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Poor Bjorn's Notes to Self

Read Books – Conduct Experiments – Grow

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Reading Lists

Here is where you find my reading- and recommendation lists!

Recommendation Lists:

  • Favorite Books of 2018
  • Favorite Books of 2017
  • Favorite Books of 2016

Reading Lists:

  • Reading List 2019
  • Reading List 2018
  • Reading List 2017
  • Reading List 2016

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This is the story of a sociology student who gets a unique opportunity to study, hang out with, and even act as a stand in for, a gang leader. It’s a great peak into the underground economy and organization of the public housing projects in Chicagos most crime ridden districts. —— 📝 “Was is possible, I wondered, to be in the projects for any length of time and remaining neutral; an outsider an objective observer?” —— 📝 Independent prostitutes got beaten up 4 times while affiliates (w. pimps) only got beaten once per year on average. —— 📝 Prostitute Price List: 💵 Blowjob- 10-15$ 💵 Intercourse: 25$ 💵 Anal- 50$ 😢 —— 📝 Gangs told their foot soldiers and people in the public housing who to vote for in elections. ——- 📝 The way the people hustling in the projects had to pay different people for protection (pimps, building supervisors and the gangs) reminded me of a quote from The Story of Civilization, talking about the birth of the state tax: “It was better to pay bribe to one magnificent robber than to bribe them all.” ——- It’s a good book, but I wished for less personal drama and more scientific analysis. ——- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: The people of the Robert Taylor public housing projects will most likely have even fewer options to gang life in the future, as jobs for unskilled laborers is eliminated by automation and AI. My next read (Give People Money) is about Universal Basic Income which might turn out to be a key ingredient to end this type of poverty. ——- 3/5 ——- Photo credit: @literaryjargon ——- What’s your next read? 🤔
“What else?” This is a good question to ask yourself. What else could I do right now? Am I spending my time wisely? ————————————- When you stand in line to get free popcorn, Is the popcorn really free? No, not really. You give up the opportunity to do something else with the time you spend in line. That something could be work a job, read a book or shoot heroin etc. ————————————- It’s called Opportunity Cost; The loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. And you better keep assessing the opportunity cost for your decisions. ————————————- I decided to stop reading Michel Jordan’s biography. It was not bad, it was just not for me. But for some reason I just kept going. I caught myself in my madness during conversion with my friend @simonjk.jpg , who had also read the book and didn’t think too much about it. ————————————- It’s easy to be a completionist. It’s harder to make a proper decisions on when to persist and when to let go. Let’s do the latter. ————————————- Some books i parted with before I hit the last page: ————————————- 📖 Braving the Wilderness 📖 Braiding Sweetgrass 📖 Power vs. Force 📖 A Primates Memoir ————————————- What books did you leave unfinished?
The second part of this tome (1200+ pages) is focused on the Ancient civilizations of the Near East; Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, Judea etc.. —- 📝 “It is in the nature of an empire to disintegrate soon, for the energy that created it disappears from those who inherits it.” —- 📝 Persia was founded by a stoic people, but within a century it was destroyed by people binge-drinking and eating all day; “spending their geniuses on sauces and deserts” 🍰. What state is our current civilization in? 🤔 —- 📝 Egypt: “Machinery was rare because muscle was cheap.” —- 📝 The hanging gardens of Babylon was considered considered one of the Wonders of the World. Legend has it that Nebuchadnezzar II had it build for his wife who was not used to the desert and longed for her lush homeland. —- 📝 There where thousands of Gods. With time minor deities merged and became mere aspects of major ones. —- 📝 In Judean prophets talked about the need to be moral rebirth. Jeremaya asked for circumcision of spirit as well as the flesh in his strange phrase: “Circumstance yourself to the lord, take away the foreskins of your heart.” 😂😂 —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: One theme that stood out to me is how civilizations raise from hard labour and sacrifice, just so that future generation can have it go down the toilet by forgetting these hardships and fall victim to hedonism. 💩 🚽 —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY 2: The accounts of the religious believes in the different civilizations fascinates me to no end. How similar their stories are to ours and how much we still can find intact or reshaped in today’s religions. —— ⚖️ VERDICT: Now we get into the meat of the book and it has taken on another rhythm. I have mixed feelings about this second part of book. It’s is still brilliant but it’s getting hard to retain the information. The problem might lie in the way the book is structured, using the same template to describe each civilization, one after the other, making it overwhelming. —— Check out #poorbjorncivilizations for more in this review series. —— What are you reading these days? 🤔 —— Photo credit: @cinefile_25 , @eruchdah
