ht to Bill Scher
ty Brad Delong here:
This is conservatism. The dismissal of economic burdens from others making less money than you. The belief that an ideal economy can thrive with a small boat of winners and a giant sinking ship of losers. The insistence that your economic dissatisfaction is illegitimate, and can only be explained by a brainwashing from the media or politicians.
I’ve written my belief that the circumstances of one’s life affects the things one achieves and although I believe that people can break free from the constraints of their environment(this I am trying to prove personally) I will always be thankful for whatever break that comes my way. Always realizing that what often we call hardwork may just be a different sort of luck. This is why the quote resonates with me deeply.
We should not think of ourselves to highly. Always remember the cognitive biases.
Why "Wise" Self Made Introspective People Give
from here an article on discussing Nassim Taleb’s book “The Black Swan”:
There are various things you can do. The first is to realize that if you succeed, it’s probably not exclusively due to your brilliant mind. More than anything else it is luck. You still need a brilliant mind of course to help guide you at every step, just don’t pretend that it alone will get you where you want to be.
most self made people realize that there was someone just as smart and just as driven as them that wasn’t as successful as they are. They see people far more intelligent and far more “better” in less enticing situations. They realize that given how much they know about how precarious their success actually was, a little missed connection here and a little bad timing there and the whole thing collapse like a corrupt politician’s bridge. Because of this Randomness the “Wise” Self Made Introspective person cannot but be the philanthropists who helps less fortunate people at least achieve a decent kind of life.
I hope, I pray, I will become, Someday, Someday!
Reminder To Start Helping
from here:
The economic growth in a country like South Korea, which has made much more educational progress than the United States, clearly demonstrates this. “If you look across countries,” says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard, “education is the strongest predictor for how quickly the pie grows.”
Hope I can find the time to contribute in the community with increasing literacy and helping people find a track towards getting educated in my country. I don’t know. I promised myself I’d get more involve a around January next year. Posting this as a reminder.
Choice and Breaking Free
from here:
In other words, our choices depend upon what’s available, not what’s rational. This is true of even highly intelligent people.
And of course, your neighbourhood, your school influences what seems available to you. This is why peer effects matter. If you’re surrounded by people who carry knives, you’re more likely to carry one yourself, simply because the option of doing so is more salient. Similarly, if your friends are all studying for Oxbridge, you might be more likely to do so.
My personal history corroborates this. I got into Oxford – from which the rest was straightforward – not because I was smarter or harder-working than others, but because a teacher told me I could do it. Had he not made the choice available, the thought of going to Oxford would never have occurred to me – ability or not.
Circumstances, then, determine choice.
After office me and a couple of my officemates decided to hang out at a nearby Starbucks, I think we stayed for about 2 hours. I was telling them that I used to be insecure with my educational background and it hampered me for awhile and a considerably long time. It was only when I was able to study the lives of people whom I admired that I came to the conclusion that:
I control my destiny to a large extent.
That , People cannot say what I can and cannot DO.
My Desire And The HardWork That I muster and put in any endeavor Is my own reward.
This is clarion call to people living within the confines of what our environment has put upon us.
We control our lives. Lives we must learn to live on our terms!
Oil
from here:
Americans fell in love with vehicles like the Ford pickup trucks in the 1990s, back when gas didn’t cost much more than $1 a gallon. That seemed normal at the time, because gas prices had remained in a narrow range — roughly 90 cents to $1.25 a gallon — going back to the early 1980s.
But this stability was actually a sign of something deeply unusual. The cost of most everything else was rising, as was the size of people’s nominal paychecks. So in practical terms, gas was becoming cheaper. By 1999, it had effectively fallen to its lowest point on record, about 30 percent lower than few people in my country realize this.
The over all sentiment is that we should go back to the regulated oil days. The fact is we have a weak government that can’t seem to reign in the profiteering.
Norwegian Wood
just finished Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.
I’ve always been something of an outsider, never really fitting in.
And maybe if I wasn’t lucky enough to live in this wildly connected world, where you can find someone not quite but enough like yourself that the world is a little more liveable, I don’t know what my life might have become.
Maybe I’d just live in an island or up in the mountains I don’t know!
Nice Post on Happiness and Wealth Creation and Success
Once you’ve found your happiness, all that other stuff is just scenery.
from a post by Michael Parkatti title: Happiness, Not Wealth Creation, is the Sole Measure of Success here:
I don’t know I feel that this might be true but with things like this the only way to really know is to experience these things.
Helping Hand
I recently saw a 3 minute animated short (film).
Wow that made my heart, just wow. I’d embed it here but the embed code is not working.
just click here:
Selling Ourselves Short
from NYT here:
When he was a Harvard undergraduate, Mr. Gates lamented that so many of his fellow students pursued a “narrow track for success” instead of being willing to “take big risks to do big things,” recalled Michael Katz, a Harvard contemporary
I used to be a victim of this mindset. It was as if I didn’t have the right to “Dream Big” or to dream in general. It was in the way that people seemed to interact with you whenever you are in dream mode. The trying to take you seriously look, coupled with doses of Is this Guy Serious and is this Guy Crazy look. I’ve read the signs well enough that I generally show my dreamer side once and look for the reaction of the people I’m talking with and calibrate from their.
One of the things I love with where I am working right now is the fact that the people I hang with in the office are receptive to my dreams, they don’t encourage it overtly but they allow me my space. This is the reason why I am at their asses most of the time telling them to maximize their potential and stop wasting their time feeling inadequate.
Another place where I find people who allow themselves to dream is at out technology cooperative (aic). The hivecc as we fondly call our hq may be interpreted as a place where bold minds and daring hearts commune. It is a diverse community whose common denominator is that alone we may reach amazing heights but together we may dream of much bigger things.
Well the bottom line is never sell yourself short! You are allowed to dream , and if you are already dreaming why dream small when you can dream big. Limit your interactions with people who continually dismiss your dreams, foster an environment where you are allowed to make mistakes and to try. Find people you trust who can tell you when you are somewhat going the wrong ways, People who would act somewhat as a North Star.
My Bohemia the Net
The feeling of alienation that one feels with the world at large leads one to a nuanced depression.
A sense of limbo and utter dejection with the present reality that engulf ones own existence.
To me the internet was my bohemia, a place for misfits, rejects, dreamers and people somewhat unhappy/unsatisfied with the world as it is.
from Vanity Fair here:
It isn’t possible to quantify the extent to which society and culture are indebted to Bohemia. In every age in every successful country, it has been important that at least a small part of the cityscape is not dominated by bankers, developers, chain stores, generic restaurants, and railway terminals. This little quarter should instead be the preserve of—in no special order—insomniacs and restaurants and bars that never close; bibliophiles and the little stores and stalls that cater to them; alcoholics and addicts and deviants and the proprietors who understand them; aspirant painters and musicians and the modest studios that can accommodate them; ladies of easy virtue and the men who require them; misfits and poets from foreign shores and exiles from remote and cruel dictatorships. Though it should be no disadvantage to be young in such a quartier, the atmosphere should not by any means discourage the veteran. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who to his last days lent the patina to the Saint-Germain district of Paris, just as it is Lawrence Ferlinghetti, last of the Beats, who by continuing to operate his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach still gives continuity with the past.