Book review – Page 2 – A millennial's musings

Ego undermines greatness by deluding its holder

In short: don’t be a needly distracted narcissist because it sabotages your mission. That’s it.

After Audible recommending this book for me in every way, Ego is the Enemy finally made its way onto my reading list. I wish it didn’t. Of course, there are some things that I feel the author got perfectly right in a refreshing way – especially because he is 29 (in 2016). Overall, the better insights of Ryan Holiday are concisely expressed in Ray Dalio’s Principles.

Premise and logic

Holiday takes the “study the successful” approach. There are a number of problems with that approach – and I am very close to banning any such book from my reading list for the future.

In general, these books tend to make an assertion, back it up with a historical fact – et voilà, it’s true. Not really. As a bunch of musings and hypotheses, it’s fine, but this kind of work implies that it’s didactic – “here’s how to defeat [your ego]” the title reads. Meanwhile, the “logic” doesn’t really hold water and violates, in the broadest sense, the scientific method. This isn’t science, it’s more related to philosophy, but it has to be logical regardless.

These Socrates-quoting authors assume that the idiosyncrasies of the successful are causal to their success. In reality, it’s a very small observational study with a handpicked sample. The collection of stories explains more about confirmation bias than it does about the proposed subject.

Holiday even talks about how passion in a certain field is common among the highly successful (e.g. Steve Jobs) – but he also points out that there are countless cases of passionate entrepreneurs, writers, etc – who failed. Great insight – and there are a few like that. Only Holiday didn’t manage to take another step out of his own work to realise that this very logic applies to saying that being dispassionate is the real cause for success.

Holiday simply swaps one brand of snake oil for another.

On this note, Nassim Nicholas Taleb just published this one-liner on Facebook that I simply have to include here:

Scientism is to science what a Ponzi scheme is to an investment.

While I don’t endorse using it as a manual, the only examples of useful books written in this style that I am familiar are Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and Discourses on Livy. Many of the “facts” that Machiavelli uses to substantiate his argument in The Prince are wrong – most likely deliberately, as it was intended to persuade his audience, namely Lorenzo de’ Medici. If there’s one thing we can learn from Machiavelli – it is that these books are written as least to some extent for the benefit of the writer. I much prefer books that simply theorise and use historical references very vaguely – rather than as quasi-scientific evidence – like most philosophers and my proposed substitute for Holiday – Ray Dalio. Musing should be musings – and they can be very good, but they cannot be sold the way that Holiday proposes. Ryan Holiday is such a clever and accomplished man though, why does he do it? I don’t know, but maybe the fact that it sells – and builds connections – has something to do with it. Indeed, the Amazon reviews are rather good: 4.6.

Nonetheless, we will have a look at his musings.

Millennials

Holiday doesn’t mention millennials, but it is pretty clear that that’s what he’s talking about. He is one too. His view of us, special snowflakes, geniuses who cannot bear the waste of working in junior positions clearly shows that he himself has never been in that situation. He knows that being in such a position involves just doing the work and making your boss look good. Holiday knows that that’s not what the Harvard grad that was selected out of thousands time after time for this position wants to hear. He reminds us of these, what he calls, realities:

you’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are
you have an attitude that needs to be adjusted
information you learnt in college in outdated

I broadly agree with assertion 1 and 3. Two is in and of itself attitudinal. Indeed, Dalio has interesting things to say about all of this and my views are for more resonant with his.

Holiday feels that our problem is the “indignities of serving someone else.”

He argues that rather than obsessing with one’s own ego, the said snowflake should trust the apprentice model that has produced great results in the past. (Holiday provides no data on how many lives it diverted into a mindless, creative-less funnel of paying mortgages and 9-5). He says, be an anteambulo (one who precedes to clear the way), attach and subsume your identity to the identity of those who are already successful and basically ride that wave to your own success.

Most of us snowflakes don’t have a problem with serving someone else. Making your boss look good is no problem. We understand that apprenticing under a solid role model is beneficial.

I feel the problem is the shocking emptiness and pointlessness (“should have been automated 10 years ago”) of much of this work in reality.

Frequently the work and the people at the top are both uninspiring. Many of them aren’t there out of professional fervour, but out of familiarity and necessity. The ones who do become anteambuloes are becoming the people at the top – with fewer perks year on year. Holiday had a different experience – it seems that the people in the organisations he worked for were there out of more exciting reasons. He probably doesn’t realise how rare that it. Us snowflakes, we yearn for purpose besides having the nicest car in the neighbourhood – which categorically satisfies the generations above us. Maybe it’s an illusion, but it’s at the heart of our snowflake-hood, not the indignity of serving someone else.

