More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 28 - January 29, 2021
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Nonetheless, I have drawn on ten ancient ideas and a great variety of modern research findings to tell the best story I can about the causes of human flourishing, and the obstacles to well being that we place in our own paths.
The mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict. Like a rider on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does.
The second idea is Shakespeare’s, about how “thinking makes it so.” (Or, as Buddha4 said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”)
Reciprocity is the most important tool for getting along with people, and I’ll show you how you can use it to solve problems in your own life and avoid being exploited by those who use reciprocity against you.
If you know what your mind is up to, and why you so easily see the world through a distorting lens of good and evil, you can take steps to reduce your self-righteousness.
There are several different “happiness hypotheses.” One is that happiness comes from getting what you want, but we all know (and research confirms) that such happiness is short-lived. A more promising hypothesis is that happiness comes from within and cannot be obtained by making the world conform to your desires.
cultivate instead an attitude of acceptance.
changing your mind is usually a more effective response to frustration than is changing the world.
Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes from without. We need the guidance of both ancient wisdom and modern science to get the balance right.
We’ve all heard that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, but that is a dangerous oversimplification. Many of the things that don’t kill you can damage you for life.
If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN1,2
Human thinking depends on metaphor.
We assume that there is one person in each body, but in some ways we are each more like a committee whose members have been thrown together to do a job, but who often find themselves working at cross purposes.
Our minds are divided in four ways.
This finding, that people will readily fabricate reasons to explain their own behavior, is called “confabulation.”
Yet the split-brain studies were important in psychology because they showed in such an eerie way that the mind is a confederation of modules capable of working independently and even, sometimes, at cross-purposes.
The brain started off with just three rooms, or clumps of neurons: a hindbrain (connected to the spinal column), a midbrain, and a forebrain (connected to the sensory organs at the front of the animal).
Now that they are free of the distractions of emotion, do they become hyperlogical, able to see through the haze of feelings that blinds the rest of us to the path of perfect rationality? Just the opposite. They find themselves unable to make simple decisions or to set goals, and their lives fall apart.
When the rest of us look out at the world, our emotional brains have instantly and automatically appraised the possibilities. One possibility usually jumps out at us as the obvious best one. We need only use reason to weigh the pros and cons when two or three possibilities seem equally good.
Evolution never looks ahead. It can’t plan the best way to travel from point A to point B. Instead, small changes to existing forms arise (by genetic mutation), and spread within a population to the extent that they help organisms respond more effectively to current conditions.
The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it. —MARCUS AURELIUS
Events in the world affect us only through our interpretations of them, so if we can control our interpretations, we can control our world.
“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”
Epiphanies can be life-altering,8 but most fade in days or weeks.
Responses to threats and unpleasantness are faster, stronger, and harder to inhibit than responses to opportunities and pleasures.
One of the most common lessons people draw from bereavement or trauma is that they are much stronger than they realized, and this new appreciation of their strength then gives them confidence to face future challenges. And they are not just confabulating a silver lining to wrap around a dark cloud; people who have suffered through battle, rape, concentration camps, or traumatic personal losses often seem to be inoculated 7 against future stress: They recover more quickly, in part because they know they can cope.
Shakespeare wrote: Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.11
Some constraint is good for us; absolute freedom is not. Durkheim, the sociologist who found that freedom from social ties is correlated with suicide32 also gave us the word “anomie” (normlessness). Anomie is the condition of a society in which there are no clear rules, norms, or standards of value. In an anomic society, people can do as they please; but without any clear standards or respected social institutions to enforce those standards, it is harder for people to find things they want to do. Anomie breeds feelings of rootlessness and anxiety and leads to an increase in amoral and
...more
One of the best predictors of the health of an American neighborhood is the degree to which adults respond to the misdeeds of other people’s children.33 When community standards are enforced, there is constraint and cooperation. When everyone minds his own business and looks the other way, there is freedom and anomie.
Asking children to grow virtues hydroponically, looking only within themselves for guidance, is like asking each one to invent a personal language—a pointless and isolating task if there is no community with whom to speak.
If you prefer diversity on an issue, the issue is not a moral issue for you; it is a matter of personal taste.