Is your To-Read-List (TRL) growing faster the more effort you put into working your way through it? I know the feeling - and I feel it might be especially true for non-fiction readers. —— Every good book opens up your eyes for new topics and bombards you with new exciting ideas of what to read up on next (as illustrated above 🤪), filling your TBR to the brink. —- Today I’m presenting some new additions to my TRL, courtisey of the book The Laws Of Human Nature by Robert Greene. ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 📖 The Tigress of Forli by E. Lev 📖 —— Caterina Sforza, she seems to be such a bad ass warrior countess! Greene uses her as an example of how masculine/feminine aspects of one’s personality, when well integrated, leads to more authenticity. “In the theater of life, expand the roles you play.” —- 📖 Born Red by Gao Yuan 📖 —— Gao’s account of the Cultural revolution in China and how he and his fellow students “made revolution”. Greene uses this story as an example of how our personalities changes in a group context. —— 📖 Chekhov by Henri Troyat 📖 —— Chekhov, Russian play-write, is brought up by Greene as an example of how you can change your circumstances by changing you attitude. “He made a vow to himself: No more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasted time.” Now I just want to know more about this exciting fellow! ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ What are you reading and what additions is that book adding to your To-Read-Lists? 🤔
What is long and hard, and filled with baboon references? Robert Sapolskys book Behave. —- 📝 “The frontal cortex makes you do the harder thing, when it’s the right thing to do.” The frontal cortex consumes a lot of energy which makes your willpower limited. Have you noticed how quick you are to judge and how hard it is to be a good person you are when depleted after a hard day at work? —— 📝 Initially demanding frontal tasks, like controlling your bladder as a child, becomes easier with time. Understand: repeated good behaviors and they will become automatic! —— 📝 We Habituate.. Understand: Artificial pleasures (designer food, drugs, VR porn etc..) throws our systems of the scale making us unable to appreciate the natural. —— 📝 Humans delays gratification for an extremely long time. No other animal restricts calories now to look good on the beach next year! 😆 —— 📝 “The opposite of love is not hate, its indifference”. —— 📝 Win-Win solutions rewards more dopamine than Win - Lose ones. 👍🏻👍🏻 —- 📝 Alcohol = more aggressive behavior? No, alcoholic only evokes aggression in people prone to aggression AND people that BELIEVE that alcohol makes you more aggressive. Like testosterone only increase aggression in people prone to it in the first place. Testosterone will enhance any behavior that helps us maintain status. —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: I was applying for days off at work. I was going to ask right before lunch, but caught myself and did it the proper way instead; Judges famously give harsher judgments when they are hungry. I upped my chances of getting an approved application quickly by waiting until after lunch. —— This was not a matter of life or death situation, like the case with some trials, but I think this story points towards something worth thinking about. —— What is the result of a lifetime of strategic moves based on the quirks of biology and human nature works compared to a life ignorant of these hidden influences? —— ⚖️ VERDICT: A detailed and nuanced summary of where we are at with the study of human behavior! 😍 —— 4/5 —— Photo credit: @chriserzfeld
"If you continue to this simple practice everyday you will attain a wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special." - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki --------------------------- The Lab Report - 008 - "Meditation: The First 6 Month" ----------------------- For me these first 6 months was about establishing the habit of sitting daily. With that now in place it’s time to take it to the next level. ----------------------- Instead of counting both inhalations and exhalations I’m now moving on to counting only my out-breath. The end goal is to not count at all, but that’s when I built up my ability to concentrate enough. ----------------------- Mid term effects: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ----------------------- - I still dose off from time to time. - Resistance to the practice and boredom is no longer an issue. - I had a mystical experience (a positive one) when I was a the peak of frustration and boredom with the practice (day 130). I can’t really share the details. ----------------------- Long term effects: ❓❓❓ ----------------------- - Still unknown. I’m aiming for doing 365 consecutive days in this experiment. It’s still to early to