G B.

Meh

Revisado: 10-29-21

I started listening to this book because of Ferguson’s appearance on the Mindscape podcast and was intrigued due to the fact that he says some interesting but also controversial things. I liked listening to the book in general. Ferguson overall does a good job of narrating his own story. If I were to summarize, though, I realize that some of the proposed concepts in the book did not stick very well. I could especially relate to Cassandra’s curse and the feeling of powerlessness in averting foreseeable disaster when thinking about climate change. The cover of the book would suggest more discussion on that topic, but rather, the COVID-19 pandemic features more prominently. I think it would be worth a re-read as I am especially interested in the knowledge on networks in relation to the politics of catastrophe. Or perhaps read his other work; “the… something… and the tower”. Other things that stuck were about the way that we try to pin disaster on leaders while upon further analysis the faults lie in middle management. I think a few lines are dedicated to the prisoner’s dilemma, but all in all it has not been earth shattering new knowledge.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

This will change your life

Revisado: 09-23-20

I’m usually not one for the superlatives but the seemingly simple rules for breaking bad habits and building good ones are quite profound. One of the things that I took away from James’ knowledge, even before listening to this book, is the effect of environment design: join groups that have the habits you want to build, but also: design your immediate environment to contain the right cues at the right time so you’ll crave the right things. Not everyone has the opportunity to move house and it can feel daunting to change your social life just to adopt better habits, but even knowing that this is what influences you can help you and motivate you to take action to change things. Joining groups with whom you have at least something in common is recommended. I started thinking of the friends that most share my values and also joined some spiritual dance groups and a bouldering gym. This helped reinforce my view of my identity as a conscious person that cares about his body/health and probably contributed to me quitting alcohol. Even though almost all my friend still drink, I felt confident enough declining drinks while in social settings. At some point I even inspired others to do te same. Not buying snacks in the supermarket and placing vegetables and fruit at the most easiest to reach places helps to prevent me from snacking when I feel stressed. Not taking my phone to the bedroom but charging it in the workroom, switching off devices at 10 and brushing my teeth so I dont feel like snacking anymore, and having my kindle on the nightstand are examples of habit stacking and design that help me keep better sleeping, eating and reading habits. I wanted to switch to taking cold showers to activate my longevity genes and the buildup of brown fat. For this I used the atomic principle; I would start to shower when the water was cold and let it turn warm so I wouldnt shower cold completely. Also; I would stack it with brushing my teeth which distracted me from the cold. This helped me get used to the feeling of cold showers and by stacking it even further with showering after workouts I slowly transitioned to now enjoying exclusively cold showers.
As an independent entrepreneur I have to keep track of a lot of tasks for which I use the GTD method. The easy, attractive and obvious principles apply to this system which you are required to review and update often, therefore making it as frictionless as possible for yourself is paramount. A major thing I changed because of this book was the way that I cross of finished tasks. I used to delete them but now I keep a log of everything I’ve done to stimulate myself with dopamine rewards, which helps to sustain effort when things eventually get tough again, which they always do.
I haven’t come across anything so succinct and easily implementable as atomic habits. Maybe not even GTD. Lets put it out there in the self improvement hall of fame.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Fight or flight?

Revisado: 08-21-20

As the author also describes in his book, even or especially experts on the subject tend to have the most severe reactions to the phenomenon they are studying. They disengage and retreat to the woods in various forms of nihilism or apathy. I would have liked to hear more of the author’s thoughts on this as the storytelling and ethics chapters of his book are the most relevant to what he also sees as the solution, or at least an approach, to the problem: collective action in the face of unfathomable catastrophe thats becoming the new normal. Before he even begins to speak of solutions he hammers the point home. Alarmist? He thinks, and I agree, that even scientists now have the right to panic and not be seen as crazy. The first part is basically explaining the complexity and cascades of the climate system and their relative interrelatedness, along with describing the horrors they mean for people. This is what I expected of the book and that alone would have been fine. It’s interesting to meditate on what listening to these horrors does to one’s mind. Should I move to Canada or Norway? I appreciate the second part in which he attempts to unpack the human complexity and answer the question why we still havent acted fully upon the knowledge that we have, having emitted as much as in all the previous centuries while knowing about the problem. We have all the solutions but lack the political will. The world’s biggest emitters, the ones who should put their foot on the brakes, are still stuck mostly in the neoliberal dream of progress and faith in technology while denying to host climate refugees who are the result of their emissions. But the author has hope because we still have a choice. Climate is becoming more a civil rights movement and we can still decide to let things become a bit less horrific. Hope isn’t unrealistic. It means realizing that things are very bad but having a productive attitude towards it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Still relevant for those carving out their “entre-path”

