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Reading List 2018
Reading List 2017
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Favorite Books of 2017
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Reading List 2018
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Reading List 2018
Reading List 2017
Reading List 2016
Favorite Books of 2017
Favorite Books 2016
Blog posts

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I managed to squeeze in another classic before the year ended and this time it was Aldous Huxleys dystopian vision in Brave New World. —— This book brings my thoughts to raise of AI and the importance of setting the right goals for it (if we ever get to Artificial General Intelligence that is.). The path chosen for the society we are presented with in Brave New World choose happiness as the highest good through maximization of pleasure and avoidance of suffering. —— What does this future looks like? —— No one gets to grow old. every one belongs to everyone else and no mothers and fathers are available to traumatize childhoods. There are no spouses and children to feel strongly for. And if all else fails... there is always SOMA. The pill that makes all anxiety go away (I.e alcohol without the hangover 😉). —— Mantras of the Brave new world: —— 📝 “Civilization is sterilization” —— 📝 “Everyone belongs to everyone else” —— 📝 “The more stitches, the less riches” —— 💭 Thoughts 💭 : Will we end up in a world more like the one in this book? As we spend more time living online worlds and in VR, the real world will become more foreign. No one creates online avatars that are old, deformed or disabled. Quite the opposite; we always create idealized versions of ourselves. Just look at your own Instagram page! 😉 Will old age be something we hide like we hide dead people nowadays. Will we be shocked when we see a real human face without a photo filter applied? 😨 —— Great book with philosophical undertones! —— 4/5 —— What’s your worries about the near future? 🤔 —— Photo credit: @dauntlessreading

Maybe you were suppose to do something important right now, but got distracted by a notification? Or you talked yourself into checking your social media might be a good idea? It has been almost 10 minutes, something might have happened? —- 📝 The internet has turned into a network of interruption, with notifications, hyperlinks and multimedia. —- 📝 When reading we skim more and look for key words. Our ability to read long articles has decreased and our ability to concentrate has diminished. —- 📝 The media, rather than the content changes the way we think and act. We change our brains through the tools we use and our tools numbs the parts they amplify. The GPS in our phones weakens our abilities to map out areas in our mind and I guess I'm not the only one that has notice a quality decrease in my handwriting skills as I write more on computers. —- 📝 Deep reading demands deep concentration and has to be learned. Our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from the short to long term memory and to weave it into conceptional schemas (complex concepts). Being able to focus on one thing for a length of time is important for creating that type of understanding and memory. —- The book is incredibly interesting and explains a lot of the behavioral change I've noticed in myself in recent years. It discusses the science around how internet browsing changes the way we think and learn. We also get a very enjoyable history of how, throughout time, the introduction of different media have changed the human perspective. —- "To be everywhere is to be nowhere" - Seneca —- "It was ones understood that most effective filter of human thought was time" - Emerson —- How do you protect yourself from distractions? 🤔 —- 5/5

I'm don't care for sports, so it felt weird for me to tune in to a thick biography of some tennis star I've never heard of. But I've heard good thinks from reliable sources and decided to go for it. —— I'm glad I did! —— Andre Agassi's father was a former boxer with a failed career - a bitter and violent man that thought the world was against him. That Andre had a knack for tennis made him see his chance to get even. His put him in hard training with the goal to make him the best in the world and there was little Andre could do about it. Tennis became his prison. And he hated it. —— The sad thing about the story is that when Agassi gets old enough to break free from his fathers reign, he realize that he has no where to go and that tennis is all he's got. He has no skills and no education because he spent whole life at the court. So he continues to do the one thing he knows how, even though he despises it. —— The book got me thinking about his fans. They looked up to him, imitated his dress and style, and never missed one of his games. I wonder what it feels like to learn that your idol actually hated what you admired him/her for "with a dark and secret passion". —— It's a sad but interesting and involving story. A good read even for someone who couldn't care less about tennis. Here are some notes: —— 📝 After winning Wimbledon: "I Thought winning would change things. But instead it felt like I was let in on a dirty little secret. Winning changes nothing..." —— 📝"A loss feels bad more and longer than a win feels good." —— 📝 "Fame becomes the norm fast. We hear that money can't buy happiness but we don't believe it until we experience it." —— 📝 "Fear is like a gateway drug. Take a small hit and you run the risk of doing it again in bigger and bigger doses." —— 4/5 —— What’s your favorite book about athletics and sports?

I was going to get a biography of Winston Churchill and ended up with this book (some people don’t read the backside of a book before they buy it, I apparently don’t even read the front cover 😂). —- I have this idea that I want would like to read a biography from each american presidents but I think I like the idea of having done it is more appealing than the process itself. 🙃 —- 📝 Truman was Vice President when Franklin Roosevelt died. He was put in office in what might be the most eventful year of recent political history; 1945. —- 📝 Franklin Roosevelt famous quote “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. —- 📝 Truman about the presidential workload: “It takes about 17 hours a day and then you get as much sleep as you can. Start over again and do the next 17 hours as best you can. No man can do it as it should be done.” —- 📝 He gave the order to use the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. —- 📝 He started reading at age 5 and read a lot. He studied the heroes of history and was a fan of Plutarch. (Who I’m yet to read...) —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY: I noticed how clueless I am about how events during this period relate to each other in space and time: - The defeat of Germany vs. the time of The Bomb. - How things lead up to the Cold War. - The raise of Mao. - When Roosevelt was replaced with Truman. (I didn’t even know who was president at the time to be honest). Of course I learned all of this in school. But this book highlighted how much of the knowledge has been warped or plainly forgotten. I’ll definitely spend more time with historical biographies in 2019! —— The book is good but, as with most political biographies, I find them getting tedious at times. Like the Marvel movies, I enjoy the raise of the hero/president better than the confrontation with the bad guy. —— Which is you favorite biography of a world leader? —— 3/5 —— Photo credit: @socialworxpr