The other problem with accepting this lifestyle is that it quickly drives out whatever creativity was inherent in the bright-eyed intern. No matter how aware we are of how corporate indoctrination works, the bottom line is that it works. Staying in long enough will result in successful zombification.

The ego

Holiday’s use of the word refers to our need for validation and self-importance. Sometimes what he actually means is better described as jealousy. Sometimes he means lack of focus. He states a lot of obvious things about the harm done through ego barriers and emphasises the value of letting go of them.

In Chapter 10, the author says that tolerating badness can be necessary as part of achieving goals, and this tolerating is actually avoiding one’s ego.

Unless this book is aimed at finished narcissists, it’s kind of sounds like a Stalinist “goals justify the means” turned on oneself. Again, Dalio talks about this in his Principles – making far more sense. Not letting ego barriers stand in the way of achieving a goal is quite different to the ambitious/masochistic attitude that Holiday seems to advocate.

Holiday is refreshingly honest about the way the world requires us to be master story tellers and build our own brands – and hence the need to be special.

The author is averse to living in a fantasy and encourages action over overthinking. He describes the psychological phenomenon he calls imaginary audience with suspicious finesse.

Marketing, not philosophy

The opening chapters are much better than the average quality of the book. His structure isn’t terribly clear and he repeats himself a lot. It should definitely be shorter. By chapter 17 of 35, it was a bit “When is the end?” “Oh, could this be my ego sabotaging me?” “Mmm, no. It’s you thinking”.

My conclusion is that there are much better books out there on the subject. There’s nothing new here. It was interesting to get inside (the accessible) part of the mind of a rich and famous self-made millennial rich guy who knows how to sell things.

Ryan Holiday is definitely no philosopher. Even his references to stoicism are a bit lopsided, but then again – it’s just another example of confirmation bias. The language and references to history and literature – even the pretentious image on the cover – create the atmosphere of intellectual finesse. It’s not actually there.

He is a marketer – and seemingly a shady one too. I’d been warned by the kind of people that recommended his book not to buy it. Having read it, I feel a bit like my friends who went to Jordan Belfort’s seminar after watching The Wolf of Wall Street – only to come back and say that it wasn’t at all useful. It was a sales pitch of some bigger weekend seminar that he does later in the year. I never even considered giving money to Jordan Belfort – not after watching the film. Should have used that logic this time too!

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”

Indeed.

Infinite appetite for distractions

“…reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays….”

Brave New World is one hell of a book. I am so impressed with it, I barely know where to start. This book made me understand why people write fiction. Until now, fiction always seemed lyrical – and only accessible to those with a particularly creative rather than an analytical mind. For example, poetry always made more sense to me than fictional prose – because it doesn’t usually require one to conjure up things that have never happened, but rather seeing things that others mightn’t see in what did happen. Huxley strikes me as analytical – but well able to articulate his analysis through an elaborate metaphor that is Brave New World. The story line didn’t flow and felt contrived to me. However, the descriptions and the dialogue more than made up for it.

The book came out in 1931. Interestingly, it was banned in Ireland “for being anti-family and anti-religion.”

The beauty of the book is that we aren’t strongly drawn to side with one side over the other. While one side is infinitely more familiar and natural, the other eerily makes a lot of sense. Hence, it isn’t just a praise of our “old” values, but an insightful examination. I don’t know that Huxley meant it that way – but that’s how it reads to me today. Consider this, for example. Opposing the brave new world, we have John, a boy who grew up in a close-knit tribe and whose morals are deeply aligned with those of Shakespeare’s heroes. So far – so good. However, he had a troubled mother and grew up without a father. This clearly left a mark on him – and would never have happened in the brave new world. He also self-flagellates. Minutes after confessing his endless love to a woman, he violently disowns her – for wanting to have sex with him. He ultimately commits suicide. Not so good. John is implicitly compared to Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, nearly all of them – Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Lear and Romeo as he is pensive, ambitious, proud and impulsive.

While there are lots of insights to be derived from this book, I am not convinced of how new this brave new world really is. Is this regime really much different to what we have had before?

