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What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

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Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#121

Post by Volpe »

neumann_alfred wrote: post #115
shantanubala wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revising it to "I am willing to do whatever it takes within my existing system of values to get what I want" makes it less pithy.

I mean this tongue-in-cheek, but.. that is still compatible with Mao: I am everything. Everything exists for me. I have only an obligation towards myself, not towards others. I am only responsible for my own reality, not for past or future. I am only responsible for that which I know. I have my needs and I follow them. This is the way great heroes live. -- Mao Tse Tung in an essay he wrote as student (describing his…

Wait... Are you saying Mao is evil?

Are you summing up all his actions, and written works with one quote from one essay... He wrote when he was young?

And some how it's evil?

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#123

Post by dkarl »

I was looking through these titles rather cynically, and wondering if it would be pretentious of me to recommend The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha or the Discourses of Epictetus, and then I saw it:

The Inner Game of Tennis, by Timothy Gallwey

Yes... yes! I'll gladly recommend this over any book of philosophy. (Different philosophers click with different people.) Granted, I was thirteen and a tennis player when I first read it, but I haven't played tennis seriously in over twenty years, and I still use the lessons in this book any time I practice anything physical. Dancing, chopping onions, running, lifting weights, you name it. I use it anytime I need to do something where the real intelligence at work is not part of my conscious mind, including controlling my emotions, but it works best with physical skills.

Gallwey wrote some other "Inner Game" books, but he was a Division I college tennis player, and this was his first book. This is the book he wrote about the sport he knew, without knowing it would be a best-seller. I don't know if the others were written to the same level of quality.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#124

Post by mitchi »

I would say it depends? Arguably, even if you read books on body training, you won't become even close to Hanma Yujiro. And assuming you have the time and the ressources, you will still be comparable to the many gym lovers in a few years. Your life will be probably better but you won't be a superhuman. Then there's martial arts? I've done kung-fu and karate but I never felt like I was getting superpowers either. Many people do martial arts and they walk in the streets every day with us and we don't notice their black belts. Actually, I think that most of the martial you'll do won't compare to what a MMA fighter can do. So no superpower there either. Anyway, if you want to go that route, I recommend the Jack Dempsey book. http://www.amazon.com/Championship-Fighting-Explosive-Punchi... If you feel like you can do more complicated stuff for self-defense, there is Jeet Kune do. http://www.amazon.ca/Bruce-Lees-Fighting-Method-Complete/dp/...

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#125

Post by miked »

wisty wrote: post #119
neumann_alfred wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want." Yeah, Mao wrote about that too. You can't get being a decent person that way though.

You mean, the guy who raised life expectancies in his country from ~35 (and stagnent for about 100 years) to ~65? Real asshole.

Yes, he means the guy who starved 39 million people to death during his reign of terror. Yes, he means the guy who made my wife spend three years of her childhood in constant hunger. Yes, the guy who sent my father in law to a labor camp for ten years for making a joke about him. At least, that's what his best friend told them when they were torturing him. Yes, * that * Mao.

Still, I'd like to thank him for inventing all those antibiotics and modern surgical techniques.

By the way, who's the source of your "65" number? Oh wait, I think I know.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#126

Post by neumann_alfred »

Volpe wrote: post #121
neumann_alfred wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this tongue-in-cheek, but.. that is still compatible with Mao: I am everything. Everything exists for me. I have only an obligation towards myself, not towards others. I am only responsible for my own reality, not for past or future. I am only responsible for that which I know. I have my needs and I follow them. This is the way great heroes live. -- Mao Tse Tung in an essay he wrote as student (describing his…

Wait... Are you saying Mao is evil? Are you summing up all his actions, and written works with one quote from one essay... He wrote when he was young? And some how it's evil?

Evil being subjective, my answer is "fuck yeah". Stalin and him were full of it.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#127

Post by dkarl »

bufordtwain wrote: post #20

"The Joy of Cooking" is great for learning how to cook.

The Joy of Cooking is a great reference, but for learning, I prefer The Way to Cook by Julia Child. The recipes are classics, yet adapted a bit to be relatively simple and light. It's well-illustrated, and I really liked the organizational method of presenting very detailed, beginner-friendly master recipes and providing other recipes as variations. I gave mine away when I stopped eating so much meat and dairy (it's not exactly vegan-friendly; it's Julia Child, after all) because I couldn't stand to see it sitting around unused.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#128

Post by neumann_alfred »

miked wrote: post #125
wisty wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean, the guy who raised life expectancies in his country from ~35 (and stagnent for about 100 years) to ~65? Real asshole.

Yes, he means the guy who starved 39 million people to death during his reign of terror. Yes, he means the guy who made my wife spend three years of her childhood in constant hunger. Yes, the guy who sent my father in law to a labor camp for ten years for making a joke about him. At least, that's what his best friend told them when they were torturing him. Yes, * that * Mao. Still, I'd like to thank him for inventing…

Exactly. Hitler built up Germany (well, before he smashed it, but there's always scapegoats for that) and made the Autobahn we Germans still love so dearly, and there's people still arguing with a straight face Hitler was a great man. Industry is overrated - it's just food, peace and shelter that aren't. Human progress is inevitable, speeding it up while fortifying ruling classes does not impress me, ever.

edit: to be fair, however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Legacy

Mobo Gao in his 2008 book The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, credits Mao for raising the average life expectancy from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975, bringing "unity and stability to a country that had been plagued by civil wars and foreign invasions"

Still, bleh. My point was that he might as well have done ONLY evil; with the kind of attitude displayed in the essay he wrote as student (it's not like he lived the rest of his live differently) it would have taken a bullet to stop him. Reflection did not enter into it. That's my point.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#129

Post by nelsonweiss »

stephen wrote: post #92
bennesvig wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Art of Learning is one of the best books I read this year. If you liked that, you'd also probably enjoy The Inner Game of Tennis and Mastery by Robert Greene.

I read The Art of Learning a few years ago, and remember it being basically an autobiography, and not anything like a manual that explains how one could actually attain any sort of super learning. It's just personal stories that are basically "hey, this guy is awesome at a lot of stuff." Hm. Well, I do remember how OCD he was about his subjects--reviewing videotapes of himself doing martial arts, studying moves, etc.…

The Art of Learning is less about learning things than it is about becoming very, very good at the things you learn.

While the book is highly autobiographical, the author does goes into a lot of detail about how he got really good at chess and tai chi.

What a lot of people seem to forget to mention about the 10,000 hour theory is that it's 10,000 hours of purposeful, focused practice. The Art of Learning is all about doing that kind of practice.

Re: What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?

#130

Post by SyneRyder »

gcr wrote: post #87
mtgx wrote: post #23

Innovator's Dilemma gave me the "super-power" of identifying what kind of businesses will succeed or fail in the tech industry, much earlier than most people (or even big companies' CEO's). I think others who have read it and understood it will feel the same way. I'd also recommend his sequel Innovator's Solution, which also has a few different and good insights in it. Blue Ocean Strategy is also pretty similar to th…

I was required to read Blue Ocean Strategy for class. Definitely an eye-opening read.

I'm curious to know what you got out of Blue Ocean Strategy? It's one of the few books I ended up giving away... I felt the book's idea was entirely summed up by the title, and then dragged out for 300 pages. Once I grokked the idea of "Be a Nintendo Wii in a Playstation/XBox world", I felt I didn't get more from the book. But it's been many years since I read it.
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