Category: Books

11 excerpts from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse: “Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else”

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

I recently finished Siddhartha [Kindle] by Hermann Hesse and highly recommend the book. It’s a fast and flowing read and a powerful story, especially if you’re into Eastern philosophy and Buddhism. Siddhartha is the story of a man, a seeker of wisdom and truth, whose life parallels that of Gautama, the original Buddha. Hermann Hesse has a wonderful and unique writing style and I wanted to share some of my favorite excerpts from the book.

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“Siddhartha,” he said, “why are you waiting?”
“You know why.”
“Will you go on standing and waiting until it is day, noon, evening?”
“I will stand and wait.”
“You will grow tired, Siddhartha.”
“I will grow tired.”
“You will fall asleep, Siddhartha.”
“I will not fall asleep.”
“You will die, Siddhartha.”
“I will die.”

The Brahman fell silent and remained silent for so long that the stars in the small window wandered and changed their relative positions, ‘ere the silence was broken. Silent and motionless stood the son with his arms folded, silent and motionless sat the father on the mat, and the stars traced their paths in the sky.

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else…Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

“Govinda,” Siddhartha spoke to his friend. “Govinda, my dear, come with me under the Banyan tree, let’s practise meditation.”

…this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama

“What is meditation? What is leaving one’s body? What is fasting? What is holding one’s breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk…”

He soon saw that Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, shipping and trade, but that he acted in a fortunate manner, and that Siddhartha surpassed him, the merchant, in calmness and equanimity, and in the art of listening and deeply understanding previously unknown people.

Slowly, like humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly and making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha’s soul, slowly it filled his soul, made it heavy, made it tired, put it to sleep.

“Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf, which is blown and is turning around through the air, and wavers, and tumbles to the ground. But others, a few, are like stars, they go on a fixed course, no wind reaches them, in themselves they have their law and their course.”

“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

38 powerful insights from Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton)

Alain de Botton is one of my favorite thinkers/writers/intellectuals. I’ve written about his work in the past, such as his TED talk on success and his book Religion for Atheists.

By now I’ve read and watched a lot of the content he’s put online, so I wanted to share some of my favorite insights across his work with you. So in no particular order…

(most of the below is paraphrase, with direct quotes in italics)

Alain de Botton on how to think more about sex

1. There’s nothing that is considered sexy that isn’t, with the wrong person, disgusting

2. The magic of oral sex is that it takes the dirtiest part of us and makes it clean. That part is accepted by another person

3. What turns us on? It’s often what’s missing…from our childhoods, our moms

4. Why do we have too little sex? It’s because the person we have sex with is someone we do too much other stuff with (in past, people had more specific gender and vocational roles but now, we do everything together)

Alain de Botton on success
on YouTube

5. Snobbery is when you know only a little bit about someone but draw much larger conclusions about them

6. We’re not materialistic, we live in a society where emotional rewards are pegged to material goods. So when you see a Ferrari driver, don’t criticize them for being greedy, instead, see them as somebody who is incredibly vulnerable and in need of love

7. We’ve done away with the caste system. We’re told anyone can achieve anything, which generates envy (envy is our dominant modern emotion)

8. What is envy? Envy is relatability. When you can’t relate to them, you can’t envy them

9. It’s bad enough to not get what you want. It’s even worse to get what you want, after all this hard work, only to realize it may not be what you wanted all along

Alain de Botton on status anxiety

10. Low-paying jobs are frowned upon not just because of the pay…but because of their perceived status. Vice-versa for high-paying jobs

11. In a “just” society like ours, we believe the rich deserve their success, but we also assume the poor deserve their failure (which makes it harder to tolerate our own mediocrity or lack of success)

12. Jesus and Socrates as great exemplars for being sacrificial and sticking to their beliefs

13. We want the respect of people who we don’t even respect

Alain de Botton on why pessimism is healthy

14. The problem with society is that, with the engines of science, technology, and commerce, we’ve taken such great strides as mankind that we forget pessimism’s usefulness in individuals, and in the day-to-day.

