“We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly”

Viktor Frankl

Re-reading a book is like dating an ex-girlfriend; some things change, some stay the same, and it is on that higher level, the meta-ness of the whole thing, where you really learn and grow. While re-reading Man’s Search for Meaning, I came across a few pages that were so powerful I was unable to move past them. The ideas aren’t new, but I had forgotten them, and clearly when I first read them, they made no impression on me. To extend the analogy, it’s like falling in love for different and perhaps more spiritual reasons.

Specifically I am talking about pages 76-78 of the Kindle edition. Within, Viktor Frankl – the renowned psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor – explains why we should stop questioning life, and allow life to question us instead.

“We had to learn ourselves…that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consistent, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.”

To find the right action and conduct for yourself:

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

The central, perhaps only, strategy is to live not for yourself but for something and someone else:

“Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself — be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.”

This book amazes me every time. It’s an easy read, a powerful story, and a potent philosophy.

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how” – Nietzsche

Resources, thoughts from The Religion of Business

I created a website/project/newest-shiny-thing called The Religion of Business, where I’m building a library of advice and insights on how businesses can learn from organized religions (the focus is on the “organized” half of the phrase). I’ve written briefly about it here.

I’ll periodically share useful resources and links here. Here are a few recent ones:

  • A 1-Page Summary of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer [link] – one of the best psychology books I’ve read, perhaps ever
  • How businesses use religious principles, techniques, ideas [link] – continuing the case for why this intersection is important and undervalued
  • Notes from The Economist’s in-depth report on the Catholic Church’s finances [link] – did you know that Catholic priests make, on average, $25K in salary?

I thought this was an interesting concept: the “cut flower culture” from Jewish theologian Will Herberg:

The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as “humanistic” ethics, has resulted in our “cut flower culture.” Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity — the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.

I also thought this was a great article, “The Market as God” by Harvey Cox [link]. A memorable quote:

I am beginning to think that for all the religions of the world, however they may differ from one another, the religion of The Market has become the most formidable rival, the more so because it is rarely recognized as a religion

Jack Ma blasts minds at the Stanford GSB; here are my notes!

This Jack Ma talk at Stanford’s GSB, given in Mandarin (with great English subtitles!), is minute-for-minute the best tech entrepreneurship lecture I’ve heard this year, maybe last year too.

Here were my notes. They are more copious than usual because there’s so much good stuff here: wisdom, humor, anecdotes, rah-rah. Enjoy!

  • in relating a story about how he tried to stop a group of men who were stealing a manhole cover: if you don’t take action, no one will, and if you take action, you may be the beneficiary
  • his whole life, no one told him he was smart, no one believed he would succeed
  • he was first person in China to conduct business on the Internet
  • he thought, Internet will be something, as long as I’m the last person to survive, I will succeed (wow!)
  • Silicon Valley gave him a lot of inspiration
    • when he started working on the Internet in China, everyone thought he was a trickster, but when he went to SV, all the parking lots were full, rush hour traffic, people were working on the weekends
  • believes he and Alibaba succeeded in Chinese internet for 3 reasons:
    1. no money
      • “when you have too much money, that’s when your real problems start”
      • Alibaba has one of China’s largest cash reserves and that’s part of their culture
      • money is like the armed forces, try not to use it, but if you do, you must win
    2. didn’t understand technology
      • still doesn’t understand what coding is all about, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect it!
      • it’s both a tragedy and a fortune that he’s not a CEO who understands internet; he isn’t looking over his engineers’ shoulders, and has great respect for his technical team
      • “I don’t understand technology, I’m afraid of it, as long as it works I’m happy”, in that way he’s similar to 80% of Alibaba’s users
      • was the company’s #1 tester but part of why he’s stepping down as CEO is because he doesn’t even use his company’s products anymore, he’s too old for the internet, young people are even better testers than he is
      • “without belief, technology is a tool”
      • mentions the need for reverence and respect of technology multiple times
    3. never planned
      • wrote one business plan, VC rejected him and gave detailed feedback, never wrote another one
      • it was 96, 97, if you wrote a plan you were either lying to yourself or to other people
      • could get an MBA to write a detailed, beautiful plan, but would it be useful? no
      • “life is a plan that is slowly unfolding…embrace change”
      • “change is the best plan if you don’t want to lose your sense of direction”
      • “I never plan, that doesn’t mean WE never plan”
  • world’s never been in better place, yet never have people had more complaints; “best of times, worst of times”
  • 30 years ago China was not much better than N Korea
  • “change is what will give young people opportunities”
  • it took him 7 years to finish elementary school
  • he took the college admissions exam (the gaokao) 3 times before he passed!
  • attributes it all to hard work, good friends, and a lot of LUCK
    • luck is like seeds to be sown, it won’t come to you on its own
    • when you have a lot of good luck, it won’t continue forever, your job is to sow other peoples’ seeds, spread it around, and it may even extend your own run
  • some of you believe in God, some in Buddha, I’m still shopping around
  • Alibaba is not a business for consumers, it’s for small businesses
    • things change too fast, too hard to understand consumer tastes, not in our DNA, but small businesses know their customers, so we help them
    • if run out of small business customers, we’ll break up the large ones!
  • we’re not competing with eBay, Google, Yahoo…we’re competing with the previous generation, and with the future

