Wisdom Of The Week

The doxographer Diogenes Laertius said that the Stoics described the supreme good as “honorable” because it consists of the four factors (virtues) required for the perfection of human nature: wisdom, justice, courage, and orderliness (self-discipline). 

The “honorable”, he says, denotes those qualities which make their possessor genuinely praiseworthy, by allowing him to fulfil his natural potential as a human being. The Stoics that the wise man alone is honorable and “that only the honorable is good”. The good and the honorable are synonymous, in other words, as far as the Stoics are concerned. However, the good is also that which is beneficial. The Stoics believed that doing what is honorable is in our own best interests because it allows us to flourish as human beings.
We might briefly summarize the Stoic code of honor described below as follows:

• Love the truth and seek wisdom

• Act with justice, fairness, and kindness toward others

• Master your fears and be courageous

• Master your desires and live with self-discipline

In addition to this fourfold scheme, some of the Stoics also refer to a threefold rule of life, which Epictetus describes as the distinction between the Discipline of Assent, the Discipline of Action, and the Discipline of Desire and Aversion. It’s easy to combine these threefold and fourfold models, though, as shown below. The Stoics regarded courage and moderation as two aspects of the discipline required to live consistently in accord with wisdom and justice, by mastering our fears and desires. We can see that in the famous slogan attributed to Epictetus: endure and renounce. Endure our fears (courage) and renounce our desires (moderation) — the Discipline of Desire and Aversion.

- The Stoic Virtues and Code of Honor

Quote of the Day

As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

- Pythagoras, 11 Famous Vegetarians In History + What We Can Learn From Them

Quote of the Day

Always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are. … Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the Day

The Stoics can teach you how to find a sense of purpose in life, how to face adversity, how to conquer anger within yourself, moderate your desires, experience healthy sources of joy, endure pain and illness patiently and with dignity, exhibit courage in the face of your anxieties, cope with loss, and perhaps even confront your own mortality while remaining as unperturbed as Socrates.

- Donald J. Robertson, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

How Conglomerations Of Stars Are Born & Die

Shortly after its birth, the universe was filled with gas, mostly hydrogen. Over time, here and there, gravity pulled the gas into clouds which turned into galaxies and in which stars ignited. Stars shine by thermonuclear burning of the gas; of those that die in explosions, some blow the gas back out of the galaxies. Out in intergalactic space, the gas cools and gets denser, until gravity pulls it back into the galaxy where new stars form. The process repeats: Gravity condenses gas into galaxies and stars, stars blow up and kick the gas out, gravity cycles the gas back in and makes new stars.

In time, any given galaxy begins to run out of recyclable gas. Without gas, it can’t form new stars; the old stars live out their lives and die, and eventually the galaxy dies too. Galaxies sit in a bath of gas, the medium from which they were born and which fuels them. The galaxies breathe gas in and out, and their stars burn until their gas is gone.

This is theory. The problem with verifying it has been that astronomers’ instruments could barely detect signs of gas, let alone map its comings and goings. With more sensitive instruments and dogged surveys, astronomers now know more. Convincing evidence suggests that the intergalactic medium is rich in gas, which fills the universe and seeds galaxies. Less-convincing and sometimes puzzling evidence in the circumgalactic medium shows that galaxies live by recycling gas into and out of stars. And astronomers have only preliminary evidence supporting arguments for how galaxies might run out of gas, stop forming stars and die.

- More Here

Quote of the Day

From the moment we’re born we’re constantly dying, not only with each stage of life but also one day at a time. Our bodies are no longer the ones to which our mothers gave birth, as Marcus put it. Nobody is the same person he was yesterday. Realizing this makes it easier to let go: we can no more hold on to life than grasp the waters of a rushing stream.

- Donald J. Robertson, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Quote of the Day

Emotions drive behavior. Every decision is an emotional decision at some level. Whatever your logical reasons are for taking action, you only feel compelled to act on them because of emotion. In fact, people with damage to emotional centers of the brain can list many reasons for taking action but still will not act because they do not have emotions to drive them. This is why craving comes before response. The feeling comes first, and then the behavior.

