I actually think that this is not a Greek tragedy. It is a crisis of institutions. It is of course partly Bidens fault for wanting to a second term buI actually think that this is not a Greek tragedy. It is a crisis of institutions. It is of course partly Bidens fault for wanting to a second term but that is not what is indicative of decline of the US. Rather it is how very few people in congress or the media tried to out Biden as this cover up was becoming clearer and clearer. One thing I did like about the book was how the author clarified aspects of the US political structure and how older people rule congress. This is no excuse however for the cover up and the disastrous consequences for the US. ...more
"She said sociopaths are competitively disadvantaged individuals who use cheating strategies as a means of trying to make the best out of a bad psycho"She said sociopaths are competitively disadvantaged individuals who use cheating strategies as a means of trying to make the best out of a bad psychological hand"
It feels odd to read a book that came out that very same month. I usually go by Martin Amis dictum to wait until a book has aged 50 years until I read it (although to be fair: that was meant for literary fiction). I have never read a memoir of this sort which tries to explain how someone neurodivergent thinks and acts. I also found myself wondering what apathy truly means and how one can be 'apathetic' seeing as how there are always sensations to be experienced happening in the body (at least according to buddhist theory).
Patric Gagne is a sociopath. She grows up trying to fit in by mimicing emotions other people feel naturally. This by itself creates a pressure which she has to relieve somehow, often through acts of antisocial behavior (breaking into other people's houses, stalking people). The adrenaline provides a rush, a feeling, and thereby relieving her the dreaded apathetic state. She doesn't feel fear either and therefore has a hard time seeing the risks involved with certain choices.
The author carefully describes her journey and how she has tried to handle her own psychology, try to be happy. As time goes on she tries to anchor herself to other people in order to regulate her own behavior (at first her mom and then her boyfriend David). She also tried to find her "true" self and doesn't know "who" she is. I am curious about her husband and his motivation for being together with someone who is as cold as a sociopath. I would find it very difficult to date someone like that.
I am glad I read it and thereby (hopefully) gained a deeper understanding of how different the brain works depending on who you are. The book could've been a bit shorter though....more
"The discovery of new values in life is a very chaotic experience; there is a tremendus amount of jostling and confusion and a momentary feeling of da"The discovery of new values in life is a very chaotic experience; there is a tremendus amount of jostling and confusion and a momentary feeling of darkness. I let my spirit float supine over that chaos"
Leo Gurko was a Professor of English at Hunter College, his focus being mostly on modern literature. I found this used book in a old book store downtown and to my great delight, it contained a plethora of insights into Conrads work. Although written in 1962 it is still valid today (although my reading of Conrad is rather limited so I could be wrong about that of course).
There is a great deal to enjoy about Conrad's prose. I keep thinking of what Robert Greene said about negative feelings in a podcast I listened to the other day: it's important to experience these feelings in order to venture forth into the world and become a person. There are so many distractions in today's society... to become a great writer Conrad was forced to experience a lot of pain. He was the first pole (according to this author) to extract himself from his home country and re-define his identity. To live according to his own values.
I found the reason for Conrads switch to English fascinating. According to Conrad English is a much more ambiguous language than French (a language he had acquired during his childhod)."French he fond too perfectly "crystallized", to use his own expression, to satisfy a temprerament acutely conscious of the haze that hangs over moral issues and obscures the meaning of human destiny. As for English, Ford remembered how Conrad used to rail against its slipperiness: Conrad's indictment of the English language was this, that no English word is a word; that all English words are instruments for exciting blurred emotions. "Oaken" in French means "made of wood" - nothing more. "Oaken" in English connotes innumerable moral attributes: it will connote stolidity, resolution, honesty, blond features, relative unbreakableness, absolute unbendableness - also made of oak. ... The consequence is that no English word has clean edges: a reader is always, for a fraction of a second, uncertain, as to which meaning of the word the writer intends, Thus, all English prose is blurred"
I also found Gurkos discussion of Conrads legacy to be interesting: how at first his popularity waned as a consequence of the advent of various strict ideologies but once moral uncertainty was acceptable in literary circles, his work once again became popular. The same tendency can be seen today (at least in Sweden). I am drawn to Conrads work because of its ambiguity and its exploration of the darker parts of mans psyche. The only thing missing is the spiritual side of man but alas one cannot have everything I suppose....more
2.5 stars. Mostly about his work so if you are interested in engineering then this is for you. You get a better understanding of who he is but the boo2.5 stars. Mostly about his work so if you are interested in engineering then this is for you. You get a better understanding of who he is but the book so long I quit after 500 pages. I had a hard time relating to him as a person seeing as how he is so incredibly gifted... it just didn't seem possible to me for a person to be CEO major companies while also being involved in engineering details, meetings etc. In that sense he is obviously a unique person and I am inspired by his resolve to make humanity multiplanitary.