I have adopted many powerful principles the last couple of years that increased my baseline happiness levels. One of the big ones, second only to learning to stop giving a shit about what people might think of me and what I do (still WIP 😉) ,is the Stoic idea of being indifferent to thing that are not under ‘our direct control’. —— The weather, death, traffic, other people, outcome of soccer games, train delays, sickness, international politics etc.. —— So much anger, anxiety and frustration has been avoided since I fully committed to this principle. What a great source of fulfillment and tranquility! —— This book does a great job summarizing Stoic philosophy! Here’s some notes: —— 📝 Mindfulness of what is up to us and what’s not is one of the main remedies for emotional suffering. —— 📝 Set you intentions each morning and evaluate how you did each evening. Where did you act virtuously and where did you miss the mark? Review your actions and evaluate you conduct. —— 📝 ‘Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them’ - Epictetus —— 📝 Novice Stoics should begin by training themselves each day: 1️⃣ To endure what they irrationally fear, or find aversive, with courage and perseverance. 2️⃣ To renounce, or abstain from, what they irrationally crave, through discretion and self-discipline. —— 📝 Outcome independence: The goal of a Sage (the Stoics ideal) would not be to benefit others, which is beyond his control, but rather simply do his best to benefit them. Like an archer firing a arrow, his work is done when he has done his best, weather or not he hit his target. —- This is a great book (even excellent if you ignore its repetitive textbook nature) that provides a great overview of Stoicism. It’s also full of exercises on how to apply the philosophy to everyday life. —— I still think Irvine’s ‘A Guide to the Good Life’ is the best starting point if you are curious about Stoicism (link in BIO). Which you should be! It’s an fascinating and very practical philosophy! —— What principles have you picked up during the last couple of years that had major impact on your life? 🤔 —— 4/5

Now it’s time to level things up a bit. Here are my stoic challenges for the coming weeks: —— ❗️Not drink anything for a day. —— ❗️Do public speaking. —— ❗️ Sleep without a pillow for a week. ——- At least for me all these appear worse to me than only drinking water for and sleeping on the floor (with pillow 😀) for a week. (Actually, I still only drink water it kinda stuck with me.) —— One of these new challenges have a slightly different feel to it; to do public speaking. —— Voluntary discomfort is not only about gaining appreciation for things you have and preparation for aversion: it’s also about eradicating irrational fears. —— One of the most common irrational fear is the fear of public speaking. This is one of my irrational fears. So this month I’m going to put myself in uncomfortable situations where I need to talk in front of large groups of people. Wish me luck! —— Follow my progress in my stories! —— In what ways are you torturing yourself these days? 😆🤔

—- 📝 Experiments: “It fun! Once you embrace the world of experimentation the world becomes a sandbox in which to try new ideas, ask new questions and to challenge the current orthodoxies.” 👌🏻 —- 📝 “Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.” There is a gap between the incentives people say they care about, and those that ACTUALLY changes their behavior. (Money and being like everyone else are powerful incentives, but we don’t like to admit it). —- ⚖️ VERDICT: The book is filled with entertaining examples of how one can benefit from thinking unconventionality and out of the box, but as a whole it’s very shallow. If you want to improve your ‘ruling faculty’ you should read these instead: —- 🔥‘Influence’ by Cialdini —- 🔥 ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ by D. Kahneman —- ⭐️ TAKEAWAY & 💭 THOUGHTS: The book talks about knowing when to quit something and when to stick with it. Due to the #SunkCostFallacy we are prone to continue to spend money and time on endeavors we are already heavily invested in. Consider the the opportunity cost (what you have to give up in order to choose something else.) of what you do every now and then! —- A while ago I quit studying Chinese. I was very serious about it and I spent some good money on teachers, books and language apps. But the biggest investment was in time. It was really hard to quit after hundreds of hours of practicing Hanzi characters and tunes (Chinese is not only hard to write, its impossible to pronounce too 😈). The sunk cost fallacy was strong. But it would be insane to continue, since I would probably have to study for the rest of my life to reach the level of a Chinese 5-year-old, and by that time everyone will probably have a #Babelfish in their ears translating in real-time anyway. —- So I quit! The opportunity cost was too high. I had too many other interest to pursue. I don’t regret it one bit! —- What are you happy you quit? 🤔 Let’s make quitting sexy again! 😉 —— Photo credit: @ha77on —— 2/5

It’s has been great to revisit the old Stoics. So inspiring in fact that I’ve been experimenting with doing stoic exercises in voluntary discomfort to get rid of irrational fears and desires. (More updates on the next phase of that experiment is coming soon! 😉) —— I’m finishing this book, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness, tonight and the review will be up shortly! ——- A big theme in Stoic philosophy is to recognize what is in your direct control and what’s not and act accordingly. ——- ’Don’t seek for event to happen as you wish but rather wish for events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly” - Epictetus, ‘Enchiridion’ —— Now I’m looking for something new! Can you recommend me a ‘one of a kind’ or surprisingly good nonfiction book? A book that was surprisingly good? 🤔

Recent Posts

Thoughts on: ‘The Accidental President’ by A. J. Baime 29 November, 2018
Thoughts on: ‘Stoicism and the Art of Happiness’ by Donald Robertson 22 November, 2018
Practicing Stoicism: Voluntary Discomfort (Part 2) 19 November, 2018
Practicing Stoicism: Voluntary Discomfort. 16 November, 2018
Thoughts on: “Think Like a Freak” by Levitt & Dubner 15 November, 2018

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