- James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones

Quote of the Day

We minimize our anger, calling it frustration, impatience, exasperation, or irritation, words that don't convey the intrinsic social and public demand that 'anger' does. We learn to contain our selves: our voices, hair, clothes, and, most importantly, speech. Anger is usually about saying "no" in a world where women are conditioned to say almost anything but "no".

- Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

Quote of the Day

One of the oldest clichés of journalism goes, "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out." But this gathering of professional reporters seemed unconcerned with checking things out. Sudworth said that in circulating Sonmez's allegations, there was no intention to "litigate their veracity." What an extraordinary statement from the head of an organization of journalists. Hearing both sides and gathering evidence—the process of "litigating veracity"—are generally considered reporting essentials. Kaiman was given a bare minimum of advance notice and no opportunity to respond. The FCCC purposefully released an unrefuted allegation, and virtually everyone who spoke at the FCCC meeting accepted it as fact.

[---]

How do you defend yourself in a trial by Twitter? Kaiman discovered you can't. After Sonmez made her accusation and he was suspended by the Los Angeles Times, he was constrained in his ability to publicly defend himself. Because of the workplace investigation, the Newspaper Guild advised against saying too much. And trying to explain his side of the convoluted sexual encounter with Sonmez on Twitter was impossible.
[---]

When an accusation is lodged, we must respond with fairness, not frenzy. We need to better understand the psychology of mobs and how people come to join them. We need to grapple with how technology is implicated in all of this, because as Fredriksson's widow put it, this isn't the Middle Ages—today, the destruction of someone's reputation and career can be immediate, global, and permanent. We need to recognize that a misunderstanding, even one about sex, is not a sufficient cause to result in the obliteration of someone's psyche and desire to live.

- 'I'm Radioactive',  Journalist Jonathan Kaiman is one of the least famous, least powerful men to be brought down by the #MeToo movement.

Wisdom Of The Week

Published by the Business Roundtable, Aug. 19, 2019

Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity. We believe the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment, and economic opportunity for all.

Businesses play a vital role in the economy by creating jobs, fostering innovation, and providing essential goods and services. Businesses make and sell consumer products; manufacture equipment and vehicles; support the national defense; grow and produce food; provide health care; generate and deliver energy; and offer financial, communications, and other services that underpin economic growth.

While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:

• Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or ­exceeding customer expectations.

• Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity, and respect.

• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.

• Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.

• Generating long-term value for shareholders. [They] provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow, and innovate. We are ­committed to trans­parency and effective engagement with shareholders.

Each of our stake­holders is essential. W­e commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities, and our country.

- Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation - I never thought even in my wildest dreams, I would live to see this statement !

Quote of the Day

He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

- Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Sufferings of the World

Quote of the Day

Nor was Friedman correct that business executives are the employees of the shareholders. Legally, business executives are employees of the corporation, which—crucially—they, not the shareholders, control. The shareholders have a contractual relationship with the corporation that entitles them to a share of its profits and a vote on certain major corporate decisions. Time and again, CEOs have used their power over the corporation to bat away shareholders when they propose that the corporation should act in a socially responsible way. When an employer says “jump” to an employee, the employee jumps. When shareholders say “jump” to the CEO, the CEO sues them.

Friedman’s strongest point was that business leaders are rarely qualified to determine the best public use for corporate funds. And that is why the switch to a “stakeholder” theory is hardly a guarantee that corporations will now act responsibly. The only proven way to stop corporations from polluting, defrauding, and monopolizing is to punish them through the law.

- Milton Friedman Was Wrong

What I've Been Reading

The most common relationship we have with animals is that eat them. This is followed by wearing animals, experimenting on them, and trading them for profit. Most animals abuse occurs not by rogue killers, violent spouses, or drug gangs but by industry and government. Research labs, fur farms, hunting ranches, animal trades, puppy mills, factory farms. These institutionalized forms of violence are more treacherous than any other kind because they have become normalized. By eating animals, experimenting on them, and wearing them, we have embedded the practice of violence into our everyday routines, With our tax dollars, our purchases, and our appetites, we have told our governments and businesses to go ahead and hurt animals. We'll just look the other way.  

Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies by Aysha Akhtar.

Thank goodness for writing this book Aysha! What I felt for decades and couldn't articulate coherently; she did all that and more in this splendid prose. Be prepared for an emotional roller coaster ride and if you don't feel anything then please do read Antonio Damasio's book Descartes Error first. The most profound and fundamental piece of brutality done by most humans but yet we hardly think leave alone speak against it.

