A Time For Ruin by Yoshida Kenko

Yoshida Kenko

When a man is young he has such an overabundance of energy that his senses are quickly stirred and he has many desires. It is as easy for him to put himself in danger and court destruction as to roll a ball. He likes beautiful clothes and possessions and spends his fortunes on them, only to abandon everything for the shabby black robes of a priest. Or, his abundance of high spirits may lead him to quarrel, only to feel ashamed in his heart and envious of his antagonist; his uncertain whims shift from day to day. Now giving himself to his lusts, now moved by others’ kindness, now performing some generous action, he yearns, when he hears stories of men who ruined or even destroyed lives that might have lasted a hundred years, to do the same, and never gives a thought to leading a safe and long life. He is drawn wherever his fancies lead him, and becomes the subject of gossip that lasts even after his death. Youth is the time when a man ruins himself.

An old man’s spirit grows feeble; he is indifferent and slow to respond, unmoved by everything. His mind being naturally placid, he engages in no useless activities. He takes good care of himself, is untroubled by worries, and is careful not to be a nuisance to others. The old are as superior to the young in wisdom as the young are superior to the old in looks.

Discovered in Lapham’s Quarterly; currently reading his Essays in Idleness.

Random quotes: “I loaf and invite my soul. I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” – Walt Whitman

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. […] When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. […] And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. – Corinthians 13

a classic.

Remember, there’s no courage without fear – Bill Paxton in Edge of Tomorrow

great movie.

Do or do not. There is no try – Yoda

heard from Brad Feld in his ETL podcast

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are – Anais Nin

I had an impression that the real man, to his death unknown and lonely, was a wraith that went a silent way unseen between the writer of his books and the man who led his life, and smiled with ironical detachment at the two puppets – Somerset Maugham

now THAT is a well-written passage…

Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. – Miyamoto Musashi

Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education. – John Alexander Smith

what the English call rot, we call bullshit

I loaf and invite my soul. I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass – Walt Whitman

loafing is underrated especially in these times…

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. – Clay Shirky

something I hope to always remember

He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged. – Ben Franklin

Of the quotes I’ve seen attributed to Ben Franklin, this one I question most

One of the best heuristics I found when deciding to invest/pass on a startup is whether I would seriously consider joining it, if asked. – Max Levchin

yes!

To establish a place of work where engineers can feel the joy of technological innovation, be aware of their mission to society, and work to their hearts’ content. – Masaru Ibuka in Sony’s Purposes of Incorporation

“work to their hearts’ content”. what a wonderful phrase

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will come – Isaiah 58:8 (my own altered translation)

There might be tens of thousands of people who conceive the possibility of the same invention at the same time.
But less than one in ten of them imagines how it might be done.
Of these who see how to do it, only one in ten will actually think through the practical details and specific solutions.
Of these only one in ten will actually get the design to work for very long.
And finally, usually only one of all those many thousands with the idea will get the invention to stick in the culture.
At our lab we engage in all these levels of discovery, in the expected proportions.
-Danny Hillis via What Technology Wants

In physical talents he was a pauper when he started; by grace of his intellect he is incomparably the richest of all the animals now. But he is still a pauper in morals — incomparably the poorest of the creatures in that respect. The gods value morals alone; they have paid no compliments to intellect, nor offered it a single reward. If intellect is welcome anywhere in the other world, it is in hell, not heaven. – Mark Twain

Becoming an artist is the best way to avoid annoying, ordinary society – Seijuro Hiko in Rurouni Kenshin

enjoyed the anime

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt.

“cold and timid souls”…

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country, the New York Times is read by the people who think they run the country, […] the San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure whether there is a country or if anybody’s running it, and the Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country

Random quotes: “It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster” – Greg Lemond

A particularly fertile month, quotes-wise. I was in a Rilke reading binge…what a writer.

When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. – Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

After innumerable times hearing some friend or writer praise this book, I finally began to read it. They were right.

Every good anime just has to have a sword that defies the laws of mass – Ben on YT, re: Rurouni Kenshin

Great anime. Attack on Titan is another great one, and a wildly creative concept.

