Memory and the Printing Press
You probably know that Gutenberg invented the printing press. You probably know it was pretty important. You may have heard some stuff about everyone being able to finally read the Bible without a …
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Philosopher Kahlil Gibran on the Relationship between Vulnerability and Love
In 1923 the Lebanese-American artist, poet, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) published his masterpiece, The Prophet, which endures as a timeless classic meditation on living. The essence of …
Who’s in Charge of Our Minds? The Interpreter
One of the most fascinating discoveries of modern neuroscience is that the brain is a collection of distinct modules (grouped, highly connected neurons) performing specific functions rather than a …
A Cascade of Sand: Complex Systems in a Complex Time
We live in a world filled with rapid change: governments topple, people rise and fall, and technology has created a connectedness the world has never experienced before. Joshua Cooper Ramo believes …
Why Cross-Pollinating Your Work, Works
At Farnam Street we believe in the idea that a multidisciplinary approach to big ideas is the best way to form a deeper understanding. Some concepts will intuitively lend themselves to this type of …
Tribal Leadership: The Key To Building Great Teams
Have you ever wondered about internal organization dynamics and why some groups of people (who aren’t on the same team) are more successful than others? Why different “tribes” inside …
Survival of the Fittest: Groups versus Individuals
If ‘survival of the fittest’ is the prime evolutionary tenet, then why do some behaviors that lead to winning or success, seemingly justified by this concept, ultimately leave us cold? Taken from …
John Gray: Is Human Progress an Illusion?
“Straw Dogs is an attack on the unthinking beliefs of thinking people.” — John Gray *** We like to think that the tide of history is an inexorable march from barbarity to civilization, …
Are Great Men and Women a Product of Circumstance?
Few books have ever struck us as much as Will Durant’s 100-page masterpiece The Lessons of History, a collection of essays which sum up the lifelong thoughts of a brilliant historian. We …
Inside a Miracle: The 1980 U.S. Hockey Team
Few people know the details about one of the greatest stories in sports history. A classic David versus Goliath story that happened at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid when the U.S. Olympic Hockey …
Krista Tippett: On Generous Listening and Asking Better Questions
Krista Tippett, whose wonderful book Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Art of Living distills many of her conversations, offers us a window into exploring ourselves and others, through generous …
Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive By
“Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community.” — …
Kristin Dombek: The Selfishness of Others
I’ll bet you think this article is about you. “We all know selfishness when we see it,” writes essayist Kristin Dombek opening The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on The Fear of …
Racking The Shotgun: Quickly Sorting Those Who Know from Those Who Act Like They Know
One of the great challenges we all face in life is distinguishing between two classes of people: people who know and people who sound like they know. It’s called the Batesian Mimicry problem and …
Edward Deci: On the Relationship Between Need Fulfillment and Motivation
Edward Deci’s work on motivation is so often quoted (Dan Pink’s Drive comes to mind) that we decided to go back to the primary text by Deci himself, a book called Why We Do What We Do: …
Under One Roof: What Can we Learn from the Mayo Clinic?
The Mayo Clinic is one of the top-rated hospitals in the US and enjoys remarkable success. In this post, we consider the reasons for the Mayo Clinic’s success and what we can learn from it to apply to …