Daily Economic Update: December 29, 2023

 "What I really fear is time.  That's the devil: whipping us on when we'd rather loll, so the present sprints by, impossible to gasp, and all is suddenly past, a past that won't hold still, that slides into these inauthentic tales.  My past - it doesn't feel real in the slightest.  The person who inhabited it is not me.  It's as if the present me is constantly dissolving.  There's that line of Heraclitus: 'No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.' That's quite right.  We enjoy this illusion of continuity, and we call it memory.  Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories."

                            -Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionist 

Daily Economic Update: December 28, 2023

 "Comedy does not tell of famous and powerful men, but of base and ridiculous creatures, though not wicked; and it does not end with the death of the protagonists. It achieves the effect of the ridiculous by showing the defects and vices of ordinary men....Truth reached by depicting men and the world as worse than they are or than we believe them to be..."

                -Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose 

Daily Economic Update: December 27, 2023

 “Counterfactuals are the building blocks of moral behavior as well as scientific thought. The ability to reflect on one’s actions and envision alternative scenarios is the basis of free will and social responsibility.”

- Judea Pearl, The Book of Why 

Daily Economic Update: December 26, 2023

 "..the notion...that all these wondrous machines that, in one way or another, now allow us to avoid overworking our brains, will somehow diminish our capacity for thought, in much the same way that underused muscles with tend to atrophy, will stop working in the absence of need".

"But what if the opposite is true?  What if the mind does not work at all like a muscle? What if not having to tax our minds with such tedious matters as arithmetic and geography and spelling and memorizing so many facts actually frees our mind?  What if mental leisure gives it the time and space to suppose, ponder, ruminate, consider, assess, wonder, contemplate, imagine, dream?  What if by removing the storm and stress of daily mental need, lowering the mind's noise-to-signal ratio, we instead clear the mind and allow it, now less clouded, taxed and troubled to seek out the potential it always had? To be thoughtful, considerate, patient - and wise."

                - Simon Winchester, Knowing What We Know 

 

Daily Economic Update: December 22, 2023

"Often we tell ourselves, "Don't just sit there, do something!" But when we practice awareness, we discover something unusual.  We discover that the opposite may be more helpful, "Don't just do something, sit there!" We must learn to stop from time to time in order to see clearly.  At first, "stopping" may look like a kind of resistance to modern life, but it is not. It is not a reaction; it is a way of life.  Humankind's survival depends on our ability to stop rushing."

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is in Every Step

Daily Economic Update: December 21, 2023

 "A life without friendship or leisure lacks a specific something, for which no amount of respect can compensate.  This is why moralists from Aristotle and Confucius onwards have cautioned against excess specialization.  Single-minded concentration on one small branch of art or science may enrich the common stock, but only at the cost of deforming the individual artist or scientist.  Of course, those in possession of the full set of basic goods may reasonably strive for additional, more specific goods.  We have no wish to make mediocre generalists of everyone.  But no one, however successful in a single domain, can claim to lead a good life if he lacks the rudiments of health, leisure, personality and so forth."

                        - Robert and Edward Skidelsky, How Much is Enough 

Daily Economic Update: December 20, 2023

 "...These leaders too often fixate on advancing their own fame, fortune, glory and legacies at the expense of the company and Cause. Management becomes disconnected from people and trust breaks down. And when performance starts to suffer as a result, these same leaders are quicker to blame others than to look at what set the company on the new path in the first place.  In order to "fix" the problem, their faith in people is replaced with faith in the process. The company becomes more rigid and decision-making powers are often taken away from the front lines. It can't be a good thing when the captain of the ship, who is supposed to be on deck navigating toward the horizon, is now in the ship tinkering with the engine trying to make it go faster."

                        - Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game 

Daily Economic Update: December 19, 2023

 "The word "decision" comes from the Latin word caedere, which means "to cut".  When we decide to pursue one thing, we necessarily cut away another.  If there's no cutting, we haven't made a decision at all."

"The word "discernment", on the other hand, comes from the Latin root discernere,  which means "to distinguish"; it refers to the ability to see the difference between two paths and know which one is the better way forward."

"Discernment is an essential skill because it's a process for making decisions that includes but also transcends rational analysis.  It's critical for deciding which desires to pursue and which ones to leave behind."

"After all of the rational considerations have been laid out, what if there isn't a clear-cut way forward?  This happens all the time in life."

"...Many books have been written about improving one's ability to discern well.  Here is a distillation of some key points: (1) pay attention to the interior movements of the heart when contemplating different desires - which give a fleeting feeling of satisfaction and which give satisfaction that endures? (2) ask yourself which desire is more generous and loving; (3) put yourself on your deathbed in your mind's eye and ask yourself which desire would be more at peace with having followed; (4) finally, and more importantly, ask yourself where a given desire comes from."

" Desires are discerned, not decided. Discernment exist in the liminal space between what's now and what's next.  Transcendent leaders create that space in their own lives, and in the lives of people around them".

                        -Luke Burgis, excerpts from "Wanting"