Revisado: 08-07-20

It was about when I heard the mention of the iPhone 3G that I realized when this book was actually written/recorded. But a lot of the advice is still adequate; still the way the internet works. Mailchimp is still one of the best options for handling your email.
Besides that this book gives a lot of practical tips and references to tools and blogs, although some might be outdated some are still valuable and the main message came across loud and clear: market first, marketing second, aesthetic third and functionality a distant fourth.
I haven’t been frantically writing down notes as I listened to the audiobook because I tend to listen to them when my hands are doing something else but I did definitely stop sometimes to make an Evernote on keyword tools for example.
I am working together with a (more experienced) developer who seems to have already taken care of most of the basic things needed to show up in search results. But I think I’ve spotted our most grave error thanks to how Rob makes a distinction between the different kinds of entrepreneurial paths from micropreneurship to VC funding.
We’re in a “too cool” market that is nice for cocktail parties but we are not in a position to be starting such a grand idea. And because we havent specified our niche wel enough we are quickly realizing that the competition we are facing and the platform approach we are taking is making our chances of selling, let alone turning a profit very slim.
I also appreciate a lot how Rob lays out the different kind of strategies for developing startup ideas with special attention to personal time management and outsourcing. This is something which Tim Ferris also made an important point of but I feel like Rob gives a bit more practical advice on VA’s.
I might listen to it again, its short enough, although I thought the book “entrepreneurs guide to keeping your sh**t together” was more inspiring.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Not always fun but the message sticks

Revisado: 02-19-20

I enjoyed talking about the insights from the book more than I enjoyed listening to it. 'Default to truth', 'the illusion of transparency' and to a smaller degree 'mismatching' and 'coupling' are the mechanisms that Gladwell uses to explain the case of Sandra Bland, a black woman who, after being pulled over and arrested by a white male cop for no good reason, tragically took her own life in a prison cell. 

I didn't like listening to the stories about court cases involving child molestation or sexual assault, as they are discussed at length, and it made me think that at some points that this is more a book about America's flawed judicial system than it is about overcoming our predispositions in order to better understand each other. The story of the Cuban spies and Hitler are slightly more entertaining but I wasn't planning on listening to a historical detective.  

However, I do feel like my information retention of this audiobook is higher than previous books I've listened to. This can be due to the fact that all stories come back to these few core principles about the way we communicate / talk to strangers. It can also be because of the fact that he used audio segments of the real people of the story or actors talking. It can also be because I consciously took time to talk to other people about this book. Can it also be because the insights aren't that deep or revealing?

I know that Gladwell isn't a scientist but I feel like these principles would have merited more examples of studies. The "students cheating on a test" is a nice one. I also think that if you're going to go into a topic like predictive policing or (racial) profiling there might be a lot more to be said as it also is closer to the main case in this book. The insight from the 'friends fallacy' is that emotions conveyed on a face are not globally understood the same way, based on studies done with isolated tribes of people, and that we form understandings based on cultural memes. Ok, so what do we do with those insights? Gladwell concludes that we need to approach each other with humility.

There is a moralizing tone in Gladwell's voice all the way through the book which sometimes bothered me. It felt like being lectured. What I appreciate,however, is that he leaves space to read between the lines. In a way it is also clever to package a story about a very defining moment in American culture into the framework of talking to strangers. However, that doesn't do justice to the structural problems in society. The danger is that it might even be read as a call for greater empathy, which is not necessarily the solution, though he does mention that the cop pulling over Sandra was not dysemphatic. I would have liked for him to articulate his own positionality in the matter to understand better why he would need to write about these things. That would have made, me, the listener care more about what he was trying to tell me. Still, the message stuck. Props to him! 

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

the virtues and vices of historical figures

Revisado: 01-19-20

I wasn't familiar with Ryan Holiday before but many things in this book were familiar to me, as they will be to other people who are living an examined life: getting sleep, making time for leisure and reflection, nurture good excercise and eating habits, confront your demons, love thy neighbor, etc. You can read it all in the chapters or summary. 


What attracted me about the book were the first pages in which Seneca is able to be undisturbed while the busy streets of Rome are blowing noise into his study. I felt like I needed some advice on how to deal with my noisy neighbors. I don't think that I've gotten an answer that I didn't already know. What's clear though, is that meditation (which I could argue is a keystone in the whole book) is a practice that needs to be kept up, whether in good or in bad times. Something that needs to be built into your routine in order to face the world. That said, if those neighbors are keeping you from sleep or rest, there is no vice in trying to seek out more silence and do something about it. The vice can be in the approach and attitude towards that goal, letting yourself be perturbed. In the end, you decide how you feel about things, even though you are caught inside a drum that someone is banging on and you can't get out. Or can you? 


