A few years ago, I borrowed this book from the library only to read a couple pages before returning it. Fortunately, the occasional recommendations of Taleb at rvltr reminded me to pick this book up again.
This time around, I got the audio book and by the time I had reached the place where I had been previously dropped off, I realized this was an absolutely brilliant little book.
What changed?
It wasn’t the format. This book is best as a physical hardcopy, as an object lying around the house to be randomly accessed, to be pondered a couple lines at a time. An audio book is actually the perfectly wrong format for this book.
So what changed? How did I see brilliance after missing it in its best light? Well, my brain is has changed. In the past year, I finally kicked my Facebook addiction and minimized my use of Boardgamegeek. I’ve always had good boundaries around Twitter and Linkedin, but I’ve strangled my use of those services as well. Thank god I never got sucked into Instagram or Tiktok.
Getting control over these digital vices has not only freed up precious free time, it has made a big difference in how my mind processes the world around me.
Can you imagine it? I wasn’t mentally concentrated enough to read a short book of pithy proverbs! We are going to look back at the early 21st century as a dark age of constant distraction from the computers in our pockets.
My twenties had cigarettes, my thirties had social media. At the moment, I regret the latter more than the former. Let’s hope this decade doesn’t come with its own a regrettable addiction.
The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free
Taleb
Back to the book for a moment. It’s fucking brilliant. Not every aphorism will be applicable to you, but when it hits, the punch packs a wallop. I read and listened (at 1.0x speed) to each copy separately, basically reading it twice in quick succession. I did not notice a major difference between the original audiobook and the expanded ebook. Both are fine but neither are ideal formats for full appreciation of this book. I suspect that I will eventually purchase a hardcopy, since it was designed for manual serendipity. However, it is also fair to note that I don’t love it enough to make a stand against my wife’s current campaign against new book physical purchases.
Three months later. Even though I still haven’t purchased a copy, I suspect that this will be my most influential book of the year. It was nice that it spurred me to listen to Anti-Fragile, but more importantly it ignited my recent push towards reading ancient wisdom literature, such as the Havamal, I Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Analects, etc.
One of Taleb’s aphorisms starts “Read no book less than 100 years old…”, It seems that I’ve multiplied that advice by ten or twenty. I wonder how long this personal trend will last.