Most of all, for me, this book is a distilled vision of how human nature shows up when people are put into a very particular set of circumstances.

Highlights

The biggest highlight is Chapter 16. The Controller, the man who runs this new world, is a tyrannical yet highly intelligent and calm person. He is the one who makes the rules of the brave new world. He reveals how he made his decisions. Ironically, it reminds me of the last chapter of every Harry Potter book – where we always find out the real behind-the-scenes from Dumbledore.

/I really need to read more. But while we’re here, could the fact that Dumbledore’s first name is Albus be an allusion to Aldous Huxley’s first name – as J.K.R. took on some of the structure, (even though it’s not necessarily unique to Huxley)?/

What’s interesting is that, on a certain level, the arguments presented by the Controller seem both logical and humanitarian. Here are some highlights:

On the subjected of happiness versus grand feats:

“Civilisation has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism.These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organised society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic […] [In this society] People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. […] The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. […] you’re so conditioned that you can’t help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren’t any temptations to resist.”

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

On the subject of social order:

John asks: Why don’t you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you’re about it? For those who haven’t read the book, Alpha Double Plus is a genetically superior person who is educated (“conditioned” – and I believe that’s a fair word) to be aware of their individuality.

“We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn’t fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities… An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work – go mad, or start smashing things up.

Alphas can be completely socialised – but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren’t sacrifices; they’re the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run. He can’t help himself; he’s foredoomed.”

The Controller cites the Cyprus experiment, where Cyprus was cleared and populated with Alphas – resulting in civil war. While this is obviously not a real reason to substantiate Huxley’s assertion that a caste system – whether deliberate or not – makes society more stable, it shows that the Controller didn’t make this decision out of pure tyranny – but instead out of a rather unethical overuse of science. Yes, we usually say it is unethical to experiment on humans – at least in a social way, but perhaps it is also unethical to live in ignorance. Plus, in our real new world, it happens. Notably, Facebook experimented with our moods by adjusting our feeds – without letting us know, of course.

On the subject of the necessity of stupid work:

“Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labour, and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies. What more can they ask for?”

… This reminds me terribly of the life of the graduate intake of a corporation. Soma, “a holiday from the facts”, is described as alcohol without a hangover – I think most people wished for that at some point. The feelies are terribly reminiscent of VR. Earlier on in the book there was a reference to conditioning people to love expensive outdoor sports (rather than simply loving nature – as this alone doesn’t generate economic activity). Fancy sports is also a corporate favourite. There are reasons why that is besides a Huxley-themed conspiracy theory, but it’s interesting to note.

Another (thought)-experiment to back this:

“Technically, it would be perfectly simple to reduce all lower-caste working hours to three or four a day. But would they be any the happier for that? No, they wouldn’t. The experiment was tried, more than a century and a half ago. The whole of Ireland was put on to the four-hour day. What was the result? Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of soma; that was all. Those three and a half hours of extra leisure were so far from being a source of happiness, that people felt constrained to take a holiday from them. The Inventions Office is stuffed with plans for labour-saving processes. Thousands of them… We don’t want to change. Every change is a menace to stability.”

On the subject of the natural instinct to believe there is a god:

“You might as well ask if it’s natural to do up one’s trousers with zippers,” said the Controller sarcastically. “You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons–that’s philosophy. People believe in God because they’ve been conditioned to.”

Indeed, the premise of effective “hypnopaedia” (repeating statements to children in their sleep for the purpose of teaching them) is that one doesn’t need to understand ethical statements to be able to use them (unlike science – where hypnopaedia fails). It seems that that’s true to me: groups of people tend to have similar values because everyone around them has those values. Most people’s values aren’t derived from first principles, they are adopted through repetition. There are, of course, many reasons for this, e.g. it is a survival strategy and the basis of any community, but… it’s still a dangerous instrument. A particular aspect of hypnopedia seems quite realistic: people are convinced that their caste (a proxy for position in life) is the happiest place they could be. While gratitude is a virtue, it has gotten quite compulsive these days, much like in the book. Every self-respecting Instagram user reminds us of it daily. Then again, before Instagram & co., we had other sources who told us to be grateful – they know who they are. The author also talked about god in Chapter 17, very elaborately with lots of references to philosophy. I don’t think I can dissect that even to the same standard as above. I did very much enjoy his look at Edmund, Gloucester’s illegitimate son from King Lear. The Edmund of the brave new world would have been chilling with the ladies and “looking at the feelies” – not being killed off by the gods as in Shakespeare. Huxley’s argument that this mindless chilling is as good (as bad?) as death – it just depends what standard one holds themselves to.

