For the last 2 months, my mind has been blown on a daily basis by the book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

This is the longest and deepest I've gotten into a book since high school, and I found pretty much every chapter thought-provoking and lifestyle-questioning. I already felt like my mind had been blown, and that was just after finishing the prologue.

"Antifragile" is the word that Taleb coins for the concept of gaining from disorder (the real opposite of fragility, which is not the same thing as "robust"). The book covers the topics of philosophy, finance, math, statistics, lifestyle, food, fitness, education, and history, and it applies various strategies and concepts to finding ways to live more naturally and with more antifragility.

I can see how many people will be angered and offended by the direct manner in which Taleb denounces the professions of consultant, banker, economist, academic, business school professor, soccer mom, and tourist. I think books that question a lot of fundamentals are the only ones that bring actual progress to our lives as human thinkers, and this book does exactly that.

Overall, I took 47 pages of notes on the book (see below), and that sheer quantity is enough to show how much I liked it. It's not easy to distill these into a few bullet points, and I will be trying over the next couple months to come up with some concrete suggestions and techniques to put the book's ideas into practice in my own life. Here are just a handful of lessons and broad concepts that come immediately to mind:

• There are important nonlinearities in life that many professionals and advice-givers totally ignore but which make a much bigger difference over time than the first-order obvious effects.
• Many human interventions in health and government come with really bad iatrogenic effects.
• Things that are in nature are right until proven wrong; things that are human-made are wrong until proven right (which only time can show).
• Don't be a turkey, and avoid sucker problems. That's 95% of being successful.
• Via negativa: Focus on what to avoid and remove instead of what to do and add.
• Find ways to make your life antifragile in the sense of having limited, small downside and high potential upside.
• Be an adventurous flaneur. Live life to take advantage of new, unforeseen opportunities and volatility.
• Entrepreneurs are the unsung heroes of antifragility and deserve way more respect than politicians and other non-practitioners and non-risk takers.
• Innovation is antifragile.
• Use barbell methods to manage investments and black swan risks. Focus on your exposure (f(x)) instead of trying to predict some variable (x). Predicting or following averages is for suckers.
• Study the classics, eat and drink the classics, and avoid the media hype or technology for its own sake.

Below are the rest of my notes. I really want to discuss some of this stuff with other readers, so let me know what you think.

I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Bruce Feiler speak at Google about his book The Secrets of Happy Families. I expected to hear some of the traditional/cliché advice and have it be very prescriptive, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't. Bruce dug up some interesting research and spent his time visiting with families all over the world to find out some commonalities of things that should be done and also avoided.

Below are some of my notes on the talk. I look forward to reading his book sometime soon.

• Biggest learning from positive psychology is that biggest source of happiness is relationships
  


• High functioning families adapt all the time
  
• Constantly forced to change and react
  
• Rarely able to be proactive
  
• Kid number one wish is for parents to be less stressed
  
• Weekly family agile meetings
  
• Public accountability
  
• Morning checklist with list of everyone's obligations
  
• Weekly Sunday meeting
  
• 3 questions
  
• What worked well
  
• What didn't work well
  
• What will we agree to work on in week ahead
  
• All give ideas
  
• Vote on 2 to work on
  
• Gives access to innermost child thoughts
  
• Let kids with adult supervision pick their own rewards and punishments
  
• Don't have to discuss all battles in the moment but can resolve on Sunday
  
• Be mindful of how function as a family
  


• Have to empower your kids
  
• Have kids set own work plans, evaluate selves
  
• Builds up their brains from fmri research
  


• Parents don't have all the answers
  
• Allow kids to criticize their parents and let off steam


• Second big idea: talk a lot
  
• High functioning teams have a lot of communication
  
• Talk about what it means to be part of your family
  
• Talked to Jim Collins
  
• Preserve the core and stimulate progress
  
• Define core identity
  
• Creating family mission statement
  
• Talk to kids about what they think our family values are
  


• Family dinner
  
• It is nice if can do it but the core part of the convo can be moved to family breakfast or meal out on weekend or whenever
  
• What matters is the family part
  


• Things to do in family convo
  
• 1. Word a day
  
• Teach one new word a day
  
• Bring newspapers and mags and catalogs with color names
  
• It's ok to google at dinner for new knowledge
  
• Have kids teach new words and slang to parents
  


• 2. Autobiography night
  
• Kids narrating story about self
  
• Parents who ask more elaborating questions like who/what/where/when/why have kids develop narration skills better
  