Ryan Holiday takes the approach of illustrating the character, habits, approaches and routines of people like Churchill, Michael Jordan, JFK, Tiger Woods, Anne Frank, Seneca, the founder of American Apparel, the king and queen of England and Marcus Aurelius. I'm not sure on what basis he made this selection of world leaders, philosophers and notable figures but I'm missing perhaps a bit of diversity in the examples. What is nice though is that he shows how even the (supposed) world's greatest had major (character) flaws. The same things that drove these people to greatness were also the things that made them spiteful or neglectful of their family life.


In a way, this book is part lessons in mindfulness/meditation, part historical figure analysis and part self-help and "productivity". I feel like underneath some of the things that he says are quite profound insights that would have merited more time and exploration to be delved into further. For example by bringing in views from psychology or scientific studies, but even just by lingering on them a little longer. I would say if you're going to touch on such important subjects, take the time to unpack them fully or leave some out. Perhaps this is also something that he takes time to put on his website/blog and didn't want to make the book unnecessarily long. In that way you could see it as a starters guide to Stillness.

I feel that because of this, I will already know more or less what I can expect from his previous books "the ego is the enemy" and "the obstacle is the way" and although I am interested in these concepts I am hesitant to read them. I should say I also played the book at 1,2 speed because that made it more engaging for me. That perhaps says something about the time I needed to really reflect on the things he was saying. Nevertheless, it was nice listening to this book as almost every day it helped me reflect on the things I was doing. Like a horoscope on steroids, with all due respect, and you'll probably get something out of it as well.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

a crisis to learn from

Revisado: 12-28-19

I love Esther's way of mixing academic language with the everyday and sometimes also profane. Her accent is also a joy to listen to.
But seriously, this book is not a self help book but incredibly useful to shed new light on affairs/cheating. It recasts the affair from being a vile act to being a sign of personal issues that can be worked through.
Drawing on countless examples from her professional practice, there is something relatable in this book for everyone; even those who have not (yet) crossed the line.

Her analysis of the predicament of this generation of couples (or even thruples and quads): the modern ideals of emancipated career and sexual life for the genders and lingering traditional ideas of roles within relationships, especially spoke to me. The modern man is expected to have more developed emotional capabilities and his romantic/erotic inner life is becoming more emancipated. At the same time, the act of transgression which has been classically attributed to men as something that they "just can't help but do" (#allmenareassholes) and which in some cultures is even accepted, although kept under the rug, is being appropriated by modern women who find freedom in claiming this, previously exclusive, act as a means of self-transcendence, although still at the risk of being stigmatized as whore.

Also insightful is the disillusionment of how we think to have control over the inner life of our significant other let alone that we're the sole erotic spark of that inner life. That said, it raises the question of whether we could- or should even be 100% transparent with our partners. There needs to be a degree of unfamiliarity and aggression to make things sexy. While easy to find with a stranger, it is the challenge to cultivate this within a long-standing relationship.
I realize that especially for straight couples the societal norms implicitly write up the rules of engagement and we could learn from exploring our true feelings with each other and experimenting with setting up different rules like in gay relationships, although this creates dilemmas of its own.

Which brings us back to the issue of trust. We can establish rules explicitly but we must take a leap of faith with each other to trust that we'll resist the urge to break them, and rather break them with each other when we feel like it; keeping each other informed about the evolution of our inner lives.
Only then can the crisis of an affair be fertile ground for growth rather than the last nail in the coffin of a marriage.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

a brave tale

Revisado: 11-10-19

This book has consumed me the past 2 weeks or so and I've never finished one so fast while listening at normal speed. Reframing aging as a disease is not an easy sell, and even brave if you're an academic wishing to keep a career and funding. The way the public has framed growing old for themselves at present is just a coping mechanism for what they think is inevitable. On the other side, critical people might question the kind of enlightenment thinking that with enough technology we can solve everything.