On the subject of truth:

“I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger.” … We […] carefully limit the scope of researches. […] We don’t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment.”

This applies today. The usual argument is economic necessity determines whether research should be carried out. Indeed, Huxley believes so too, but in a rather twisted way: he says that truth and beauty don’t lead to economic growth. Economic growth, however, is the ultimate value: the goal is to be a “happy, hard-working, goods-consuming citizen”. Brrr.

“Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate… Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t… Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness.”

Huxley also points out that there is real science – and then there are applications of that knowledge for the good of society – that may have little to do with the bona fide scientific method. Indeed, the fact that Ford is a god in the brave new world is scary. While in the real world, we don’t have a conveyor belt mania to the extent that Huxley feared, we have indeed sanctified phenomenally successful people. While countless people still look to god for guidance, we have seen humongous growth in these business school types (or just, types) who “study successful people.”

On the subject of love:

The indoctrination concerning love is particularly chilling. Perhaps the most likeable character, Helmholtz, who belongs in the brave new world explains what he thought of Romeo and Juliet:

The mother and father […] forcing the daughter to have some one she didn’t want! And the idiotic girl not saying that she was having some one else whom (for the moment, at any rate) she preferred!

It’s chilling because it’s not wrong. It is robotic. Helmholtz acknowledges that Shakespeare wrote in a way that provokes strong emotions and admired his craft, but Helmholtz wasn’t able for any empathy. Lenina, John’s romantic interest, however, seemed to have some real feelings for him. Her friends though thought that she was unwell.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Neil Postman said:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

I think this has happened even during my own lifetime. Even among the most educated people I know, coming out with interest and knowledge in some obscure subject often provokes the question why do you know this? Was your primary degree in X? I am pretty certain that knowledge acquisition has lost a lot of its perceived value during my lifetime – now that we have Google. The deeper layer, of course, is that the process of acquiring knowledge yields much more than just the knowledge. At the same time, I wonder, has it ever been different? At the end of the day, if nobody wanted to read books or write down their thoughts, why is blogging such a big thing these days? I wonder if back when this book was written – writing – and especially reaching an audience – was primarily the province of those who had gone to Oxford and could afford to not have a day job?

“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

Welcome to social media. This, I think, is quite unique to our age. Furthermore, in the brave new world, people are never alone – leading to the distractions that perpetuate lack of insight.

Brave New World Revisited

Huxley later wrote in a non-fiction reflection of where the world is now in relation to his Brave New World that we “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” Indeed, he even sees religion as part of this distraction:

“’The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.’ But there aren’t any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?”

As a concluding remark, if I could, I would definitely make this mainstream in schools. I know in some places it is, but not everywhere. 1984 is a much bigger deal in most places -perhaps as it served a political purpose. This book deserves more attention, I feel. Most school kids struggle to understand Hamlet and King Lear through generating their own insights, but I think they would be able to relate to this much more.

And Happy Christmas, of course.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of this moment

“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”

Kurt Vonnegut is a genius – and it turns out he is a real connoisseur of the present moment – but he never stood a chance. I heard phenomenal quotes by him: ”We are what we pretend to be”, and rave reviews from a lot of well-read people. Reddit told me that Slaughterhouse-Five was a good place to start – and so I did. His examination of Christianity is excellent. The aspect of his book that left me feeling let down is the whole antiwar piece. He preemptively defends his attempt to write an antiwar book in Chapter 1 by acknowledging that its most likely a pointless affair – but still, his antiwar manifesto seems to lack depth.

“How nice – to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”

Vonnegut’s reflections on religion are certainly striking. He seems to strip down all the bells-and-whistles. He makes this interesting point: Jesus was a man like the rest of us. The fact that he is glorified makes it OK for us to not strive to be like him – because we couldn’t possibly. However, an appreciation of Jesus as a nobody would allow people to take responsibility for their actions much more. It strangely reminds me of the G.O.P. philosophy and what a well-off Republican might say about the poor in the context of the American dream – just swap the concepts of morality and money around.

Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse 5 meaning — This is what an American Nazi looks like – illustrated by John Holder

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”

Vonnegut’s descriptions of women are hilarious. He’s a Dostoevsky-level psychologist. The emotion Vonnegut creates most masterfully is that he-gets-it feeling most of us yearn for. You’d definitely go for a pint with Kurt. For me, when he said that Lot’s wife looking back “was so human” elevated Vonnegut into the “can-do-no-wrong” status. Reading about her in this context tempts me to identify her as the first ever case of PTSD – before it had a name.

“People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.”

His uncomplicated sentences and the absence of excess linguistic ornaments really add to Vonnegut’s main point – war is war. While it is tempting – and indeed seduces most, there’s no use in getting caught up in the ideology or the methodology of war at the expense of understanding the plain reality of it.

“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”

At the start, the frequent remark “So it goes” is gratifying. It occurs anytime somebody or something dies. It has an interesting effect – for me it breaks the forth wall and lets me, as the reader, know that the author and I are on the same page. However, as the book progresses, it becomes compulsive, matter-of-factly and annoying. His use of symbolism is a little too overbearing in general. His overly physiological remarks and “toilet humour” took away from the work for me.

Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse 5 essay — Absurd and relatable. Illustration by John Holder.

“If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I’m grateful that so many of those moments are nice.”

The non-linear nature of the narrative emphasises the senselessness of war – but again, towards the end of the book it just seems to be happening for its own sake. There are lots of non-linear compositions that benefit from this structure. My favourite examples are the films Once Upon A Time In America and Pulp Fiction. I think Vonnegut overdid it.

“Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is.”

The fatalist aspect of the Tralfamadorian philosophy and the recurring quote about having the wisdom to know if you can change something, the courage to change it – and all that – seem to conflict. In a sense, Christianity is fatalist. The “So it goes” reprise has a memento mori quality to it.

“No art is possible without a dance with death, he wrote.”

Vonnegut doesn’t have a very clear philosophical message, but he seems to be convinced there is very little free will if any. The irony of the main character surviving the war despite having absolutely no survival instinct adds to this. Billy seems to have little insight into his own suffering. He escapes reality by travelling in time. Vonnegut doesn’t really offer us an opinion on whether that’s a form of madness – or real life. My impression is that Vonnegut’s outlook is that life in general appears pretty random and not worth sweating over.

“Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

There is a lot of criticism in the above review, but actually I loved the book. My next stop is Breakfast of Champions.

Millennial ENTP struggles

Read all posts about being an ENTP

As a female ENTP, I am a reasonably uncommon breed. It’s not that I think that Myers-Briggs cracked some super important code – I don’t believe the “science” behind it, it’s a little horoscopy, but it is consistent – and they managed to describe certain things with impressive precision. It has been described elsewhere, but I will keep calling it ENTP for clarity.

Having millennial restlessness superimposed on ENTP-ness is tough. In a world where doing one thing really well gets rewarded exponentially well, it’s also scary. I remember being a medical student and shadowing teams in St. James’ Hospital. After a difficult thyroid surgery, I was waiting for the next case and observing the wonderful Professor T., a well-known Dublin Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon, reading the newspaper in between two surgeries. I was wondering what he was thinking.

I just imagined life as an ENT surgeon: day in and day out taking out tonsils, resecting thyroids and realigning nasal septa – by choice!

I don’t think I could do it. Thank God there are people who can. I respect it hugely and I fully understand we need it. Indeed, if he was even more specialised – and only ever did tonsils, let’s say, that would be even better for the patients. But what would it be like for him? How can one continue to find new facets to something like a standard surgery? He didn’t strike me as the type who couldn’t wait to go home. There must have been something there for him that was clearly missing for me.As you know, I have a strong dislike for self-help books. However, one of my favourite social media personalities (she’s Russian, so she may not be super interesting to the reader), reads Barbara Sher and specifically recommended a book called I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. The name did resonate with me. I never thought that a book like this would interest Maria. Maria left her job in – I think – publishing soon after she started to found her own beauty business. She’s married to a serial entrepreneur. Together they make an impressive couple: I think they started with quite little and now they’re running a few interesting ventures – and there’re babies everywhere. It would seem that she knows exactly what she wants. Apparently not.

Once again, it reminds me of how pointless it is making inferences about other people’s lives. Anyway, I am currently reading the book.

It’s not as cringy as I had expected. I skipped a few chapters that seem to bear no connection to me. However, Chapter 6 relates directly to ENTPs, without calling them that.