• 3. Talk about your family history
  
• Where grandparents were born
  
• Where parents went to high school
  
• Stories of overcoming disease or obstacle
  
• Kids who understand more of this are more confident and feel more control over lives
  
• Ascending family narrative: gain
  
• Descending family narrative: loss
  
• Oscillating family narrative: cycles
  
• Children who understand their oscillating family narrative have better ability to overcome obstacles


• Third big point: go out and play
  
• Spend less time worrying about what do wrong and focus on what enjoy
  
• Limit amount of conflict
  


• "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolsoy)
  


• Happiness is not something you find but something you make
  


• Secret to happy family: try
  



• Game at dinner
  
• Bad/good
  
• What they did bad today, what they did good
  
• Or highs/lows
  


• Family meetings should be about how family doing not about individual highs and lows
  


• Play improv game at beginning and end of family meeting as marker
  
• Put allowance at end of family meeting
  


• Don't talk about difficult stuff midstream of week or late at night but at specified time


• Groups make better decisions
  
• Vote before discussion so loudest person doesn't overwhelm
  
• If have more than 1 woman in a group it will make a better decision
  
• Get ppl into family difficult convo even if don't know much
  


• Give warring siblings a task to do together
  
• Enlist kids into contact with grandparents
  
• Be open about difficulties with your kids
  
• Don't pretend to be supermom
  
• Game: pain points
  
• Everyone says what they are struggling with
  
• Have kids help you solve your dilemmas
  

My third Malcolm Gladwell in a row (and last for now)! I enjoyed his latest What the Dog Saw, which is a collection of many of his published New Yorker articles, all in one book. The book discussed psychology, children, war, politics, dogs (of course), and many other subjects and sub-cultures. I liked how he was able to integrate himself into different communities, get a "flavor" for them and share that flavor with his readers succinctly, taking away broader lessons. There were some connections between this book and Outliers for sure, and it was nice to read them in succession to be able to catch those.

Overall, the book reveals a lot of non-intuitive results and poses some interesting questions. I felt after reading some of the stories that I wished they could be expanded on much more than he did, but on the flip side, it was nice to get a bit of subject matter variety in one work.

I recommend this book for people who want to understand dogs and geniuses, as I thought those two subjects were handled superbly.

Below are my notes and takeaways on each sub-article.

Preface

• Other minds discovery for kids: that other minds are different than yours
  
• Curiosity about the interior of others' heads
  
• Obsessives and minor geniuses
  
• Serious problems
  
• Predictions we make about ppl
  
• Dog whisperers
  
• Anthology of his New Yorker articles
  
• We filter rank and judge all the time but that blocks interestingness
  
• Assume everything is interesting or will lead to a story
  
• Find ppl in the middle who do the real work and who aren't self conscious
  
• Self consciousness is enemy of interestingness
  

Part 1 minor geniuses

Pitchmen for kitchen appliances

• Product development = marketing
  
• Tv infomercials for gadgets
  
• Developed all gadgets at home
  
• Pitchman real actor
  
• Secret is the turn: entertainment to business ask for money
  
• Standard vaudeville gimmicks
  
• Vegematic perfect combo of tv and gadget
  
• Product designed to be the star
  
• Design of product key to its demonstration and enticeability
  
• Set it and forget it
  
• QVC million dollars sales in one hour
  

Ketchup conundrum

• Many mustards
  
• Only one ketchup
  
• Gray poupon brand strong
  
• Build a better ketchup
  
• Worlds best brand
  
• Sensory segmentation with food
  
• Power of multiple varieties
  
• Food of the masses
  
• Universal
  
• Heinz pushes all 5 senses
  
• Sweet sour salty bitter umami
  
• New ketchups weren't improvements
  
• Ketchup is ketchup
  
• Special and different from spaghetti sauce where varieties matter
  

Blowing up

• Nassim Taleb story
  
• Expert traders might all just be luck
  
• Didn't want strategy that could blow up
  
• Don't believe financial markets are like physical that follow bell curve
  
• No statistical orderliness
  
• Only buys options
  
• Never bets on market move
  
• Buys puts and calls on hundreds of stocks out of money
  
• All cash in t-bills
  
• No matter how much info u know u can't know if ur proposition is true; only if false
  
