On Working Hard

Ed Smith writes on "working hard" may not be always as beneficial as modern world thinks. Quotes Bertrand Russel and Nassim Taleb.

"The idea that being good at something demands harried, exhausted martyrdom is a relatively new idea. “Only in recent history,” as Nas­sim Nicholas Taleb puts it, “has ‘working hard’ signalled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura.” If we really want to be good at something, we should stop wasting time exhausting ourselves."

Complexity of Eye

"The Purposes in Nature.—Any impartial investigator who examines the history of the eye and its form in the lower creatures, and sees how the visual organ was slowly developed, cannot help recognising that sight was not the first purpose of the eye, but probably only asserted itself when pure hazard had contributed to bring together the apparatus. One single example of this kind, and the “final purposes” fall from our eyes like scales."    -Friedrich Nietzche in "The Dawn of Day"


Interesting quote that Nietzche had answered the Intelligent Design communities question of the complexity of the eye being a proof against Evolution. Or is it just regurgitating of old questions in this debate?

Fiction....and Journalism

“Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can’t reach.”

—Hunter S. Thompson

Since he said that many journalists seem to have bridged that gap.

From an article about Del Close (one of Colbert's guru's)

Journey *and* the destination

I came across this great poem, Ithaka on an excellent blog by an academic heavyweight. This is from the blog post titled "Ithaka,AP from Prof. Ram Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor UoH"

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Life and work (in the right order)

After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to
fake one of them, it had better be life

JOSEPH BRODSKY

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After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to
fake one of them, it had better be work

-Me, modifying on the above quote because what use is mastery in work if life has not been mastered.
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Added: Paulo Coelho's Convention of those wounded in Love (modeled after the Geneva Convention, it seems)