Sher describes people who want to try everything, to understand how everything works, who feel that by dedicating oneself to X, you are tragically missing out on Y.

Sher argues that our biggest problem here is the belief that there is very little time to do everything, hence, we hysterically push ourselves into a niche hoping that it will fit. I completely agree that that’s true. At the same time, while Mrs. Sher may have an interesting point, I wonder how it related to the exact opposite point made by the Stoics. They argued that one of the worst things you can do is assume that there’s lots of time.

I think the resolution of this dilemma is obvious. Advice is meaningless without context. It’s like those men who teach about business always say: Never underestimate your opponent. For this advice to be useful for me, I have to multiply it by -1. Never overestimate your opponent. [Obviously there are limitations here, but it is a more useful heuristic given my world view.] The bottom line is that it’s impossible to know the beliefs and assumptions of your readers. That’s why therapy works, but self-help books don’t. It’s all in the context.

If you’re reading this and you are an ENTP kind of person, don’t think that time is completely against you. I think we are prone to be hyperaware of some realities like the merciless passage of time – but we get stupefied by lists and all of these endless techniques on how to get organised. We’re already organised. We’re not distracted. We’re aware of the dangers of endless distraction. However, banning ourselves from pursuing them is just against our nature.

With this in mind, Sher recommends to write out the 10 lives that you will you could live. My list includes that of a retail investor, a philosopher, a psychiatrist, a blogger, a painter among others. Her argument is powerful: look at the list and see what can be done in 20 minutes a day – or just occasionally. I underlined this:

“Don’t dedicate yourself to poetry. Write poems.”

This thought was also brought up in a different context in Steven Pressfield’s War of Art and the less interesting Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. As it stands, I already feel a lot of pressure from society to be able to say “I am X.” A doctor, a management consultant, a journalist – whatever. It makes no sense to add to this pressure by imposing my own restrictions. Furthermore, most of the time, it’s just a way to romanticise what one’s doing. If I like it, I will do it. Labels just aren’t for ENTPs. Of course, it’s not just ENTPs. Richard Branson and Elon Musk don’t have to explain their meandering interests to anyone – because they’ve already won.

In a world that likes to label people, it takes courage – and yields tremendous benefit to remain unlabelled.

If you are an ENTP, or this feels like the story of your life – leave a comment – let’s be friends ❤

Cognitive curiosities: what our minds do without telling us

I am fascinated by the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. This is an ever expanding collection of my finds: biases, assumptions, adaptive mechanisms and shortcuts. I don’t recommend reading all of these books – some are (much) better than others, but here are the highlights by theme.

Awareness

We often deal with difficult questions by answering an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution. Is Jenny good at her job? becomes Do I like Jenny? [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

It’s impossible to learn if you think you already know it. [Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday]

Self-awareness comes in layers. The first is to recognise an emotion. The second is to ask why the emotion is there. Usually it is due to some event occurring: e.g. a piece of news, a breakup, a raise, someone looked at you funny, etc. The third is to acknowledge what meaning you ascribed to this event through your values and rules. For example, you may believe that someone breaking up with you means you’re not good enough as a person, or that getting a raise is a consequence of your hard work. The more important the relevant value is in the hierarchy of values, the more intense the emotion. The way you decide your values makes all the difference to how you feel. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson]

Emotional contagion is a real thing. [Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman]

We think that other people pay much more attention to us than they actually do. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

We tend to assume that others see the world similarly to the way we do. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

When your working memory is occupied, your ability to think is compromised. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Priming: our actions and emotions are affected by things we are often unaware of. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Naïve realism: the feeling that we see the world as it actually is, rather than through the lens of our perception. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

We are aware of the brain’s finished products, e.g. conclusions, theories, beliefs, emotions, but not so much how these were arrived at. Hence, it is difficult to recognise one’s own errors of cognition/assumptions. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Surprise leads to enhance conscious attention. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

People believe that they are more attractive than they actually are. This is why most of pictures look so bad. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Our brains are story telling machines. If we don’t know the facts, the brain will pad the story with assumptions. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley] It is easier to come up with a story that makes sense when you know fewer facts – as it is a simpler puzzle to solve. This is because we have an unbelievably powerful way of ignoring what we don’t know. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

“The media” are frequently accused of being biased. However, they never seems to be accused of being biased in favour of those accusing it. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

God always seems to agree with the person citing him. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

