Hafiz’s Poems Lift Your Spirit
Daniel Ladinsky, the renowned American poet and interpreter of mystical poetry, asserts that the 14th-Century Persian poet Hafiz’s work is uplifting and conveying deep insights on life: The second story echoes a sensuousness, that is so much a part of the human dynamic, and that Hafiz fully embraces, and often uses as a springboard to […]
A Good Bet as a Faithful Husband
Richard Dawkins writes in his best-selling The Selfish Gene, There is bound to be variation in the population of males in their predisposition to be faithful husbands. If females could recognize such qualities in advance, they could benefit themselves by choosing males possessing them. One way for a female to do this is to play […]
Homo Sapiens Has No Natural Rights
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. […]
The Strength of Compassion
Gelek Rinpoche writes in A Lama for All Seasons, The real purpose of Buddhist practice is to cut down your addictions and to correct your habitual patterns and this can be achieved as a layperson or as a monk or nun. That brings us to the question of Buddhist ethics—changing habitual patterns and getting rid […]
Opportunity Cost Neglect
Most people are abstractedly informed of opportunity cost, and its reckoning isn’t difficult. However, unless the costs are crystal-clear and overt people hesitate to weigh their imminent decisions. Yale professors note in their paper on “Opportunity Cost Neglect,” This customer was frozen in indecision between a $1,000 Pioneer and a $700 Sony, and the salesman […]
The Supreme Critic
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and progenitor of the concept of Transcendentalism, wrote in his essay “The Over-Soul” (1841,) The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft […]
Four Characteristics of Leadership Conversations
According to Jeswald Salacuse’s Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People, one-on-one leadership conversations, unlike speeches, are typified by four characteristics: Interactive, so you have to be concerned not only about the message you are giving, but also about the messages you are receiving from other participants. Conflicted, since they often […]
The Buddha’s Enlightenment
American Buddhist writer and academic Robert A.F. Thurman writes in Essential Tibetan Buddhism (1995,) The enlightenment of the Buddha was not primarily a religious discovery. It was not a mystical encounter with “God” or a god. It was not the reception of a divine mission to spread the “Truth of “God” in the world. The […]
Get Comfortable Not Knowing Everything
Seth Klarman’s extraordinary and mysterious book Margin of Safety, Risk Averse Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor has sold for $700 for used varieties with newer copies going for $2,500 to $4,000. His foremost investing premise is risk mitigation. He writes, First, no matter how much research is performed, some information always remains elusive; investors […]
The Deadliest Species in the Annals of Life
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and […]