Bertrand Russell on envy, from The Conquest of Happiness

Here’s the next rewritten excerpt from Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness. I’ll publish my completely rewritten version as an ebook in the coming weeks. In case you missed part 1: Russell on competition.

From Chapter 6, on Envy:

Napoleon envied Caesar, who envied Alexander, who probably envied Hercules, who existed only in myth! Success is never the cure for envy. Eliminate envy by enjoying what life brings you, by working hard, and by avoiding comparison with those you think more blessed than you.

Extreme modesty is itself a form of envy. Measured modesty is a virtue, but extreme modesty shouldn’t be similarly regarded. An overly modest person needs reassurance to do things which they’re very capable of doing.

[…]

Envy is closely related to competition. We don’t envy people we think are out of reach. During periods when the social hierarchy was fixed, the lower classes didn’t envy the upper classes because movement between them was impossible. Beggars don’t envy billionaires, they envy other beggars who have a warm spot to sleep for the night.

However, the current instability of social status, combined with democracy’s message that everyone is equal, has made envy accessible to all. Eventually we’ll arrive at a more just social system, but for now, the poor envy the rich, poor nations envy rich nations, women envy men, the chaste envy the promiscuous.

While envy can be productive and lead to justice between classes, nations, and even genders, the justice that results is the worst kind, the kind that hurts the fortunate, rather than helping the unfortunate. If you desire profound, positive societal change, you should root for reasons other than envy to be the driving force.

[…]

Most envy which seems on the surface professional is actually sexual in nature. A man who loves his wife and kids will be much less envious of other men’s success and wealth. What makes people happy is simple, often deceptively so, such that so-called sophisticated people fool themselves into making it complicated.

Bertrand Russell on competition, from The Conquest of Happiness

Recently I’ve started to rewrite passages from old books. It’s been a good way to practice writing in different styles, while learning new things. My current project is Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness. Over the next few weeks I’ll publish more excerpts, and I may publish the finished version as an ebook.

From Chapter 3, on Competition:

The treadmill that people run on doesn’t take them anywhere. These runners are people who do well, earn a decent income, people who could, if they chose, work less or work on something that truly excites them. But deviating from their existing path would be embarrassing, like deserting the army in the face of the enemy, though if you ask what is the greater good of their work, they’re unable to respond, or they’ll articulate a phrase they heard on TV or read in a textbook.

[…]

The main problem is greed. The businesswoman’s religion demands she become rich; to become happy instead, she must quit the church. As long as she desires only success and believes a person who does otherwise is inferior, she’ll remain too focused and anxious to be happy.

[…]

While in non-business professions there is a desire to compete and win, what’s respected is not success alone but excellence in the job. For example, a scientist may be wealthy or poor, but her respect is not tied to her income. And no one would be surprised to find a famous artist in poverty; in fact, poverty is an honor. But for the businesswoman, there is no success beyond the competitive struggle to get rich.

[…]

But life’s primary aim cannot be competition. It’s too grim, too much about desire and tension, to create a life worth living for more than a few decades. Soon it produces nervous fatigue, a desire to escape and a need for pleasures as aggressive as the work itself. True relaxation becomes impossible. The competitive focus poisons not only work but leisure, too. Leisure that was once calm and refreshing becomes dull and silly. This sort of life results in drugs and eventual collapse. The only way to cure it is by seeking sensible and quiet pleasures within a balanced life.

*Note: where Russell used a male pronoun, I replaced it with a female one (eg, businesswoman instead of businessman)