We have an overwhelming need to be consistent. We assume that other’s are consistent too, it’s called the halo effect. In our minds, a brilliant pianist is automatically a great driver and family man. However, a convicted criminal is automatically an aggressive driver and a wife-beater. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Desiring a positive experience is a negative experience. However, accepting a negative experience is a positive experience.The more you want X, the more 1/X you will feel. This applies to wanting to improve your appearance, mood and spirituality. The key point of the book, phrased more civilly, is to play to your strengths. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson]

Leaving your sense of self open to be influenced by external circumstances is dangeorous.
The narcissistically inclined live in an unwalled city. [Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday]

What feels bad isn’t necessarily bad and vice versa. Negative feelings are biology’s way to draw our attention to a (potential) problem. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson] [Principles by Ray Dalio]

Feeling bad is made worse by taking things personally, believing that it’s going to last forever and affects absolutely every area of your life. [Multiple works by Martin Seligman]

Time

Future-oriented people tend to be more successful professionally and academically, to eat well, to exercise regularly, and to schedule preventative doctor’s exams. But they are the least likely to help others in need. When faced with a choice to engage in a behaviour, future-oriented people believe that they are choosing the consequences, rather than the behaviour. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]

Present-oriented people tend to be willing to help others, but appear less willing or able to help themselves. They are the least likely to be successful. Good leaders are in the moment and have a way of communicating this to their audience to make them feel like they are the leader’s sole focus. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]

How we think and feel today influences how we remember yesterday. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]

Anything that limits our sense of an unlimited future changes our motivations and priorities so that they now focus on emotional satisfaction in the present. Those who feel like the future in unlimited, favour quantity over quality: more friends, more hobbies, etc. Those who feel the future in only short, e.g. due to a terminal disease, favour quality over quantity. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd] This is interesting in the context of stoic philosophy.

Money

We respond to a change in wealth in a measure that is inversely proportional to the initial amount of wealth. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

We take on more risk when all our options are bad. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

We perceive value as relating to gains and losses rather than to wealth. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Having explicit goals has a positive impact on achievement. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Understanding other people

Spending more time together doesn’t help you read the mind of the other person. It gives you the illusion that you can. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Emotion is carried through voice more than it is through visual expression. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Reading body language and trying to take on the other’s perspective doesn’t seem to help to understand the person better. What does help is creating situations where people can openly tell you what they think – and listen carefully. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

A quick way to build rapport with someone is to unveil private thoughts or memories to each other. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

A relationship is more likely to succeed if bad experiences are avoided. It has less to do with the good experiences.[Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Body language

We smile when we feel happy, but also, when we’re forced to smile by holding a pen in our teeth, it makes us feel happy. [Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are]

Two minutes in a power pose (think Wonder Woman or Usain Bolt crossing the finish line) lead to these hormonal changes in cortisol and testosterone that configure your brain to be assertive, confident and comfortable. Conversely, a small pose (arms and legs crossed) leads to changes that cause you to be stress-reactive, and feeling shut down. [Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are]

When you are in the high-power pose condition, it causes you to take more risks. [Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are]

It is difficult to empathise with a person fully until you assume their physical position. [Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman]

People who have had Botox have duller social senses being unable to mimic the facial expressions of others. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

We love echo chambers

Confirmation bias: we pay attention to the facts that confirm our point of view more that the ones that refute it. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman] When volunteers were told that they have poor IQ scores and given the opportunity to read up on IQ tests, they paid more attention to articles that questioned the validity of IQ tests than articles that validated them. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

The part of the brain that is involved in trying to understand what others are thinking, the medial prefrontal cortex, is more engaged more when you’re thinking about yourself, your close friends and family, and others who have values close to your own. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

How we are sold

Shoppers were shown four identical pairs of stockings. They didn’t know that they were identical. Shoppers always preferred the stockings on the far right, they were the last that they examined. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Making people want the right things

Changing the context is far more effective than changing individual minds. Otherwise cleanly people will litter if there’s already rubbish on the floor. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Economies grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

Black swans

Our memories cling onto the most outstanding, least likely things. Hence, when we predict the future, we tend to assign erroneously large probabilities to unlikely events.[Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

Predictions based on intuition tend to be overconfident and overly extreme. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

When we’re not sure about the probability of something, the best course of action is to default to the base rate and the propensity to revert to the mean. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

We crave uniqueness

We crave the feeling of being unique and constantly seek evidence to back it up. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We are much more likely to notice an opportunity to develop if it makes us feel significant. [Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday]