• I am a scientist, but many scientist have long wrongly believed that only humans are conscious and can feel anything. That belief is unscientific. It is also an excuse for humans to abuse the non-humans among us. There is far too much of this.
• Anthropologist Brain Fagan described in his book, The Intimate Bond, that "our urge to make connection with fellow creatures is so powerful that it takes a lot to override it. If indeed this urge is so strong, do we lose something when we ignore it? Do we lose something of ourselves? Perhaps most importantly when do recognize our kinship with animals, what do we gain?
• We laugh together and cry alone. Grief is even lonelier when an animal dies because it's less valued that grief over the death of another human. Sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists have been slow to appreciate the impact of loos of an animal. An animal's death can cause poor sleep, missed days from work, significant distress, and depression. Among those who lose animals they deeply love, the extent of their grief is similar to that of those mourning the death of a cherished person.
• Sylvester nurtured me in ways that no one else could. Animals remind us that world is larger than us. They can teach us to look beyond racism, poverty, and cruelty in our lives - to step out of our daily struggles and see the beauty that surrounds us.
• The animals force the suffers to shift their focus away from themselves and their demons and attend to the animals needs.
• How animals are with animals gives us insight into their moral character. As early as 1699, John Locke advised giving children animals to care for so that they would "be accustomed from their cradles to be tender to all sensible creatures."
• "Manipulation, Domination, Control," wrote FBI profiler John E. Douglas., "These are the three watchwords of violent serial offenders."
• "This is normal". Throughout history, these three words championed willful ignorance. These three words excused discrimination. These three words fueled dominion over the powerless. And these three words tricked me into accepting Sylvester's abuse and mine. It's hard to recognize violence when it is seen as ordinary.
• We are slowly acknowledging animals as their own, unique selves. We are starting to recognize animals not as what, but as who.
• "I'm sorry," I whisper to them. "I'm so sorry".
• Since that day I often wondered why this woman would spend so much of her time caring for homeless animals when she herself is homeless.
• When we categorize, we polarize. How many times have we followed the 'us versus them' mentality to justify violence against another. At its most extreme, bias for the "us" group leads dehumanization of other people. Dehumanization has produced some of the darkest chapters in human history. In almost all cases, people have been devalued by being compared with animals. Portraying the "out group" as animal-like and less capable of emotions and thought render them less deserving of compassion.
• People have started to learn that pigs can be pessimistic or optimistic, cows show excitement when they learn something new, chickens share and tell one another when there is food, monkey help one another give birth, and rats enjoy being tickled. Confronted with this knowledge, we are forced to devise ever more tortuous mental contortions. 
• Our truth about animals are a creation of language, We have divided animals into separate categories, broken then down into parts, and reduced them into abstractions. All so that we can ease our conscience. Does it really work?
• To repurpose a phrase from Carl Sagan, we are made from the same stuff. With animals, we share far more than we don't share. 
• I think about Tom Perry's words. How did he know? I am sad. I'm sad for the animals whose lives will never be their own. I'm sad for Herbert who feels trapped in a grim business. I'm sad for lean who believes in this twisted relationship with animals. I'sad for me to have witnessed cruelty. I'm sad for the whole damned world. 
• We naturally inclined to connect with animals and yet we continually act against this inclination. When we go against our natural empathy for animals and inflict violence on them, either individually or systemically, we open ourselves to all forms of violence. And as our understanding of who animals are continues to evolve., so too does our empathy. We suffer when animals suffer. 
• Every time I've come out of a depressive episode, I felt as though I crawled through a gauntlet. Worries, fears, sorrows, and doubts throw their best at me. But I scrabble to the other side, bruised yet feeling a little stronger, a little more powerful. I survived. 
• Time stilled. And in that hush, fawn and man were the same. 
• Without empathy for mother cows mourning the loss of their children. Renee might never had conviction to open a sanctuary. 
• Stop it. It's amazing the power two little words can have. To me, they said I would longer doubt my self-worth. No longer obey another's rules. No longer assume the answers others give me. To Talup, they said I would no longer keep quiet. Two words changed my life. They were the hardest things I had ever said, but they set me free. 
• We go to great lengths to separate ourselves from other animals. We tell ourselves animals don't laugh (rats do), don't get pessimistic (pigs do), don't use tools (crows do), don't understand time (scrub jays do), don't do math (chickens do), don't trick others (squirrels do), don't feel empathy (mice do), don't pass on culture (chimpanzees do), don't show interest in their dead (elephants do), don't console each other (voles do), don't use language (prairie dogs probably do), and don't love. Seriously? If we are honest, we will admit that what we say about animals says more about us than the animals. 

