Too Familiar to Ignore, Too Different to Tolerate
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Over the past 10,000 years, Homo sapiens has grown so accustomed to being the only human species that it’s hard for us to conceive of any other possibility. Our lack of brothers and sisters makes it easier to imagine […]
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana on the difference between mindfulness and concentration
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana writes in his article “Mindfulness and Concentration” from the Fall 1998 issue of Tricycle, In a state of mindfulness, you see yourself exactly as you are. You see your own selfish behavior. You see your own suffering. And you see how you create that suffering. You see how you hurt others. You […]
Alcohol Lowers Personal Energy
David Allen writes in Getting Things Done, Notice what happens to many people when they get a little alcohol in their brain. It should drop their energy immediately because it’s a depressant; often, though, the energy lifts, at least initially. Why? The alcohol is depressing something—it’s’ shutting down the negative self-talk and uncomfortable visions that […]
Time to Learn
From Tim Johnson and Andrea Brajnovic’s The Very Delicious Strawberry, twenty illustrated Zen stories adapted for children: A young Buddhist monk approached his teacher, and asked the Zen master: “If I meditate very diligently how long will it take for me to become enlightened?” The master thought about this, then replied, “Ten Years.” The student […]
Avoiding Losses
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, I too believe that avoiding loss should be the primary goal of every investor. […]
Recap, Recap Technique
Seth Freeman, interviewed by Marty Nemko: Especially these days, such conversations can be stressful. It may be helpful to agree to use the Recap, Recap technique. I’ll explain with an example of how I might introduce the “negotiation:” I’d like to talk politics but to make it safe for both of us, should we try […]
Definition: Key Man Risk
“Key Man Risk” is the threat posed to a company from over-reliance on the skills of one or a few individuals. When ratings agency Fitch lowered Berkshire Hathaway’s rating from AAA to AA-plus, they noted: [Berkshire Hathaway’s] ratings also continue to reflect Fitch long-standing concerns with respect to “key man” risk in the form of […]
Animal Rights and Legal Protection
Richard Dawkins writes in his best-selling The Selfish Gene, Many of us shrink from judicial execution of even the most horrible human criminals, while we cheerfully countenance the shooting without trial of fairly mild animal pests. Indeed we kill members of other harmless species as a means of recreation and amusement. A human foetus, with […]
Human Life Has Absolutely No Meaning
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine […]
Counter Effects of Natural Methods of Population Limitation
Richard Dawkins writes in his best-selling The Selfish Gene, It is a simple logic truth that, short of mass emigration into space, with rockets taking off at the rate of several million per second, uncontrolled birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not […]