tell. ----------------------- Sustainability: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ----------------------- - The habit has become automatic. I have missed 3 days so far which leaves me with a 98,3% success rate. Now I just need to find time to sit for longer sessions. - Meditation time is in direct competition with my reading time. ----------------------- FINAL VERDICT: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ----------------------- I don’t feel the same frustration about the practice that I felt in the beginning. Maybe it’s because I’m back on coffee and therefore don’t dose off as easily? More likely it’s because of habit and the well-being I get from sitting. It’s hard to put finger on the exact benefits but they are there and they are noticeable. I feel more calm, yet alert; more detached, yet more engaged. ----------------------- What are your daily rituals? 🤔 ----------------------- Check out #poorbjornsexperiments for more Lab Reports!
Women Who Run With The Wolves explores folk tales and myths through a jungian lens with the intent to help women reconnect to the instinctual self, the Wild Woman archetype. ——- SWIPE for illustrations inspired by the stories from the book. ——- 📝 Classic tale beginning: ““Once there was, and ones there was not...” This paradoxical phrase is meant to alert the soul of the listener that this story takes place in the world between worlds where nothing is as it first seems.” —— 📝 The animus can pollute your flow of creativity with self doubt. One with a polluted river will not be able to take compliments; “Beautiful? This old thing? Well, it nothing really, look at all the mistakes I made”. A well-developed animus has excellent borders. An artist that puts up a sign outside her house: “I am working today and am not receiving visitors. I know you think this doesn’t mean you because you are my banker, agent, or best friend. But it does.” 💪🏻 —— 📝 Original stories where often morphed to fit religious beliefs. Pagan symbols became Christian symbols. Sexual parts where removed and animals became demons. 🦁 —> 👹 —— 📝 There is no more reliable sign that a person has spent time with Ugly Duckling status at some point or all her life than her inability to digest a sincere compliment. We have all know people like this... 🦆 🦢 —— 📝“Sometime educated guesses can be made about the wounds of childhood by closely inspecting what matters adults irrationally lose their tempers over”. —— 📝 “If you don’t go out in the woods, nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin” 🌲 —— It’s beautifully written, very mystical in its tone, and I can sense the impact this book must have had on women throughout the years. As a male reader I can’t fully relate to all aspects of it - and it’s ok, it’s not written for me -but there is a lot of value in this book nevertheless. —— For me the biggest takeaways are the stories themselves and their interpretation. I also found the chapter of creativity truly profound. —— 3/5
Kin selection is the theory that we behave more altruistic towards people who share our genes—-given we believe in the darwinian paradigm that the overarching aim for an organism is to further its genes, of course. ————————- Or as John Haldane humorously concluded while working on the mathematics of kin selection: ————————- “I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.” ————————- The idea being that brothers and sisters share genes by 50% and cousins 12,5%. The math being something like this: ————————- 1 person = 8 cousins (12.5x8=100) 1 person = 4 nephews (4x25=100) 1 person = 2 siblings (2x50=100) ————————- The Green Beard Effect started as a thought experiment that would explain why we exhibit altruistic behaviors towards people who share a genetic trait with us, i.e a green bearded person favors another green bearded person over someone else. It’s is a poor mans version of kin selection. ————————- The behavior has been confirmed studies on fire ants in 1998. ————————- ... and a Review of Behave by Robert Sapolsky is coming soon! - - - Sources:http://www.eoht.info/m/page/John+Haldane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-beard_effect

Recent Posts

  • Thoughts on: Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh 22 April, 2019
  • Quit of Persist? – Know When To Give Up on a Book. 21 April, 2019
  • Mini Review – Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant (Part 2) – The Near East 15 April, 2019
  • It’s Out of Control! What The Laws of Human Nature will do to your To-Read-List 12 April, 2019
  • Thoughts on: Behave by Robert Sapolsky 9 April, 2019

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  • 5 Outstanding Books this Year
  • A Guide to Quality Reading – Life is Too Short for Bad Books!
  • Favorite Books of 2016
  • Lab Reports – Life is an Experiment
  • Reading List 2016
  • Reading List 2017
  • Reading List 2018
  • Reading List 2019
  • Reading Lists
  • Top 10 Books of 2017
  • Reviews
  • Blog posts
  • Top 10 Books of 2017
  • Reading Lists
  • Reading List 2018
  • 5 Outstanding Books this Year
  • Lab Reports – Life is an Experiment
  • Reading List 2019
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