Here’s your weekly dose of timeless ideas to sharpen your mind, make smarter decisions, and live better.
Quotes
I.
Attachment to money will always create insecurity no matter how much money you have in the bank.
― Deepak Chopra
II.
It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
― Eckhart Tolle
III.
We are constantly trying to hold it all together. If you really want to see why you do things, then don’t do them and see what happens.
― Michael A. Singer
Ideas
I.
All attempts to create something admirable are the weapons of evil. You may think you are practicing benevolence and righteousness, but in effect you will be creating a kind of artificiality. Where a model exists, copies will be made of it; where success has been gained, boasting follows; where debate exists, there will be outbreaks of hostility.
Zhuangzi in The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
II.
Every feedback system needs a margin of “lag” or error. If we try to make a thermostat absolutely accurate–that is, if we bring the upper and lower limits of temperature very close together in an attempt to hold the temperature at a constant 70 degrees–the whole system will break down. For to the extent that the upper and lower limits coincide, the signals for switching off and switching on will coincide! If 70 degrees is both the lower and upper limit the “go” sign will also be the “stop” sign; “yes” will imply “no” and “no” will imply “yes.” Whereupon the mechanism will start “trembling,” going on and off, on and off, until it shakes itself to pieces. The system is too sensitive and shows symptoms which are startlingly like human anxiety. For when a human being is so self-conscious, so self-controlled that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. This is just what happens to the human being, to the mind, when the desire for certainty and security prompts identification between the mind and its own image of itself. It cannot let go of itself. It feels that it should not do what it is doing, and that it should do what it is not doing. It feels that it should not be what it is, and be what it isn’t. Furthermore, the effort to remain always “good” or “happy” is like trying to hold the thermostat to a constant 70 degrees by making the lower limit the same as the upper.
Alan Wilson Watts in The Way of Zen
III.
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching
Articles Worth Reading
I.
The Sound of My Inbox
Molly Fischer | The Cut
The financial promise of email newsletters has launched countless micropublications — and created a new literary genre.
II.
Train Your Brain to Remember Anything You Learn With This Simple, 20-Minute Habit
Scott Mautz | Inc
If you want to remember what you learned from an interesting seminar or session, don’t take a “cram for the exam” approach when you want to use the info. Instead, invest the 20 minutes (in spaced-out intervals), so that a month later it’s all still there in the old noggin.
III.
Zoë Heller | The NewYorker
The line between delusion and what the rest of us believe may be blurrier than we think.