15. Ironically, the secular are least suited to cope because they believe we can achieve heaven on earth through Silicon Valley, Fortune 500s, university research, etc

16. Religions provide angels – forever young and beautiful – to worship, and our lovers instead to tolerate (whereas secular people are always complaining, “why can’t you be more perfect?”).

Alain de Botton’s talk at Google
on YouTube

17. We’ve offloaded making up our minds to things like social media and the news

18. News drives us insane with envy; envy is good, but we don’t extract its lessons

19. We need MORE bias in the news: GOOD bias, not false fairness

Alain de Botton on Socrates and self confidence
on YouTube

20. There are 5 steps to have a good thought:

Step 1. look for “plain common sense” statements
Step 2. try to find exceptions
Step 3. if an exception is found, that must mean statement is false or imprecise
Step 4. try to incorporate the exception into the original statement
Step 5. continue this process, keep finding exceptions, until it’s impossible to disprove

21. Socrates believed we can have an interesting philosophical conversation anywhere, on a street corner or at home or in a foreign place

22. Socrates had reservations about democracy (lived in Athenian democracy). He argued that just because the majority of people believe something doesn’t make it right. What matters is whether the argument is logical and reasonable, not whether the majority says so

Alain de Botton on La Rochefoucauld
Philosophers Mail

23. There are some people who would never have fallen in love, if they had not heard there was such a thing.

Alain de Botton on Epicurus on happiness
on YouTube

24. Happiness is important: it comes from friends (as permanent companions), freedom (Epicurus left city life to start a commune), and an analyzed life (to find the time and space for quiet thinking about our lives)

Alain de Botton on Schopenhauer and his views on love
on YouTube

25. Being hurt by rejection is to not fully understand the requirements of acceptance

26. Love has nothing to do with happiness, it’s all about procreation, the “Will to life” (like Nietzsche’s “Will to power”)

Alain de Botton on Nietzsche and hardship
on YouTube

27. One of the few philosophers who wrote about pain and hardship, he believed they were necessary evil for enjoyment and success

Alain de Botton on Montaigne on self-esteem

28. Animals often surpass us in wisdom. They are much more natural about their bodies

29. Every society has customs which create narrow minds. To counter it, travel widely

30. How can you test for wisdom? Ask questions such as:

What should one do when anxious?
What is a good parent?
How can you tell if one is in love or infatuated?

31. “even on the highest throne, we are seated, still, on our asses”

From Religion for Atheists

32. As John Stuart Mill, another Victorian defender of the aims of education, put it: ‘The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings.’

33. We feel guilty for all that we have not yet read, but overlook how much better read we already are than Augustine or Dante, thereby ignoring that our problem lies squarely with our manner of absorption rather than with the extent of our consumption.

34. The single danger of life in a godless society is that it lacks reminders of the transcendent and therefore leaves us unprepared for disappointment and eventual annihilation. When God is dead, human beings – much to their detriment – are at risk of taking psychological centre stage

35. The modern world is not, of course, devoid of institutions. It is filled with commercial corporations of unparalleled size which have an intriguing number of organizational traits in common with religions. But these corporations focus only on our outer, physical needs, on selling us cars and shoes, pizzas and telephones. Religion’s great distinction is that while it has a collective power comparable to that of modern corporations pushing the sale of soap and mashed potatoes, it addresses precisely those inner needs which the secular world leaves to disorganized and vulnerable individuals.

36. Religions do not, as modern universities will, limit their teaching to a fixed period of time (a few years of youth), a particular space (a campus) or a single format (the lecture).

37. Comte…was convinced that humanity was still at the beginning of its history and that all kinds of innovation – however bold and far- fetched they might initially sound – were possible in the religious field, just as in the scientific one. […] The age he lived in, he asserted, afforded him a historic opportunity to edit out the absurdities of the past and to create a new version of religion which could be embraced because it was appealing and useful… He drew most heavily from Catholicism […] and also essayed occasional forays into the theology of Judaism, Buddhism and Islam.