I guess the key takeaway from this book is his business algorithm. Don't automate before you investigate your premise. Question why first and investigate whether the requirement for a certain problem is correct. We humans are too prone to follow and accept the advice of experts. Then strip everything down to the bare essentials until you're forced be forced to put 10% back into whatever you are working on. This process is quite similar to editing movies: kill your darlings, and its better to go too far than not far enough.
Another takeaway is how much pain is required to build a company. To paraphrase another entrepreneur:"Excellence is the capacity to endure pain". I can't imagine how stressful it is to run two companies, both are on verge of going bankrupt. But then again, I guess you just have to be relentlessly persistent in order to be successful. Those who endure and actually succeed in their enormously riskfilled endeavours end up becoming rich....more
It is rare for factual books to give the reader the opportunity to completely reconsider their understanding of historical events. ThisTerrific read.
It is rare for factual books to give the reader the opportunity to completely reconsider their understanding of historical events. This is precisely what happens when physicist Carlo Rovelli writes about the birth of natural science in the Greek city of Miletus (located in present-day Turkey). It is a portrayal of a epoch in human history where one gains insight into how people thought before the Greeks (around 500 BCE) and the consequences their conceptual innovations had on our understanding of how nature works. Carlo Rovelli is an Italian quantum physicist with a profound understanding of both scientific theory and the history of science. This places him in a unique position to interpret the remaining fragments of Anaximander's writings. The reader is given a context and can therefore comprehend the conceptual revolution initiated by Anaximander. The book is written in an educational and accessible manner, with Rovelli successfully depicting complexity in a way that a layperson can understand.
The most significant shift during the 5th century BCE is from religious beliefs (such as thunder being caused by Zeus) to attempting to find deeper explanations for natural phenomena. No culture had done this before the greatness of Greek culture. It may seem somewhat unnatural to question previous dogmas, as they provide a sense of security and control. Earlier cultures had 'philosophical systems' created by thinkers that were not questioned by their followers. Thales (625 BCE - 545 BCE) from Miletus was the first natural philosopher, and Anaximander (610 BCE - 546 BCE) "stood on Thales' shoulders." The difference here is that Anaximander could question his teacher and thus falsify parts of Thales' theories that he deemed insufficient. This marked the beginning of the scientific revolution, which would later characterize the progress of the Western world. Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and all subsequent thinkers questioned their predecessors, leading to a deeper understanding of the laws of nature. Rovelli connects this critical attitude with the emergence of democracy and the political discussion made possible by this process. There was no centralized bureaucracy governing Greece; all cities (called poleis) were self-governing.
When Anaximander states, for example, that the earth is a stone floating in space, he goes from a closed universe (where the earth is flat) to a potentially infinite universe. This statement goes against our everyday understanding since, in our relative world, there is both a clear up and a clear down. "What precisely is the argument? It consists in overturning the question 'Why does the Earth fall?' into 'Why should the Earth fall?' The genius of Anaximander is then to question the extrapolation of our experiences to the Earth itself, of the observed universality of falling." This is truly a paradigm shift, leading Rovelli to often compare Anaximander to other great scientists such as Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus. All facts can now be questioned, but as Rovelli emphasizes, this should not lead to questioning objectivity. 카지노싸이트 seeks a balance between a healthy belief in objectivity and an awareness of human subjectivity; a subjectivity that can only be bypassed by continuously testing hypotheses against reality.