I have three treasures I cherish and hold dear: the first is love, the second is moderation, the third is humility. With love one is fearless. With moderation one is abundant. With humility one can fill the highest position. – 道德经

Reading the Tao Te Ching fills me with peace.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. – Henry David Thoreau

Philosophy should be a set of tools and paths to understanding how to live. We have moved far away from that, just as we have moved far away from seeing food as a way to nourish the body.

The Internet allows any two individuals to transfer data without permission from any central authority. Bitcoin does the same for value – Naval Ravikant

Chris Dixon said: you should pay attention to where “smart energy” is moving. Naval is that, personified.

It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster – Greg Lemond

Hat tip to Patrick Collison.

Moore’s Law is really about people’s belief system, it’s not a law of physics, it’s about human belief, and when people believe in something, they’ll put energy behind it to make it come to pass. – Kevin Kelly

From What Technology Wants…a book that is re-organizing how I think about technology, its evolution and its role in society. I’d like to have a long chat with Kevin someday.

There might be tens of thousands of people who conceive the possibility of the same invention at the same time.
But less than one in ten of them imagines how it might be done.
Of these who see how to do it, only one in ten will actually think through the practical details and specific solutions.
Of these only one in ten will actually get the design to work for very long.
And finally, usually only one of all those many thousands with the idea will get the invention to stick in the culture.
-Danny Hillis via What Technology Wants

The book is filled with gems as the above.

In physical talents he was a pauper when he started; by grace of his intellect he is incomparably the richest of all the animals now. But he is still a pauper in morals — incomparably the poorest of the creatures in that respect. The gods value morals alone; they have paid no compliments to intellect, nor offered it a single reward. If intellect is welcome anywhere in the other world, it is in hell, not heaven. – Mark Twain

The power of great writers: what they say may not be true, but how they say it is so beautiful that you are compelled to believe.

And the rest is Rilke, sans commentary:

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.
– Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. – Rainer Maria Rilke

We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it. – Rainer Maria Rilke

what do the contours of your body mean,
laid out like the lines on a hand,
so that I no longer see them except as fate?
-Rainer Maria Rilke in Requiem for a Friend

Random Quotes: “True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline” – Mortimer J. Adler

Send me your favorites!

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reading Emerson’s Self-Reliance. Profound with a capital P, with an impressive economy of words. (is that a right way to use ‘economy’?)

The best way to get approval is not to need it. – Hugh MacLoed

Social media has accelerated our approval addiction.

Complete your task. Seek no reward. Make no claims. Without faltering fully choose to do what you must do. – 道德经

Also reading the Tao te Ching (道德经). It’s religious-text-as-poetry (unlike the Bible which is more religious-text-as-family-geneaology-and-historical-documentary).

You only build value in a company if you’re doing hard work to solve tough problems – Elon Musk

Ironman himself, whom we saw at Coachella.

Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face – Mike Tyson

Thanks to Deepak Malhotra.

True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline – Mortimer J. Adler

Still working through this one, but I’ve experienced that correlation (the more disciplined I am, the more free I feel). I don’t know which way the causation arrow flows.

As a yakuza, it’s okay to be betrayed. Don’t be the one to betray other people. If you betray others, you won’t be able to trust yourself. And if you can’t trust yourself, you’ll grow not to trust others as well. And that’s a lonely life. And not the way a man should live. – Yakuza boss

Reminds me of Marley’s quote.

Porn is to new media formats what acne is to teenagers. It’s just part of the process of growing up. – Paul Saffo

What a metaphor. Works on many levels.

I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. – Anne Lamott

Thanks to Susan, from Bird by Bird.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit – Aristotle

Older I get, more I believe that a good life = good habits.

Money is the cheapest thing…liberty, freedom is the most expensive – Bill Cunningham

From a wonderful Netflix documentary on Bill’s career.

Most favorite quotes are here. It needs a bit of updating!

The genius of Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I tend to cycle through highly social and then highly solitary periods. From personal experience, the above quote couldn’t be more true.

I’m thoroughly enjoying Emerson’s Self-Reliance. I usually highlight 1 or 2 sentences per page of a typical Kindle book, but here it’s closer to 6 or 8. It’s a fast read, too (Kindle clocks it in at 88 pages).