Sinclair questions himself and his work like a good scientist does. But he is also an advocate for longer but more importantly healthier and vital lives. Citing cases from his personal life and family members (grandmother, father, mother, brother, son and more) who have aged or have rejuvenated, his quest for curing the disease of aging becomes very personal and can be sincerely felt as he tells about his mother dying of lung cancer.
He does a good job of explaining how medicine has succeeded at prolonging life but not necessarily prolonging vitality. And after explaining his research (mostly on mice and yeast), the workings of the cell, DNA, the epigenome, the sirtuens and the information theory of aging, he also questions the implications of people on the planet growing older and starts a bold chapter of the political and societal futures, taking into consideration climate change and the divide between rich and poor.

It is strictly not a self help book even though insights can be glanced from it. Well known ideas are confirmed: exercise and eat your greens, but the more interesting part is where light is shed on the benefits of (intermittent) fasting, something that is currently regarded as a diet trend or fad. He also reveals some of the science around taking cold showers or the Wim Hof method. Much like fasting without starving, exposure to cold without catching a cold triggers the body and activates survival genes in our DNA and keeps us young at the level of the cell.

The book's chapters are concluded with chats between Sinclair and LaPlante, a colleague, in which they review the chapter in an informal podcast-like way and LaPlante questions Sinclair about the remarkable things he says. This serves both as a way to jog the remembrance of the content as well as keeping things light.

What I take away from this book is a renewed commitment to taking things easy, loving life and going for a triple digits chronological age. And a sort of "Todo" to investigate my genome, reread about the important chemicals and see what changes I can make in my life to live more vitally. Even though I don't put on fat (lucky me), I probably eat too much. This book helps me imagine, with a funny example of Tom Cruise, that I can live long while staying young.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

philosophy and politics versus science

Revisado: 09-14-19

The book is an interesting account of the various people that played a role in the development of quantum physics, the famous like Schroedinger, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Bell and Feinman, but also the lesser known to the public like Everet, Wheeler, Bohm and Podolsky.
More precisely it tells about the divide in the scientific community on the interpretation of quantum physics and what it means; what we understand/believe to be how reality is structured. It is a story about the culture of science; how scientists got inspired to come up with new theories and how the political and philosophical climate supported some and not others in the academic world.

The author makes a case for the relevance of the interpretation, stating there is still a large portion of the community that disregards the meaning and holds a utilitarian view: "as long as the math works and it helps us to predict the outcomes of experiments, what does it matter?" In the book, he refutes this with a thought experiment about a remote control and hypothetical dead batteries.
Another is the lagging influence of the logical positivist philosophy that holds that only observable phenomena have any meaning and the unobservable, like the atom that was hypothesized before it was seen, have no meaning.

Having read news articles about the loophole-free Bell test which proves quantum entanglement, the measurement of gravity waves, the discovery of the Higgs boson and the development of quantum computers that use q-bits in a probabilistic way, I was interested to listen to the different emerging theories and find out how they were first conceived or proven.
Even though the subject matter is sometimes quite thick or confusing the narrator does a really good job of keeping my attention.
In the end, the point has been driven home that theories that inform our fundamental understanding of the world are needed and are what drives science forward in a certain direction, and this decides for a large part what experiments are done.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

so much to tell about a mushroom

Revisado: 08-19-19

First of all I should say that this kind of anthropological, ethnographic combined with biological, environmental research is quite new to me.
Tsing takes you through the complete value chain of the Matsutake mushroom and uncovers as far as I can remember two kinds of stories about capitalism that are intertwined.

The mushroom was a delicacy in Japan because it was so rare and only grows in certain pine forests. However, due to human intervention in the forests of Oregon, the mushroom started to flourish. This is where southeast Asian migrants (war refugees) started to make a living from this mushroom, picking them on common land and selling them in the 'open ticket' market in Vancouver. This is what she calls 'salvage accumulation', whereby common resources are turned into private profits.

At the same time she tries to take these scenarios as examples for living in precarity. She goes into great detail in how the mushroom is foraged and traded and what the customs and beliefs of the migrant as well as the white pickers and sellers are. She draws parallels in between the mushroom itself and how it only grows in a ravaged landscape and how people (could) live. She analyses how the mushroom makes its journey from spore to fruiting body of the mycelium, picked and sold, until once it's on its way in a crate it has become a 'full capitalist commodity', whereafter it becomes entwined again in cultural practices of giving and ceremony and the non-capitalist values that encompasses.

Because her book branches out into so many detailed accounts of these different aspects of the mushroom, it's sometimes hard to keep track of the point she's trying to make. I started listening not knowing what I would hear exactly and perhaps a sort of map, chart or legend (book summary) would have helped. It's only after finishing that I start to see the web and links that she has been spinning.
The narrator does a really good job and takes you into the story. I did however, start listening at 1.3 times the speed to keep myself more engaged.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 5 personas