When we are at our most vulnerable - at a time when speech fails us - our friendships with animals prove to be so healing precisely because human language is not needed.

[---] 

I quickly realized that the only way to be happy as a human was to spend all your time in the company of non-humans. 

Quote of the Day

A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge . . . according to necessity.

- Gurcharan Das, The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma

Quote of the Day

If we are not given the option to live without violence, we are given the choice to center our meals around harvest or slaughter, husbandry or war. We have chosen slaughter. We have chosen war. That's the truest version of our story of eating animals. Can we tell a new story.

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

Quote of the Day

We are acknowledging the interconnectedness of our lives with other animals. Their well-being is not separate from ours. On the contrary, we share the same fate.

Moving forward, how we choose to be with animals will depend on how willing we are to be with them. Not as predator and prey, not as master and servant. But as kin, as partners, and as friends, strolling shoulder to shoulder along the dips and rises that stretch before us. We lose nothing when we do so. What we gain is our health, our happiness, our humanity. And friendships that are irreplaceable.

- Aysha Akhtar, Our Symphony With Animals

Quote of the Day

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

- Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

What I've Been Reading

In short, seeking wisdom in solitude, Montaigne instead flirted with madness. He saved himself, cured himself of his delusions and hallucinations, by writing them down. Writing the Essays, then allowed him to regain mastery of his own self.  

[---] 

Thus, the Essays offer us lessons in the art, not just of war or peace, but peace in wartime, and a peaceful life amidst the worst kind of war. 

 [---] 

I have no more made my book than my book has made me: 'tis a book consubstantial with the author, and who touches the one, touches the other. Man and book have become one. 

A Summer with Montaigne: On the Art of Living Well by Antoine Compagnon.

• What he detests above all are people who are so arrogant that they take offense when someone else contradicts them. If there is one thing Montaigne loathes, it is smugness, conceit. 
• Life is about becoming, rather than being. The world can change in an instant, and so can I. The world moves, and I move, it is up to me to find my seat in the world. 
• Thanks to a fall from a horse, Montaigne - before Descartes, before phenomenology, before Freud - anticipates by several centuries the tendency to wonder uneasily about subjectivity and intention, and conceives his own theory of identity; it is precarious, disjointed. 
• Montaigne learns a more important, more modern lesson from the incident. It causes him to reflect on identify, on relationship between the mind and the body. 
• Mother nature, is always a good thing for Montaigne, who, setting it against artifice, praises it endlessly. The closer we are to nature, better off we are. He was one of colonialism's earliest critics. 
• Like Cicero, Montaigne believed that man could never really be himself in public life, in the world of society and work, but only in solitude, meditation and reading. 
• Montaigne spent as much of his time in this tower as he could, retreating there to read, think, and write; the library was his refuge from domestic and civil life, from worldly strife and the century's violence. 
• Here again, Montaigne returns to the idea that we do our best thinking when in motion. 
• If Montaigne, who spoke Latin before he spoke French, writes in French here, it is because that is the language of the readers he desires to reach. The language in which he writes is the language of the reader for whom he is writing. Montaigne is saying, I am not writing for the centuries to come, but for the people around me now. 
• Montaigne is no stranger to contradictions. 
• Montaigne and La Boetie were predestined for one another before they even met. Montaigne is undoubtedly idealizing their friendship. Later in Book One, in the chapter entitled "A Consideration upon Cicero," he is clearly thinking of La Boetie when he acknowledges that he would have not written the Essays if he had still had a friend to whom he could have written letters. We have La Boetie to thank for the Essays, in his presence as much as his absence. 
• Montaigne's withdrawal to his estates was never intended as a rejection of other people, but rather a way of improving his ability to interact with them. His life was not made up of two separate parts, one active and the second idle; it was composed of intermittences, periods of retirement and contemplation followed by well thought-out returns to civil life and public action. 
• We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is learned, We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. 
• "Knowledge without Conscience is but the ruin of the soul." Conscience - that is honesty and morality - is indeed the end goal of all teaching. It is what remains when digestion is complete and we have forgotten almost everything else. 
• Montaigne detest authority. 
• Montaigne did not choose to become a Stoic, or a skeptic, or an epicurean - the three philosophies with which he is most often associated - but he has recognized now, late in life, that his behaviour conformed naturally to one or another of these doctrines, by chance, and spontaneously, without planning or deliberation. 
• The companionship of books is always available. Old age, loneliness, idleness, boredom, grief, anxiety - all of these hardships we encounter in the ordinary course of life can be alleviated by reading, if our distress is not too acute. Books soothe our worries, offering aid and assistance. 
• Even when dealing with something as personal as his kidney stones, Montaigne never stops doubting, observing, and wondering. 
• Montaigne enjoys a good play on words: death is the end, not the aim of life. Life must be aimed at living, and death will take care of itself. 
• Montaigne does not like transitions or ornamentation; he prefers to go straight to the point and rejects all stylistic effects. 
• Montaigne's profession of humility regarding his memory is also claim to originality. 
• Montaigne has multiple points of view; he contradicts himself, but this is because the world itself full of paradoxes and inconsistencies. 

