On people & living #

Notes on other people and on oneself — flattery and servility, books and time, success and fortune, and the slow business of becoming who you meant to be.

Servility is a form of flattery #

All flattery is fatal.

Exaggerated servility — indeed any servility, any shoe-licking subordination — is a form of flattery. It is flattery in disguise, because when someone behaves toward you as a subordinate, it flatters your ego. You might think of it, rather, as a form of deception — for that, morally, is what servility fundamentally is. When a man is deceived, he does not know it at the moment of being deceived; one can speak of deception only after the fact. A group, a nation, may be deceived without ever being aware of the process — for that is the very nature of deception itself. A century or more can pass, so that no one living within the deception ever becomes aware of it, since they will die before the day of revelation comes (an unexpected, black-swan sort of event, this revelation). Think of bloodletting, of lobotomy, of the belief that the earth is flat. But when we are flattered by another’s servility, we know it is fake and suspect — or at least we should — and to be aware of the deception and allow it to happen anyway is a weakness of mind. The one who deceives is always guided by his own interests, unless he is an imbecile.

Notes #

The Stoic’s last word #

The Stoic wants the last word with fate: to transform fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.

Doctorates and trade schools #

The stupidest people are the ones with doctorates — the academic types, the university lecturers. A little education is dangerous. I would rather talk with a man who went to trade school than with such a pseudo-intellectual. Given a similar level of achievement — one after trade school, one after a doctorate — the one from trade school will be far wiser, because he achieved some success despite the lack of papers. Keep company either with people like that, or with the truly intellectual — who are, however, very rarely met.

For a tolerant society #

For a society to be tolerant, it must be intolerant of intolerance.

The art of conversation #

The art of conversation: avoid any imbalance.

On diversity #

At work you want people who look different but think alike, or who look alike but think differently.

The news, and the mood #

I am too sensitive to alcohol, drugs, sugar — and the news. I recently found that a three-month, absolute break from the news stopped my bipolar mood swings. I simply feel good in my skin, and relaxed — all because I stopped feeding my brain’s circuits and chemistry with that negatively skewed stuff.

Eat as your ancestors ate #

Modern diets — “vegan,” high-protein, and the rest — are absurd inventions. It is best to eat what our ancestors ate and did not die out from, along the very path of self-elimination and evolution; so, logically, such a diet (and many old customs) is the safe option. Novelties have not been properly tested — that takes many years. So eat as your forebears ate. At the moment I am content with the Greek Orthodox calendar. I have learned to value simple food: fresh bread (bread alone), a piece of fruit, yoghurt.

The clock that does not understand time #

(Super-agers, a book.) Why does time fly, and grow more precious with age — so that, consequently, you don’t see older people idling about? Because, thinking about time, one thinks forward: from now until, say, eighty. With each day that distance shortens, so that the proportion of, say, ten minutes divided by the time expected to remain gives the real measure of time — not the mechanical clock, which does not itself know the concept, or the preciousness, of time. What a paradox: a clock that does not understand time.

Practice, and the glance of a master #

When Buffett reads a financial statement, it is like a chess master seeing the opportunity at a glance of the board. It is practice.

Wrap ideas in stories #

When writing, wrap ideas in stories and metaphors. They are easier to read, and easier to remember.

A private library #

I started a private library, at first because I wanted a reminder of a book I had felt like reading at some moment — so I bought them as reminders to read them. But there was another, unexpected thing: these books are menacing. They are a tool of research, and above all they remind me how little I know. The more one knows, the more unread books one has — for they carry a higher value than the ones already read. (And good books, too, need to be re-read.)

Is DNA like a book? #

Is DNA similar to books? What I mean is that both carry us beyond our own lives. And some books are bestsellers, just as some strands of DNA are bestsellers, and survive.

Success produces talent #

In cinema, music and the arts, success belongs to the decision of fortune — and it is success that produces talent. It is not that talent produces success; it is success that produces talent.

Art and the mimetic #

The success of art depends on a mimetic process. We like art that imitates others, so as to belong to some culture. So art exists to create a centre of interest — to create culture.

Becoming one’s heroes #

It is strange that I see myself turning slowly, and mostly by surprise — imperceptibly — into the heroes of my past, the figures I aspired to be. It feels like growing old, because these figures of mine were old, virtuous men. But what if I started a tradition of young virtuous men, as an example to follow in life?

A book like Wittgenstein #

What if I wrote a book as a series of fiction stories? Or in paragraphs, like Wittgenstein?

Libraries are doors #

When I look at my libraries, I see doors to infinite universes: there lie thoughts that have manifested since we discovered the first written artefacts. To travel in the physical world has its limits; in the world of the mind, there are none.

On the shoulders of others #

We have to advance standing on the shoulders of others; otherwise we would be in the same position as Adam and Eve.