A man who claims to be searching for himself is looking for a sense of distinction. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

We are what we do – not what we think, say or feel. [Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston]

People tend to overestimate the differences between us and other people. This has implications for religious, racial and other conflict. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley]

Opinion vs experience

Expert opinions are not significantly more reliable than nonspecialists. [Expert Political Judgment… by Philip Tetlock]

Falsehoods will be accepted as the truth through frequent repetition. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Virtually everybody sees themselves as above average. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert] [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Our bias towards seeing ourselves as above average is accompanied by the perception that we are also less biased than average. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We seek to change our experience before we look to change our attitude to it. We don’t automatically look for silver linings. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We become less confident in a decisions when we are asked to produce more arguments to support it. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

We rate something based on the memory of the most intense point and the end point of an experience. Hence, an experience of consistent low-intensity pain is remembered as being better than a few intense shocks. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Intense shocks trigger psychological defences, but the mild shocks do not. That’s why you could forgive your spouse for cheating but stay angry about the dishes. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

A good strategy to predict how we will feel is to find someone who just went through the experience and ask them how they feel. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We find cognitive effort at least mildly unpleasant and avoid it as much as possible. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

If we deliberately avoid chasing short-term outcomes, the quality of our decisions and outcomes improves. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

We are obsessed with sunk-costs. This fallacy keeps people locked into situations that they should have left a long time ago. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

The planning fallacy: people are overly optimistic when they make plans. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

I know one thing: that I know nothing

It is virtually impossible to remember what it’s like not knowing a fact/skill once you know it. [Mindwise… by Nicholas Epley] The jury cannot disregard the prosecutor’s snide remarks. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert] We cannot reconstruct past states of knowledge. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman] I wonder about that. Is that not how negotiations work? Is that not how we lie to someone?

What we call “fact” is simply conjectures that have met a certain minimum standard of proof. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

People prefer certainty and clarity over uncertainty and mystery. While increasing our chances of survival they diminish happiness. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We look for causal relationships to situations that require statistical reasoning. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Happiness

Happiness is determined by expectations and our history rather than by real events alone. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Deliberate attempts to feel happy tend to lead to feeling worse than we did before. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We think that we will regret bad actions more than bad omissions. However, 90% of people regret not having done things. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

“Presentism”: we tend to evaluate historical figures using the values of our own time. Judging Thomas Jefferson for having slaves or Sigmund Freud for patronising women is like arresting someone today for having driven without a seat belt in 1923. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We consistently overestimate how bad we will feel and how long this feeling will last if something bad happens. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

We only care about a parameter when it is highlighted through side-by-side comparison. [Stumbling upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

Optimism is largely inherited. Optimists perform better. They take on more risks that they realise and bounce back from failure more easily. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Motivation

People will work harder to avoid bad things than to get good things. It’s a consequence of loss aversion. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

It is easier to assume that you’re going to fail than actually testing it. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson]

A sense of control over the outcome is very important to motivation. We have control over how we assign values and thus perceive the world as well as what way we’re going to act [Multiple works by Martin Seligman] The more choices we are able to exercise, the happier we are likely to be. [Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston]

We are more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to go after good ones. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

When believe that you can achieve something, you work harder. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]

Repeated failure in early life creates a sense of learned helplessness and leads you to give up on that area of performance. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]

Mentally rehearsing reaching goals step-by-step helps to achieve them. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd] [Principles by Ray Dalio]

Happiness and self-respect are our strongest desires. [Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston]

Giving up on a dream isn’t always failure. Sometimes we make wrong decisions about what we aspire to (assuming that that in and of itself isn’t a failure). [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson]

Anyone who gets really good at something have a belief that there’s lot os room for improvement. They doubt their work a lot. It’s beneficial to accept the possibility of being wrong unemotionally. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson]

Meaning and significant accomplishment is only possible through focusing and saying no. It means massive opportunity cost and less freedom, hence, few people do it. [The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F-ck by Mark Manson] [Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday]

Intuition

People taking a test do much better when they are in a good mood. They become more creative. They also become more prone to logical errors. Unhappy test subjects were shown to be incapable of performing an intuitive task well. Mood affects our intuition.[Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman]

Mood

People in depression focus on the past. They feel that ruminating on the causes of their symptoms will help solve their problems. This only leads into a downward spiral. [The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd]