An extract from Emerson’s Self-Reliance:

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not ‘studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a Stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him, – and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history.

I’ve worked with people who have not gone to college. People who have informally or empirically studied a craft and gone off and made a living of it. I’ve also seen college graduates fail at a real job. Folks who have graduated with honors and gotten beat up by the realities of work-life.

College is a micro-universe, a bubble. It has a set of rules that we can follow and reach a successful outcome. Like playing a video-game. You can start, play, fail, restart, try again, succeed. The reward is an acknowledgment from a group of experts. When finished, you have won the game of college. It does not imply you have won the game of work-life.

At the end of our teenage years, we’re given the task of choosing what we’ll want to do professionally for the rest of our lives. It’s not an absolutist choice, but society does not reward those who periodically switch professions. We are continuously rewarded in the career ladder if we become specialists at a craft. This makes the choice, at that age, immensely stressful. Even if we don’t realize it.

What Emerson reflects on in his passage is entitlement. As a college graduate, I felt a sense of “deserving” a certain job. I had studied all the components of computer engineering and passed the expert’s trials, so I must be qualified. Right? As soon as you start seeing how real business operate, and how money is really made –by providing value to someone else–, it is easy to realize how unprepared I was.

Emerson talks of “the sturdy lad.” One that hasn’t had the opportunity to formally train in a craft. One that out of passion or labor, has empirically learned a craft. If we come out of college so unprepared, isn’t work-life the great equalizer? Don’t we all, when confronted with problems from the true craft, face it on equal grounds? Aren’t we all forced to become sturdy lads in order to succeed? Don’t we all get a hundred chances?

A book about realizing metaphors as fundamental to our perception of the world around us.

Like seeing, hearing or tasting, they enable understanding the truth of our experiences, whether “external” (as in, the physical realm) or “internal” (ideas, thoughts and feelings). A representation of the experiences we live: past, present or potential. Information in packages.

The combination of both learned language and metaphors, aside from providing perception, drive many of our actions.

The deeper this book goes into defining, decomposing and categorizing metaphors, the more it mingles in philosophy. Our own personal philosophy is defined by a heavy use of metaphors. This likely happens unconsciously for most. It is also influenced by the culture we live in, which is also defined, in large parts, by metaphors.

Since we’re limited in the amount of literal definitions for concepts, we turn to metaphors to expand our understanding. They’re easier to remember, friendlier as components that compose concepts and are instantly relatable. They’re language’s representation of the human mind’s capacity to interconnect concepts. Gateways into ideas and interconnection of thoughts that flow out of our mind. This paragraph was full of metaphors. It’s fascinating.

Objectivism is not infallible for understanding the world (both physical and non-physical). Not for humans anyway. We require a grain (or a whole bag of) subjectivism as a complement. Through the injection of the subjective “metaphorical reasoning” we expand our understanding, using unique relationships between entirely different concepts. It’s a skill, inherent to human beings, and a huge driver of our species’ dominance over others.

Not all content consumption is passive. Good books, films, journalism, videos, podcasts, etc., encourage you to think critically. When you’ve finished a book or an album, there should be a period of time for you to reflect on what you’ve experienced. You should have a break to let your mind wander, to examine your response, to write your thoughts down, to discuss them with others. That’s one reason I love seeing movies at the theater. We talk about preserving the communal experience of watching movies, but what about when the movie ends, that ritual of slowly getting up, emerging into the lobby, and waiting until someone finally says, “So what did you think?” The conversation that follows, in the car rider home or over drinks at a bar, is what makes the passive viewing experience active.

from Escape Into Meaning, by Evan Puschak

Aquí va un extracto de El Evangelio Según Jesucristo, de José Saramago:

No obstante, la lógica no lo es todo en la vida, y nada raro es que, justamente, lo previsible, que lo es por ser el remate más plausible de una secuencia, o porque, simplemente, ya había sido anunciado antes, no es raro, decíamos, que lo previsible, llevado por razones que sólo él conoce, acabe por elegir, para revelarse al fin, una conclusión, por así decir, aberrante, bien en lo referente al lugar, bien lo que a la circunstancia se refiere.

El pasaje sirve como mecanismo de exposición. Se describe la razón por la que el protagonista tomó cierta acción: Jesús decide abandonar a El Pastor (Satán) después de años como su ayudante.

Es también un perfecto ejemplo de la prosa de Saramago. En su estilo, una reflexión está enterrada en texto que parece lleno de obstáculos. Una sopa de trama y exposición.

Si se ignoran los conectores y las disculpas, lo que el autor quiere expresar es: “La lógica no lo es todo. Puede suceder que alguna circunstancia o lugar, por más previsible que sea, acabe por elegir una conclusión fuera de lo normal”

¿Está justificada la verbosidad del autor? ¿es justificada exponer esta reflexión a trompicones? George Orwell es famoso por promover la practicidad del texto escrito. Por su arte de expresar una idea compleja con fraseo eficiente y reduciendo el uso de palabras inusuales. Esto podría interpretarse como un uso perezoso de la lengua. No es tan simple.

Cuando un sendero es mantenido, ¿es común permitir que crezca la maleza que podría obstaculizarnos? Una respuesta sensata es “no”. Lo ideal es mantenerlo limpio. ¿Es lo correcto caminar un sendero en su forma más natural o de la manera más eficiente posible hasta el destino? ¿Debe importar el objetivo del autor cuando leemos? ¿O debemos, simplemente, leer?

A nivel narrativo, ¿qué gana un autor al expresar una frase de una manera que parece desconcentrada? Cuando trabajamos, los cambios frecuentes de contexto son de los mayores enemigos de la productividad. Algo parecido puede ocurrir cuando leemos. Invertimos atención a un párrafo sólo para llegar al final y preguntarnos qué acabamos de leer.