This makes the Greeks appear modern. If, for this reason, one is curious about the beginning of civilization, I have only one piece of advice: Read this book!
"The Greeks had got it right, he said. Their drama was a communal act, a sacred event, in which the ancient stories of the tribe were played out, enab"The Greeks had got it right, he said. Their drama was a communal act, a sacred event, in which the ancient stories of the tribe were played out, enabling the audience to confront the deepest, most sublime and most terrible truths of human life, producing a profound, an overwhelming, release - a catharsis - which was the whole point of the drama"
Simon Callow has managed to write an entertaining and often surreal portrait of Wagner as a man. It doesn't go as deep as the work by Magee or Scruton but if you are looking for a brief book which provides an overview of his life, you've come to the right place. Callow has a tendency to believe Wagner too much though since this biography heavily relies on Wagners own biography, My life. Having said that it is incredible what a dramatic life he lead and what he managed to accomplish. He was an inveterate gambler who took enormous risks and somehow managed to come out winning in the end. I wouldn't say he was a particularly likeable person. He seems more to attract people to him by his sheer force of personality and use them ruthlessly to accomplish his own goals.
Callow focuses on Wagner the dramatist and therefore gives a shallower account of what he actually read. I suppose that you can read Bryan Magee if you want to know more about that. Seeing as how I was interested in how Wagner managed to dramatise his ideas, this was a rewarding read. I do think it is hard to understand Wagner without understanding the music as the two often go hand in hand. All in all, an entertaining read. ...more
I've always had a soft spot for outcasts and true individualists. I was drawn early in life to writer/philosopher EM Cioran, the vagabond-writer GorkyI've always had a soft spot for outcasts and true individualists. I was drawn early in life to writer/philosopher EM Cioran, the vagabond-writer Gorky and of course, Hermann Hesse (who isn't?). Diogenes comes across as one of the first modern sociologist who attempts to invert norms in societies by actively practicing a different lifestyle. He - alledgedly - began his life as a bankers son but was but had to flee his home city once his father was tried for counterfeiting (if only they could do that with today's central bankers!).
He proceeds to live a life as a mendicant philosopher, famously portrayed as living in a jar. His purpose was to show how societal norms are artificial and the dire need for people to return to some sort of state of nature. Although he lived an ascetic lifestyle, he was not against pleasure (unlike his teacher Anthisthenes). The chief goal of the cynic is to be psychologically free from detachment, ergo the life of a begger. To be completely free of the need for possessions is to be virtuous, which is the highest good according to the cynics.
I often found myself comparing Diogenes lifestyle to that of the Buddha and of the stoics but found that there is a greater deal of conceit here. Diogenes is more like a modern day standup comedian with an eccentric Weltanschuung which he proceeds to point out to other people at every time possible. Anecdotes from his life almost always contain a strong punchline. One of his disciples, Crates, used to open peoples door in order to pontificate on the virtues of the cynic life. This is perhaps also which I found the biography so funny. I was also drawn to the fact that Diogenes philosophy is all about living life and he therefore has a disdain for those thinkers who approach philosophy from a more academic perspective. How can you not love a person who Plato called "Socrates gone mad"?
The biography also manages to capture some of the culture of ancient Greece. This period in history really marks a turning point which one can see with the advent of philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as the founding of different schools of thought. The citizens of Athens must have liked Diogenes (or at least thought he was funny) given the fact that they paid to rebuild his jar once some kid broke it. I oftened wondered whether it would make an interesting film given how many of the anecdotes are almost zen-like. I mean: who manages to keep their equanimity while being captured by pirates to be sold as a slave and then have the audacity to point a person at the market and say: this man needs a master!
There are many, many anecdotes about his life which seem apocraphyl but which this author claims to be true. Given how long ago he lived it is hard to tell. It was certainly a entertaining read (as well as a short one)....more
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