The reason is, that the most attentive observation of the facts of history has invariably demonstrated to me that social organisms being every whit as complicated as those of all beings, it is in no wise in our power to force them to undergo on a sudden far-reaching transformations. Nature has recourse at times to … Read more
The pursuit of competitive enterprise was a magnificent and courageous idea in its heyday. But in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries considerable changes occurred. In our present day of giant business and monopoly capitalism how many people can become successful as individual competitors? There are very few groups left who, like doctors and psychotherapists and … Read more
Those years in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when Europe was inundated with anxiety in the form of fears of death, agonies of doubt about the meaning and value of life, superstition and fears of devils and sorcerers, is the nearest period comparable to our own. All one needs to do is read fears of … Read more
Rollo May writes about a feeling of emptiness common to all. But what does it mean to feel emptiness? A human being is not empty in a static sense, as though he were a storage battery which needs charging. The experience of emptiness, rather, generally comes from people’s feeling that they are powerless to do … Read more
Psychotherapy and Buddhism: Toward an IntegrationThe Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science The Science of Enlightenment: Teachings and Meditations for Awakening Through Self-Investigation Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment – Summary 1 How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics … Read more
La Rochefoucauld was one of the best writers of maxims in France. The book contains cynicism, skepticism, pessimism, and cannot help but make you wiser. Below are my highlights. Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries ; they even hate those who have obliged them , and cease to hate those who … Read more
“The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” is a book written by Matt Ridley, first published in 2010. The book presents a comprehensive historical narrative and argument, asserting that human progress and prosperity are a direct result of market exchange and specialization of labor. Ridley starts his argument by looking at the beginning of human civilization … Read more
People will more and more freely find ways to exchange their specialised production for diversified consumption. This world can already be glimpsed on the web, in what John Barlow calls ‘dot-communism’: a workforce of free agents bartering their ideas and efforts barely interested in whether the barter yields ‘real’ money. The explosion of interest in … Read more
In the mid-1970s it was briefly fashionable for journalists to write scare stories about the recent cooling of the globe, which was presented as undiluted bad news. Now it is fashionable for them to write scare stories about the recent warming of the globe, which is presented as undiluted bad news. Here are two quotes … Read more
A constant drumbeat of pessimism usually drowns out any triumphalist song of the kind I have vented in this book so far. If you say the world has been getting better you may get away with being called naive and insensitive. If you say the world is going to go on getting better, you are … Read more