Rethinking Fear
Fear is a state no one wants to embrace, yet for many of us it’s the background music to our lives. But by making friends with fear and understanding why it exists, we can become less vulnerable …
Seneca
The Shortness of Time
If we see someone throwing money away, we call that person crazy. Money has value. Wasting it seems nuts. And yet we see others—and ourselves—throw away something far more valuable every day: Time. …
Seneca on Letting the Eminent Dead Guide You
There’s a core part of Charlie Munger’s operating system for life that we adhere to: Learn deeply from the eminent dead. Bathe in the wisdom of great people who lived before you. He calls …
Too Busy to Pay Attention
Alan Lightman, the physicist who brought us The Accidental Universe, has also written several works of fiction, including Einstein’s Dreams, presented as dreams Einstein might have had while working …
The Two Sides of Seneca and A Lesson on Human Fallibility
If you can withhold moral judgment, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero is a great historical account of making decisions in complex situations. Here is one way to describe the career …
The Wisdom of Seneca: A Lawyer’s Advice For Life In The Fast Lane
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (around 4 B.C.—A.D. 65) was an insightful lawyer, senator, philosopher, and playwright best known for his pithy wisdom that still helps understand how to deal with anger, …
Seneca on The One Thing Nature Loans us That we Cannot Repay
The Roman philosopher Seneca weaved beautiful and timeless insights into his letters. Luckily a lot of those letters survived. While old, there is a reason we still read them today. While the language …
Seneca on Wisdom
In Seneca’s Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger, and Clemency, the famous stoic philosopher Seneca, who brought us combinatorial creativity, illuminates real wisdom. Wisdom is a right …
Commonplace Books: Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity
Commonplace books are personal knowledge libraries; notebooks full of collected ideas and bits of wisdom all mixed up together. Here, we take a look at their history and benefits. *** There is an old …
Seneca on Gathering Ideas And Combinatorial Creativity
“Combinatory play,” said Einstein, “seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.” Ruminating on the necessity of both reading and writing, so as not to confine ourselves to …
The Stoic Reading List: Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and More
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. — Marcus Aurelius Do you know the section of the book after the last chapter? The one that everyone ignores? …
Seneca On Reading
The more I read Seneca the more I like the man. I read Susanna Braund’s translation of De Clementia in 2011 but never got around to reading more. My mistake. Writing in Antifragile, Nassim Taleb says …
Nassim Taleb: We Should Read Seneca, Not Jonah Lehrer
For those who didn’t follow him, Jonah Lehrer has a gift for turning science into a great story. His beautiful writing made it hard to resist the narrative fallacy. The recent news about him …
Seneca on Clemency, Blood, Happiness, and Anger
Susanna Braund‘s translation of Seneca’s De Clementia, is well worth the read. Seneca addresses De Clementia to the young Roman emperor Nero, with the aim of depicting the ideal ruler. …