¿Es el estilo de Saramago una expresión de cómo reflexionamos? Definitivamente no reflexionamos linealmente. A medida que avanzamos en una idea, justificaciones, contraargumentos y otras ideas se presentan. Todo esto desvía la atención pero también nutre la profundidad de la idea inicial.

El estilo parece estar basado en retórica práctica. En el estilo como ideas son comunicadas oralmente. Como si estuviese en un seminario acerca de lógica y la previsibilidad de los acontencimientos. En retórica, es normal añadir conectores, secciones y justificaciones a medida que vamos racionalizando lo que queremos expresar. La habilidad que se desarrolla es la de expresar ideas de manera concisa, con fraseo práctico y transmitible, al momento.

Mi conclusión es que, al escribir, no hay método exacto. La comunicación usando el lenguaje, y específicamente el escrito, tiene altos niveles de subjetividad. Por esto, es un arte.

Puedo entender a quienes podrían considerar a Saramago como un escritor complejo. Su estilo no es convencional y puede resultar difícil de leer. En particular lo encuentro plagado de riqueza e inspiración. Al expresar tramas complejas en este estilo, sólo deja claro que, con su experiencia, desarrolló maestría en su oficio.

This book was a lot of fun to read. It helped confirm my convictions around science and rational optimism.

Science’s mission towards representation of the natural world pushes out any reliance on supernatural beliefs for good explanations.

The Enlightenment, as a consequence of science’s philosophy, set the bases for human progress in a way no other form of collective thought had done before.

What’s the Enlightenment’s biggest gifts? The promotion of individualism and liberty of thought, which allow ideas to mature in groups. Large-scale problems are solved by rational ideas that spring up from these, not from those that tap into the emotional, like nationalism and tribalism. We take such liberties for granted and rarely acknowledge the historical efforts that have provided them.

This book put words to notions I have around factless, rhetoric-fueled ideologies, organizations and rituals. It’s mind-blowing how much information is collated, referenced and structured into flowy, fact-based explanations around the multiple subjects it touches.

Writing is not, and can never be, something natural.

Speaking is natural. We do it unconsciously, most of the times.

Words flow out with little reflection.

It’s an exposure of habits within us.

Writing is not natural.

There’s a sense of watching yourself think while you’re doing it.

The need to structure thoughts into the finger’s mechanical motions is separate from spoken sentences.

A self-consciousness that interrupts the movement of your thoughts.

Writing that’s meant to mimic the flow of spoken language is composed of short and rhythmic sentences.

Very few multi syllabic words.

It means the writer is aware of the reader’s attention and understanding.

More than avoiding complex sentences and technical words, what captivates readers is rhythm.

The writer’s capacity to inject cadence and grant breathing room.

Another breeding ground for novel-thinking, self-assesment and of how we think about social behaviour.

Concepts are explained from the perspective of behavioural economics and psychology. Some can be found, in different words, in philosophy.

It simply enlarges the significance of both areas of study. Individual and social behaviour is evaluated from two ends producing similar conclusions.

Behaviour is a product of biology and environment. The mind is a series of electrical impulses that live in the brain and are ruled by physical laws. There’s nothing supernatural about it.

Its study from a social science perspective grants scientific method to questions that have been asked by philosophy. “What is the meaning of life?” “What is happiness?” These are historically debated by philosophers. To behavioural economists, they’re measurable experiments.

Two selves, the experiencing and the remembering, shape the perception of happiness. They expose how complicated it is to reach a quick, objective answer.

Flow state, when seen as the engine of happiness, is a representation of the experiencing self. The more our focus lives in it, the better we feel about anything.

This is not what usually happens to us. We struggle to focus on the experiencing self and our focus is pushed by genetics and evolution towards the remembering self. The one that sources pleasant emotions but also the one that makes our thoughts wonder in the past and in the future. The source of anxiety, fears and doubts. The ingredients of an unhappy life.

Thoughts dwindled in the unsaid.

On things I could enable that would help coping with the fight: exotic places, experiences.

I thought of the futility of cell-killing chemicals.

Those that repair the broken bridge ahead with wood from next one.

I thought of depleting emergency funds. Of justified lies for the promise of expense coverage.

I even thought of rotten cells dying by glucose starvation.

Solutions are task forces, navigating in the vast ocean of the mind.

Entertainment, the clouds above them.

They are cleared by warm water and solitude, sadly, reactive. Void of forecast or planning.

Those which would have been granted by negative visualization.

Instead, apathy and a twisted rhetoric is the reality. An ignored burden.

We’re granted the freedom to become lords of the realm of our thoughts.

Lords of our skull-sized kingdom.

There are many types of freedom.

Ones focus on winning, achieving and displaying.

Others focus on us being the center of the universe.

One where there’s no experience, where we’re not the protagonist.

The truly important kind is the one which involves attention.

Awareness, discipline, caring for others. Thinking.

Thinking demands the ability to control focus.

The ability to learn. The ability to master thoughts.

To exercise control over how and what to think.

The mind is an excellent servant but a terrible master.

A lifelong objective is to master our thoughts.

To avoid the ramblings of the inner voices that plague us.

Voices concerned with the future and past.

Voices that wander around in the impressions that others have of us.

They’re blind to what’s present, to what exists now.

They’re fish oblivious to the water they’re swimming in.

Derek Sivers provides 27 conflicting answers put in gentile, concise words but are packed with philosophy, consciousness and meaning.

His words function as an elegant boxer, well-trained and efficient, throwing precise jabs at an opponent. The opponent being our anxious, doubtful or prejudiced thoughts, wondering if any of life’s paths are the correct one.