151–160 of 341 posts
Maybe I read them at just the right time in just the right place, but if you are in the right mood it tells you a story about leadership, a kernel of intersectionality, and most importantly why it's so hard for leadership figures to change the way they are headed even if they can clearly see that they are heading straight into an iceberg.
There's also an animated TV-series by NHK that I can recommend.
Meditations, originally written by Marcus Aurelius, but translated many times over. More as an introduction to stoicism; choosing the translation that works best for you is ideal. Hays and Hicks translations are most often recommended but if you can peek inside the book to see what language resonates the best with you. Stoicism helped me build the ability to care about the things in my power to change, and not stress…
I keep this next to my toilet. I can pick it up, choose a random page, and often find something meaningful.
If you like randomly leafing through Meditations, I've made a site that would be right up your alley
I don't think I'd be who I am now without having read those books.
Atlas Shrugged A book I revisit every few years. It's taught me to be honest with myself even if the social norms aren't in alignment with I'm doing. It's also gave me a deeper understanding of my fellow man and why some are fine with handouts from others. It's also where I learned the $ symbol is made from the U and S from United States.
Somehow Rick & Morty really reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut. Similarly dark sense of humour about our meaninglessness in a vast, chaotic universe.
The Four Agreements by Don Ruiz. It's a short and simple book about four rules of life which you can use anywhere. 1. Be impeccable with your word. You can read this as "don't swear", but it's not about that. It is about the constant and continuing things we say to ourselves that make us feel bad. We don't even know we do this. And it's not about big things, it's about the thousands of small reprimands we give oursel…
For example, re 1. :
> Every human is a magician, and we can either put a spell on someone with our word or we can release someone from a spell. We cast spells all the time with our opinions. An example: I see a friend and give him an opinion that just popped into my mind. I say, "Hmmm! I see that kind of color in your face in people who are going to get cancer." If he listens to the word, and if he agrees, he will have cancer in less than one year. That is the power of the word.
"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter, which I read when I was 17. I was just getting into serious programming (I would learn C later that year). I had only an inkling about things like recursion, had little appreciation for music outside of Pink Floyd, and lacked any kind of spiritual philosophy that didn't end in simple atheism or nonsense that I stole from science fiction paperbacks. GEB got me wondering abo…
I tried to read it in my middle thirties and felt like I wasn't prepared enough to understand it. Should I just go through it without trying to get everything?
Sapiens - there's a section in there about how everything (well, most) in our world is essentially a figment of our collective imaginations that enough of us believe is true and as such it is reality. If enough people (like everybody) decided tomorrow that every company's articles of incorporation actually don't count then companies as we know them could simply cease to exist since the documents that make them exist…