Of what use are the Essays? What makes Montaigne so human, so much like us, is doubt - including self-doubt. He hesitates frequently, caught between laughter and sadness. At the Essays' conclusion, this man who has dedicated the greater part of his life to them is still wondering if he wasted his time.

[---]

We sense that he feels a certain sense of pride at having succeeded in an unprecedented undertaking; no author before him had ever attempted such complete identification between man and book.

[---]

The moral code of life proposed by Montaigne is also an aesthetic; it is the art of living in beauty. The seizure of a moment becomes a way of being truly present in the world; modest, natural, simply and completely human. 

Quote of the Day

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Wisdom Of The Week

In fairness, these optionality-obsessed professionals often wind up happier than the other type I’ve become accustomed to seeing in my office: the lottery ticket buyers. These individuals are just one payday away from securing the resources they need to begin their work toward their true ambition, be it political, civic, or familial. They believe that one Silicon Valley startup or one stint at a hedge fund will allow them to begin their true journey.

While the serial option and lottery ticket buyers seem like different creatures, they are, in fact, close cousins. Both types postpone their dreams and undertake choices that they think will enable their dreams. But they fail to understand that all of these intervening choices will change them fundamentally—and they are, in fact, the sum total of those choices.

[---]

By emphasizing optionality, these students ignore the most important life lesson from finance: the pursuit of alpha. Alpha is the macho finance shorthand for an exemplary life. It is the excess return earned beyond the return required given risks assumed. It is finance nirvana.

But what do we know about alpha? In short, it is very hard to attain in a sustainable way and the only path to alpha is hard work and a disciplined dedication to a core set of beliefs. Given the ambiguity over the correct risk-adjusted benchmark, one never even knows if one has attained alpha. It is the golden ring just beyond your reach—and, one must enjoy the pursuit of alpha, given its fleeting and distant nature. Ultimately, finding a pursuit that can sustain that illusion of alpha is all we can ask for in a life’s work.

So, give up on optionality and lottery tickets and go for alpha. Our elite graduates need to understand that they’ve already been winners in the lottery of life—and they certainly don’t need any more safety nets.

- Mihir A. Desai, The Trouble with Optionality

Quote of the Day

Have you felt it too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you- except the things that count? And your most important is nothing to them; nothing, not even a sound they can recognize.

- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

The Great Silence

Many scientists were skeptical that a bird could grasp abstract concepts. Humans like to think they’re unique. But eventually Pepperberg convinced them that Alex wasn’t just repeating words, that he understood what he was saying.

Out of all my cousins, Alex was the one who came closest to being taken seriously as a communication partner by humans. Alex died suddenly, when he was still relatively young. The evening before he died, Alex said to Pepperberg, “You be good. I love you.”

If humans are looking for a connection with a nonhuman intelligence, what more can they ask for than that?

[---]

Human activity has brought my kind to the brink of extinction, but I don’t blame them for it. They didn’t do it maliciously. They just weren’t paying attention.

