A selection of thoughts from the last 7 days.
Going Infinite properly introduced me to Sam Bankman-Fried. It’s a well written account of a shit-show that only humans in the year 2022 could pull off, but I was most interested in Sam himself. He’s undoubtably a fraud and a criminal, but also seems to be devoid of what Jung called the feeling function.
- To feel is the sublime art of having a value structure and a sense of meaning – where one belongs, where one’s allegiance is, where one’s roots are. – Robert A. Johnson
- He doesn’t understand the concept of beauty or even the point of happiness. As he wanders around playing puzzles, tapping his leg, judging everyone and committing financial crimes he seems to vacuum meaning out of the world.
- On belief: “Didn’t see the point in anyone trying to imagine” / “And if you can’t think your way to a belief (why bother)”
- Art & religion: “Felt nothing in the presence of art. He found religion absurd.”
- On human beings: “Sam could read others fine. The problem was that Sam did not care”
John J. Ray III is a clean-up expert who is appointed as the FTX CEO once they file for bankruptcy. He is tasked with the unenviable job of finding the billions of dollars Sam lost. What was interesting was that he didn’t talk to Sam.
- John Ray had learned a lesson the hard way. One of the crooks he’d replaced engaged him in conversation and then lied about what had been said. In the first few days after he signed the company over to Ray, Sam reached out to him, over and over, with these pitiful emails. Hey John, I’d really love to talk. Ray took one look at them and thought, No way, José. – Going Infinite
You can’t trust the guy who made the mess in the first place. If you want it done properly, you’ll have to figure it out by yourself. I think this is a great principle when you are dealing with yourself. When you are feeling particularly lazy or gripped by a foul mood, you need to treat your own thoughts like a hostile information source. You’ll want to listen to them, but you shouldn’t and you won’t be able to use them as evidence.
Ryan Holiday’s book about discipline has created more questions than answers about the topic for me. What actually is it? How do you get more of it? Should we have more of it?
Let’s say I’ve been swimming for nearly an hour in the pool. The set asks for 600m more. After 200m, I’m thinking of getting out. What exactly is the force that keeps me in the pool for the remainder?
What if discipline is simply the removal of self imposed barriers? What if discipline is simply saying “why exactly can’t I get up at 5am – what’s stopping me?” “What exactly is the reason I should stop this run early?”
Discipline is something that I’m pretty familiar with in my own life. I seem to respond well to it, but I’m also somewhat aware that it’s a dead end. I’ve written about chasing discipline with my diet and where that eventually leads. There were positives and negatives but ultimately discipline doesn’t solve all your problems like you think it will.
“Thought is peculiarly individual, communicable only in words, and establishing barriers between the fool and the sage whereas emotions unite.”
R.H Blythe
“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.”
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
In the forest there are 2000 trees. But if you look at it closer and accurately, every tree is a personality. No two trees are the same. – Marie-Louise Von Franz
One final dig at Sam Bankman-Fried. Another thing that made him different to most was his “willingness to assign probabilities and act on them.” Although he’s an extreme case, the world does seem to encourage us to spend more time thinking rather than feeling.
The danger with a statistical approach to life is that although it might help your ability to make snap decisions or to get ahead in business, it drains out the meaning. “Reality consists of an enormous amount of unique” beings and stuff, and slapping simple labels, measurements, weights and probabilities turns it into a dreary video game.
A lack of meaning is why most people rock up to therapy in the first place – complaining that there’s nothing unique or special about their life. For Sam, for whatever reason, a lack of meaning didn’t seem to be a problem worth solving.
Buddha Bike 