Man's Search For Meaning, David Deutsch's Ideas, The Grand Inquisitor, Balaji Srinivasan's Wisdom, Classic Maxims and More
Knowledge Journey #8
Hi reader,
Take a moment, think, and look around. You are here. Now. Breathing. That’s crazy. Every day of existence is a bizarre miracle. Crack a smile.
Fearless Spanish Podcast
My conversations in Spanish are now on Spotify. This is where I always listen to podcasts in Spanish to improve my comprehension. Immerse yourself and learn a new language to transform your brain.
Peter Oliver - Renaissance man: Former D1 running back, Pete is also a skilled musician, avid reader and fluent Spanish speaker. In this conversation in Español, we discuss writing, books, our love of languages, and more.
Videos
Ways To Think About Advice
The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is that all advice eventually cancels out.
The second best piece of advice I’ve ever received is to not give unsolicited advice.
Man’s Search For Meaning
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. In 1946 he published Man’s Search For Meaning, describing his experience as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. It details the horror of the camps, the psychotherapeutic principles he used to persevere, and his teaching of logotherapy.
Here are some powerful passages from the book:
“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”
“The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
(Quoting Spinoza) “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”
(Quoting Nietzsche) “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
“Mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being…
…What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.
Three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.
Grappling With The Ideas of David Deutsch
David Deutsch is a British physicist. His refutations of Jared Diamond’s famous book Guns Germs and Steel has changed the way I view history in a profound way. I explain how so here.
He made these refutations in his 2011 book, The Beginning of Infinity, one of the most challenging books I’ve ever read. I have not finished it, nor have I fully grasped many of its ideas. But I will return to it. I want to understand.
Something I’ve Realized When Talking To Some People
You need to realize: they’re not listening to you. They’re projecting. They’re projecting their own fears and limiting beliefs on you.
World War II Heroes
I recently was thinking about all the times I used to watch the HBO series Band of Brothers with my family and my friend Steve.
The show is about American paratroopers during World War II. Led by the legendary Dick Winters, this particular group of soldiers went through some of the deadliest and most pivotal battles in the European theater.
Highly entertaining and inspiring, it always made me think of how thankful I am to all those who serve in the military.
Kurt Vonnegut on Reading
“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.”
Quick X (Twitter) Plug
One of the best Twitter accounts that I always enjoy reading is thedulab. He writes about things like psychology, success, relationships, and more. I always find myself screenshotting his content and adding it to an album I have on my photos app, called “knowledge.”
Probably The Greatest Thing I’ve Ever Read
The following is an excerpt from Jordan Peterson’s 2018 book 12 Rules For Life. He is writing about a part of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1880 novel The Brothers Karamazov. It is known as “The Grand Inquisitor”:
…Dostoevsky, who was a great influence on Nietzsche, also criticized institutional Christianity (although he arguably managed it in a more ambiguous but also more sophisticated manner). In his masterwork, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky has his atheist superman, Ivan, tell a little story, “The Grand Inquisitor.” A brief review is in order.