And humans create such beautiful myths; what imaginations they have. Perhaps that’s why their aspirations are so immense. Look at Arecibo. Any species who can build such a thing must have greatness within them.

My species probably won’t be here for much longer; it’s likely that we’ll die before our time and join the Great Silence. But before we go, we are sending a message to humanity. We just hope the telescope at Arecibo will enable them to hear it.

The message is this:

You be good. I love you.

- More Here

Quote of the Day

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

- Henry David Thoreau

Quote of the Day

We should experience as much as possible—just as insurance companies must—in order to make good decisions and understand the world with the right probabilities.

- Mihir Desai, The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return

Quote of the Day

I learned that focus is key. Not just in your running a company, but in your personal life as well.

- Tim Cook

Quote of the Day

So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.

- Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

Quote of the Day

A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee’s existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension. All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other manifestations of life."

- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Quote of the Day

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Wisdom Of The Week

Sustainable sources of competitive advantage. This might be the most important topic in business and investing because other than luck it is the only path to long-term success. The only truly sustainable sources of competitive advantage I know of are:

• Learn faster than your competition.
• Empathize with customers more than your competition.
• Communicate more effectively than your competition.
• Be willing to fail more than your competition.
• Wait longer than your competition.

Everything else – intelligence, design, insight – gets smashed to pieces by competitors who are almost certainly as smart as you.

Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all biased to our own personal history. Everyone. If you’ve lived through hyperinflation, or a 50% bear market, or were born to rich parents, or have been discriminated against, you both understand something that people who haven’t experienced those things never will, but you’ll also likely overestimate the prevalence of those things happening again, or happening to other people.

Start with the assumption that everyone is innocently out of touch and you’ll be more likely to explore what’s going on through multiple points of view, instead of cramming what’s going on into the framework of your own experiences. It’s hard to do. It’s uncomfortable when you do. But it’s the only way to get closer to figuring out why people behave like they do.

- Ideas That Changed My Life

Quote of the Day

Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.

- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Quote of the Day

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

- Richard P. Feynman

Quote of the Day

Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.

- Heinrich Heine

Quote of the Day

If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.

- Blaise Pascal

Quote of the Day

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Quote of the Day

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.

- Edward O. Wilson

Quote of the Day

Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.

- Tara Westover, Educated

Wisdom Of The Week

In the coming years, expect a lot of other omnivores to have similar epiphanies. Impossible Foods has performed more than 26,000 blind taste tests on its burger, which is on track to surpass ground beef in those tests in the near future. What happens then? Impossible has been laser focused on creating the perfect simulacrum of ground beef. But why? The cow never had a lock on gastronomic perfection. It was just the best we could do given the limitations of the natural material. Firelight was fine until electricity came along. Then things got really interesting.

Look for something similar to happen with alt meat. For now, it’s necessary to make people comfortable with the familiar, the way Steve Jobs loaded the early iPhones with faux felt and wood grain. But once people stop expecting burgers to refer to a hunk of flesh, the brakes on deliciousness will be released.

This will be generational. All change is. Most Baby Boomers are going to stick with their beef, right up to the point where their dentures can’t take it anymore. But Gen Z will find the stuff as embarrassing as Def Leppard and dad jeans.

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Recent projections suggest that 60 percent of the meat eaten in 2040 will be alt, a figure I think may actually be too conservative. An estimated 95 percent of the people buying alt burgers are meat-eaters. This is not about making vegetarians happy. It’s not even about climate change. This is a battle for America’s flame-broiled soul. Meat is about to break free from its animal past. As traditional meat companies embrace alt meat with the fervor of the just converted, making it cheap and ubiquitious, it’s unclear if Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods can survive the feeding frenzy (though Impossible’s patents on its core IP may help), but at least they’ll be able to comfort themselves with a modern take on Gandhi’s wisdom:

First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they sue you.
Then they try to buy you.
Then they copy you.
Then they steal your shelf space.
Then they put you out of business.
Then you’ve won.

- This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry

Quote of the Day

When you feel the suffering of every living thing in your own heart, that is consciousness.

- Bhagavad Gita

Quote of the Day

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

- Frederik Pohl

Quote of the Day

A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.

- Arthur Schopenhauer