In the spirit of The Checklist Manifesto, I will keep this summary short. High stakes mean that margin of error is low. Surgeons and pilots must minimize error because of high stakes. They love checklists. If your work doesn’t save lives, it’s okay. You can still improve the quality of what you produce. Use checklists … Read more
To know that there is a clear difference between intelligence and wisdom, one must simply ask themselves if one can exist without the other. Can you be intelligent without being wise? Can you be wise without being intelligent? The answer to both these questions is yes. Intelligence without wisdom is less clear to see. But … Read more
The Courage to Trust Others Don’t trust others because you’re naïve, trust them because you’re courageous. You should expect them to have the capacity to hurt you, but you should be willing to take a chance anyway. That is the foundation of society. Some people are too disagreeable, they refuse to be naïve about anything. … Read more
In Thoughts Without a Thinker, Mark Epstein makes the case that what is missing from psychoanalysis is Buddhism, that the two are complementary. Psychoanalysis is a reversion to the past, but a study of the past, while necessary, can be infinite and ineffective. There must be a focus on the present, this is the idea … Read more
The Ying-Yang symbol has its roots in Taoism. If you look at the symbol, you will notice that the white half has a black circle inside of it, and the black half has a white circle inside of it. The philosophical connotation, according to Peterson, is that the world is divided into chaos and order, … Read more
To be proud of your insufficiencies is arrogant and foolish. Peterson recalls a conversation he had with a student who was a bad writer, in which the student asserts that she is not actually a bad writer, but that she has a unique style that is difficult to understand. Instead of graciously taking advice to … Read more
It’s something that for generations, has been constant. It’s a message. It’s in some of the most popular songs recorded. It’s what many religions discuss at length. It’s what psychologists and philosophers have been debating for centuries. It’s what the self-help industry tries to sell you at every moment they get the chance. What is … Read more
Improvement of the Mind by Isaac Watts is an early text about how to learn, and it was recommended by Faraday, who claimed that it had provided him with the framework and tools he needed for his eventual discoveries. No one can learn everything, it is neither possible nor desirable, but everyone should try to … Read more
Television and radio do not stimulate your mind or force you to think. They provide you with pre-packaged opinions that give you the illusion that you are thinking. How to Read a Book argues for switching to the written word, and to doing it right. You are enlightened, not when you know what the author … Read more
In ancient Chinese rituals, straw dogs were used as sacrifices to the gods. ‘Gaia’ is the name of a goddess in Greek mythology, and the Gaia principle, by Lovelock, suggests that the earth is a self-regulating, complex system that is influenced by its habitants. And that human beings, are merely organisms in this system, that … Read more