38. Images of tranquillity and security haunt it: a particular job, social conquest or material acquisition always seems to hold out the promise of an end to craving. In reality, however, each worry will soon enough be replaced by another, and one desire by the next, generating a relentless cycle of what Buddhists call ‘grasping’, or upādāna in Sanskrit.

52 tips from The Little Book of Talent, in my words (“think like Buddha, work like Jesus”)

the-little-book-of-talentI forget most of what I read unless the knowledge is shocking or hilarious or about sex or is life altering. Maybe I don’t forget it right away, but time wins in the end. It’s always deleting what I’ve learned. I hate it. Because it wastes time, our most precious resource, and I hate wasted time more than I hate people who are perpetually late, and cafes that are too cool for wifi.

So I’ve developed two methods to retain knowledge, especially the important bits. Method one is good ol’ memorization (using Anki and Evernote). Method two is more complicated but it’s helpful in my quest to become a good writer: to rewrite things, whether quotes or short stories or essays.

When I stumbled upon The Little Book of Talent (thanks Derek!), the 52 tips were perfect for method two. The book is a companion to Daniel Coyle’s other book, The Talent Code, which I also read and summarized.

So, from The Little Book of Talent [Kindle], here is a rewritten version of his 52 tips!

1. VISUALIZE a “future you” who’s mastered your desired skill (like Michael Phelps visualizes each performance down to likely drops of water)
2. REPEAT the best performances of that skill for 15 minutes a day (if you’re a comedian, learn to recite a Louis CK routine, word-for-word and pause-for-pause)
3. STEAL from anyone better than you (this is why musical families produce musical prodigies)
4. RECORD your progress (like a daily journal)
5. BE STUPID, act silly to experiment and expand what’s possible
6. BE POOR: use simple, sparse environments to focus and motivate you (like the founders of Google starting in a garage)
7. HARD OR SOFT? Determine if you’re learning a hard skill (like a tennis forehand) or a soft one (like writing)?
8. For hard skills, be the KARATE KID: wax on and wax off. Be precise, slow, and careful
9. For soft skills, be a SMALL CHILD: experiment, explore, and challenge yourself
10. DO HARD: prioritize hard skills. In the long run, they’re more important
11. FORGET PRODIGIES. Believe you’ll only get there through effort and persistence
12. FIND THE RIGHT COACH: someone who is tough, blunt, active, usually older, and enjoys teaching fundamentals (I am reminded of John Wooden’s reputation)
13. LIVE in the sweet spot, which happens when you’re fully engaged and struggling just enough (what Mikhail C calls flow)
14. MEASURE # of tough reps finished, not # of hours spent
15. CHUNK IT. Reduce each skill into small, coherent chunks
16. MASTER A CHUNK at a time (like a difficult run in a song, or an algorithm in programming)
17. FRUSTRATE yourself. When you’re frustrated, remember: that’s when you’re improving most
18. Practice a little each day, instead of a lot in spurts
19. PLAY: Don’t do drills. Create and play games
20. PRACTICE ALONE
21. Create IMAGES for each chunk to improve your memory
22. Make a mistake? Stop everything. Pay attention. Understand what you did wrong. Then do it right.
23. VISUALIZE your neurons creating connections, getting thicker
24. VISUALIZE your neurons speeding up, getting more efficient
25. PLACE LIMITS and rules on yourself to challenge your skills
26. DO IT SLOW, as slowly as possible
27. CLOSE YOUR EYES and do it. Use your left hand if you’re right handed.
28. MIME IT
29. When you do it right (finally!): notice it. mark it. replay it in your mind
30. Take NAPS
31. EXAGGERATE: make it much bigger, or much smaller
32. SET NEW GOALS just out of reach. Stretch for them
33. WRITE IT DOWN: to learn from a book, write it down, summarize it, organize it
34. With mistakes, use the SANDWICH technique: do it right. do it wrong. then do it right again
35. Practice the 3 x 10 method: do a rep, rest 10 minutes, do a rep, rest 10 minutes, do a rep, rest
36. TEST YOURSELF DAILY
37. Plan your practice using the REPS framework: Reach and Repeat; Engage; Purposeful; Strong, Speedy Feedback
38. STOP WHEN TIRED. Don’t create bad habits
39. Practice immediately after a performance, when the mistakes are fresh (this is my favorite tip)
40. Before sleep, visualize your perfect performance (what Phelps and his coach called “playing the tape”)
41. End each practice with a REWARD (remember the habit loop: trigger, action, reward)
42. How to be a better teacher: connect emotionally, don’t give long speeches, communicate precisely and concretely, make a scorecard, maximize struggling, teach them to learn without you
43. RINSE & REPEAT. Rinse & repeat. Rinse & repeat…
44. Fight the battle anew every day (a frequent message in The War of Art)
45. For every hour of competition or performance, spend FIVE HOURS in practice
46. Instead of fixing bad habits, build good new ones
47. Teach it
48. Give a new skill EIGHT WEEKS to develop
49. When you plateau, change it up!
50. BUILD GRIT and love the grind
51. Keep your goals to yourself
52. Think like Buddha (calm, patient) and work like Jesus (strategic, steady)

