christmas I saw sheep in the valley, sunlight fanning across the mountain slopes, and the silhouettes of eagles dancing.

-Guy de la Valdène, Red Stag

Discovery..............

 

"Help us to find God."

"No one can help you there."

"Why not?"

"For the same reason that no one can help the fish find the ocean."

-Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

Scott Blitstein.................

 

and his site, The Sensory Dispensary, has long been a regular destination on my travels through the Intertunnel.  Over the years, I have learned a bunch about music, and a bit about cancer.  Scott has a GoFundMe page set up.  Please, do go visit it.