Help Me Measure My Own Sanity: A Survey

I have had some dreams lately about my friends from Europe, and it makes me wistful.

Wistfulness seems to me to be impervious to happiness; even when content, still, it comes wanting more. My dream was a warning that the factors are shaping up for me not to go to Oktoberfest this year, although my honest desire is to do so. I want to get back to Europe; I want to see my German and French friends, especially. It would also be a good birthday present. My birthday this year is convenient, I suppose: I feel I am in a period of fundamental transition.

I had wondered for years how to invoke a self-actualization that never occurred and that I feared was not merely delayed, but missed. I feel like I am now on this precipice.

And so I ask: How crazy am I to assume such knowledge of the future?

One Hundred Years of Solitude

I got a fit of wickedly recent nostalgia, viewing my blog title image just now; I am getting the ceremonial "haircut before the job search", tomorrow. I like my hair long, and a little out of control. It just about fools myself into thinking I am capable of being more unpredictable than I am. It also reminds me of the "haircut weekends" of two summers ago. (confused? ask me about it sometime)

I didn't pay much attention to my outward appearance for most of my life. I was loved intensely and unconditionally at a young age, without criticism, and so I grew up stubbornly resisting such concessions. In the past few years, I started to make these changes as I saw - and could not ignore - the undeniable proof that they were valuable. Besides, I lost the ego for holding onto such things. (although I cannot say when or how)

I will probably always be drawn inward, left wondering how others are so adept at finding common ground in others. Therein, though, lies the question and the answer. I have spent years thinking in isolation; I can seldom relate to others about the pressing concerns of my days. My friends are for fun and trivialities. Against all my will, I still relate best to that Thoreau quote, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Men, wired to conquer the ambivalence of potential mates, wind up desperate to conquer the ambivalence of the world. The modern world, enormous and eternally cementing into its collective destiny, is so thoroughly confounding to affect in any meaningful way that men are left with a proverbial, "un-scratchable itch". The need to collect joy from outside ourselves - joy brought about from within - is tenuous, suffers, and can die. Indeed, without imagination, without dreams, without art - the agents of mitigating this frustration - this process would be both quick and violent.

Oh, and I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is far more impressive than I ever assumed it would be. It has reminded me to live in the driver's seat. And, of the importance of making strong and brave decisions, and to make those decisions now.

A Thought on the Limits of Knowledge

I have heard it said many times:

When you have an undergraduate degree, you have no idea what you don't know; by the time you have a graduate degree, you have some idea of what you don't know; and when you have a doctorate, you know precisely what you don't know.

This is the circle of competence idea, which is unendingly valuable in all sorts of pursuits. It is absolutely critical in investing, where there are 100 ways for a company to fail. It does little good to know 50 of the ways, since you are still wearing restrictive blinders in such a situation. Knowing what you don't know is a critical tool to evaluating an investment. Anyone can concoct a bullish case for a stock. What is more important is the ability to identify the presence and degree of various risks to arrive at a risk-adjusted idea of intrinsic value.

And, of course, this implies that an investment with fewer risk factors is usually better.

A Horrible Gift from Richard Dawkins

I am terrified by the statistic that Richard Dawkins gives us in an interview:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6804971.ece

40% of the American populace does not believe in evolution. My first reaction, of course, was to wretch (thankfully, I had an empty stomach). My second reaction was to be reminded that rationalization faces an uphill battle in the human mind to cement to belief and thus, action. This is because the memory mechanism is enhanced in the presence of strong emotion. So, to be statistical: we have a stronger correlation between memory-formation-enhancing emotion and religious/spiritual experience than we do between memory-formation-enhancing emotion and rational insight.

All theories of behavior or the brain that can be described so succinctly are probably vast simplifications and thus, possess gross misrepresentations. Oh well, one more: there is a tendency in individuals to seek out pleasing things - that is, to attempt to replicate pleasant experiences and to avoid repetition of unpleasant ones. Rational belief systems, beware. Without a rigorous latticework of mental safeguards against emotional decision-making, time is against you.

Trusted Sources

We are a social species. It is to our own benefit; we would still be fishing in the bogs if we couldn't learn from others. A large brain created a tipping point to social learning, producing a fundamental change in the way our species lived and evolved. Now, the challenge is to learn efficiently and effectively.

Intelligence, I have learned, can be overcome a number of ways. It is NOT universal as a means to separate the haves and the have-nots. More important are the patterns of learning that we selectively introduce ourselves to and adopt. One of the most important patterns to get right is the filter of trust in regard to learning.

Certainly, we will meet people whose knowledge - that they will be all-too-willing to transfer to us - will be detrimental to our continued learning. On the other end of the scale, there are people who we should go to great lengths to seek out. If we cannot differentiate these two scenarios, we are at a disadvantage larger than the disadvantage of moderately less intelligence.

Furthermore, quantity of ideas is no substitute for quality. Indeed, quantity is an impediment. The more ideas we assimilate, the more will necessarily be contradictory, and the more time we spent reconciling these ideas. Now, it is no crime to think critically, and reconciliation requires critical thinking; but this process is learned easier than most people think. The process of learning critical thinking does not require, say, 10,000 repetitions - it is just that it takes 10,000 repetitions for an average person, bombarded with ideas both good and bad to wade through, to be world-wise. A person can learn to think critically if they are given a dozen opportunities and have an adequately developed idea of the value of a critical-thinking approach.

It is a wonderful occurrence to discover one or more people who are not only illuminated, but are interested in spreading a greater illumination. For instance, I would never have learned of Atul Gawande - who is as illuminated regarding the American healthcare system as anyone I have learned of - without having known of Charlie Munger. I think that people like these are good people to spend inordinate amounts of time learning from.