That’s the list! Here’s my 1-page summary of The Talent Code.

The Power of Habit: more notes from one of my favorite books

I am reading again The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg [Kindle]. It’s my favorite behavior change book. Here’s a summary.

A reader alerted me to some supplemental content: a reader’s guide to applying the book’s ideas, and a thorough study guide for teachers.

So I read them and took notes:

  • try different rewards until you find one that makes the habit stick
  • for a reward to work properly, it must create a CRAVING over time (the way you might crave an episode of Rick and Morty ;)
  • all cues (aka triggers) fall into 5 categories: location, time, emotional state, other people, action that came immediately before
  • an effective cue should be simple and clear and fall into only a few of the 5 categories. for example, a good cue for exercise could be to hit the gym at 4pm (a time cue), when you return home from work (preceding action cue)
  • an activity becomes a habit only when mental activity decreases over time (so you’re not actively thinking about it)
  • focus on keystone habits, which are habits that influence other habits. for example, a keystone habit in families is to eat dinner together. i find that meditating for 5 minutes is my keystone habit. it simply makes my day better: i am calmer, get more done, less rushed, more focused, etc etc
  • “willpower is the most important keystone habit for success”

See my cheatsheet-summary-review here. If you want to change something annoyingly sticky in your life, read this book!

1-Page Summary: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

the-war-of-art-book-cover

The big ideas

  1. Resistance is the enemy. Resistance stops you from pursuing your dreams: writing a book. running a 10K. building a business
  2. Use Resistance to discover where your dreams and desires lie. Move in its direction, where you feel it most: the cold sweats, the tears, the doubts
  3. Beat Resistance with perspiration, not inspiration. Resistance fears commitment, craft, and dedication
  4. Don’t wait for the Muse to fight the battle for you. She will come only when you no longer need her
  5. Beat Resistance by building a territory. Pour your sweat and hours into it. Make it yours.

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy – they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next – Alain de Botton

Related things to read

Favorite quotes (12)

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him.

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. […] It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

Often couples or close friends, even entire families, will enter into tacit compacts whereby each individual pledges (unconsciously) to remain mired in the same slough in which she and all her cronies have become so comfortable.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.

Now consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art.

A pro views her work as craft, not art. Not because she believes art is devoid of a mystical dimension. On the contrary. She understands that all creative endeavor is holy, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She knows if she thinks about that too much, it will paralyze her. So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

The pro stands at one remove from her instrument — meaning her person, her body, her voice, her talent; the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological being she uses in her work.

Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you,” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.”

When Arnold Schwarzenegger hits the gym, he’s on his own turf. But what made it his own are the hours and years of sweat he put in to claim it. A territory doesn’t give, it gives back.

*Hat tip to Brian’s Philosophers Notes for his usage of the phrase “the big ideas”. Thanks to Bethany Jae for her cover photo