Reading takes effort. Put on your pants. Inspiration vs cynicism, fight! Fools never listen. Just do things. Imposing our standards on others. Simplification vs. complexity, fight!
“The best revenge is to not be like your enemy.”
– Marcus Aurelius
1. “We are choosing to be functionally illiterate.”
Wisdom Takes Work – Ryan Holiday – (ebook)
Yes, it’s another admonition (from me) to put down the device and (from Holiday) to pick up a book.
It doesn’t matter that we can read. If we don’t, as General Mattis has said, we are choosing to be functionally illiterate. There are many paths to wisdom, but nearly every one of them runs through books.
Emphasis mine.
There’s a lot to be concerned about these days. I’d place the increase in functional illiteracy at the top.
Do this: Don’t just read a book, but encourage others to do the same. Be a role model.
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2. “Put on socially acceptable pants”
Be Dignified, as a Rule – David Cain – (Raptitude)
The concept is probably best explained by the opening example / premise: we feel more focused, attuned, or inspired when we treat our work with greater dignity. Putting on actual work clothes results in slightly better work than doing the same in our PJs. I know it’s not that way for everyone, or perhaps not to the same degree, but the concept makes sense.
Our tools have removed some of that dignity and intentionality.
The more our tools automate once-manual actions, and the more we access them all through the same lifeless touchscreen, the less intentionality and resolve there is behind whatever we’re doing. Maybe some friction and formality is a good thing, because it keeps our values in charge of the action, leaving less to momentum.
Do this: Keep your values in charge.
#dignity #intention #formality
3. “The cynic can always find a counterexample”
How to Stay Inspired in a Cynical World – Joan Westenberg – (YouTube)
Too many people are giving up because they’re told that things are bad, over, or what they’re dreaming of just isn’t possible. They’re letting the cynics win. It’s not that the inspired are wrong or that the cynics are wrong — both are both right and wrong across a wide variety of situations. Both are valuable. It’s that we can’t simply allow a cynical viewpoint — all too common these days — to dash all hope.
Generate ideas with inspiration, evaluate them with skepticism, refine them with more inspiration, and test them with more skepticism.
Who do you want to be?
The question is whether you want to spend your finite cognitive resources on the stance that makes things possible or the stance that explains why they’re not.
Do this: Nurture your inspiration.
#inspiration #cynicism #skepticism
4. “Someone as wise as you should never waste time proving anything to a fool.”
The Donkey Principle: How to Avoid Foolish Arguments – Sahil Bloom (Curiosity Chronicle)
I love that sentiment, and I wish more people would take it to heed.
There will be times in your life when you’re drawn into a discussion with someone who has no capacity to act in good faith.
They have no intention of listening to your position or changing their mind.
They just want to argue.
In those moments, you can choose to opt out.
“No capacity to act in good faith.” They’ll never — NEVER — listen to what you have to say. So why are you wasting time saying it? You’re just adding to the noise that seems to define today’s social interactions.
I have one exception, since this happens at the day job often: I will often reply to public comments, not to convince the person to whom I’m replying of anything — they’re a lost cause — but to leave my thoughts for the more open-minded who come later.
Do this: Think twice before engaging.
5. “The cage was unlocked the whole time”
Most of your limitations aren’t real and you can *actually* just do things – Stepfanie Tyler – (Bad Girl Media)
This is another one that calls back to the day job. I hear regularly from people who are afraid to do or try things because they’ve convinced themselves they can’t. Or that it’s too scary. Or that it’s beyond them. Or that they aren’t supposed to.
You can just do things. The limitations you imagine are rarely as real as you think they are.
But the uncomfortable truth is that a lot of the constraints I was attributing to external factors were actually just internalized beliefs I’d never bothered to test.
You are more capable than you believe.
Do this: Test your beliefs.
6. “Expecting strangers to live by your standards guarantees frustration.”
On keeping your cool when no one cares – Darius Foroux – (Blog)
People are driven more by incentives than they are by almost anything else. And when we don’t understand the incentives others are chasing, it’s easy to assume malicious intent.
You are not crazy for expecting care and support from service providers. You are just expecting something the system is not designed to deliver.
We are so quick to judge, so quick to assume that we’ve been wronged, when in fact others are just following their script, which is different from our script.
Just stop turning every disappointment into a story about good and evil. Most of the time it is incentives doing their work.
This is the world we live in. It’s not good or bad. It’s just the way it is.
That’s a rather fatalistic attitude in some ways, and you certainly don’t have to agree with it. But understanding it as a possibility, and perhaps even using it to more effectively choose your battles, might be worthwhile.
Do this: Choose your battles.
7. “Just accept this explanation for now”
6 Lies You’ve Been Told, and the Complex Truths Behind Them – Travis M. – (ClearerThinking.org)
While I’m uncomfortable with the characterizations as “lies”, sometimes simplifications — even over-simplifications — serve a critical role in understanding. Sometimes they’re all you need; sometimes they’re a stepping stone to deeper knowledge. The example the essay starts with are states of matter: we’ve been taught there are three, but reality is more complex. How much knowledge is “enough” varies, depending on our own needs and desires.
The problem, of course, is when the simplification ossifies into the final, immutable truth.
The world is often far more complicated than the explanations we are taught in school or that we encounter when we first start learning about a subject. Those are useful simplifications, because they help us grasp enough to keep learning. But we should always be open to the possibility that things are more complicated and that we will have to update our understanding (of even the fundamentals) as we learn more.
There are several other examples, but I couldn’t help but think about how this concept applies to just about everything, including our current societal and political situations. Particularly in these realms, oversimplification can be downright dangerous.
Do this: Be open to complexity and be willing to learn more.
Random Links
- To be a woman is to be in pain – Required reading … for men.
- The Logical Fallacy Field Guide – Useful reference.
What I’m reading now
- Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World – Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- Wisdom Takes Work – Ryan Holiday
- The Nature of Things – Lucretius
- The Fire Rose – Mercedes Lackey (audio)
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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