• Traditional investing aims to make a little but could lose a lot
  
• Taleb aims to lose a little but could make a lot
  
• They just bleed to death but can't blow up
  
• Lose money 364/365 days
  
• No feedback daily so really hard for humans
  
• Set of tricks and protocols
  
• So he can't cause changes
  
• Techniques of self control
  
• More courage and heroism in defying human impulse than taking heroic risks
  

True colors

• Blond hair is her choice
  
• Jewish girl to acquire higher class through hair
  
• Disapproving mother in law
  
• Claroll at home color
  
• Ad writer for hair color
  
• Hair ad slogans represented feminism
  
• Does she or doesn't she
  
• Immigrants had to be fakers and remake themselves to fit in
  
• Does she or doesn't she about deeper identity
  
• Because I'm worth it slogan for l'aureal
  
• Blondness periodic table depending on color and attitude, specified by famous actresses
  
• Hair dye is politics, assimilation, self-esteem
  
• Give meaning to modern consumer through slogans
  
• Advertising motivational research
  
• Surveys based on psych, Freud, rorsharck
  
• Use techniques of healing for selling
  
• Divorcing women changing hair
  

John rock

• In love with church and inventor of birth control pill
  
• Always stick to your conscience
  
• Duplicated natural hormones already in woman's body
  
•  Struggle convincing church it's natural
  
• Shift from 100 to 400 menses per life because in older societies had more pregnancies and breastfeedings
  
• More ovulation increase cancer risk and pill decreases back to natural level
  
• Pill as rhythm method extended which church supports
  
• But monthly week of pain not necessary and there just to please church
  
• Japanese women have six times less breast cancer but only in Japan
  
• Lower fat diet
  
• Lower weight
  
• Later puberty and first period
  
• Gnrh pills could fake body to be a bit menopausal and drastically Lower breast cancer risk
  
• Pike researcher at balance pharmaceuticals startup in Santa Monica
  
• Talk about pill as cancer reducer not contraceptive to get church to approve; saving lives
  
• Rock became less religious
  

What the dog saw

• Cesar
  
• Make monster dog become sweet
  
• Interviews parents about dog and its behavior and parents' own upbringing
  
• Need to practice exercise, discipline, and affection
  
• Runs dog psychology center in downtown la
  
• Takes packs of dogs for walks
  
• Integrates problem dogs into pack
  
• Then returns to owner
  
• Prison yard of dogs
  
• Dog explorer show on tv
  
• Has presence like teacher
  
• Throws dogs balls
  
• Begins and ends game and demands it stop with whistle
  
• Dog whisperer show
  
• Dogs are students of human movement unlike other animals
  
• Dogs really interested in humans
  
• Your head slant and breathing affect how dog sees you
  
• How relaxed face is, arms
  
• Book: The Other End of the Leash
  
• Owner fear and face causes dogs to attack
  
• Intention of the movement
  
• Movement phrasing
  
• Creates authenticity when done right
  
• Cesar needed to learn to be ppl whisperer
  

Part 2: theories and predictions

Open secrets: Enron

• Skilling
  
• Received huge criminal sentence
  
• Puzzles vs mysteries
  
• Puzzles have key, just try to find it
  
• Mysteries require interpretation
  
• In mystery, doesn't always help to add more intelligence data
  
• Enron scandal not a puzzle but a mystery
  
• Mark to market accounting: real income vs fake unrealized
  
• As journalists and analysts looked at financials, stock fell
  
• Watergate was classic puzzle
  
• Heavy reliance on special purpose vehicles, shadowy side deals
  
• Didn't communicate essence of transactions to readers of statements
  
• All spe's were disclosed but thousands of pages long
  
• 120k pages long
  
• Puzzle grows simpler with each piece of info
  
• Mystery gets more complex with more info and layers
  
• Book: Conspiracy of Fools
  
• Officers didn't understand the deals themselves
  
• Disclosure paradigm is an anachronism
  
• Nazi secret weapon propaganda and puzzle
  
• Complex issues require mystery paradigm
  
• Psa screening inconclusive
  
• Diagnosis transformation from puzzle to mystery with probabilities
  
• Intelligence in soviet time was puzzle questions; now inundated with info and more a mystery of conflicting data
  
• Puzzles transmitter dependent
  
• Mysteries receiver dependent
  
• Huge gap between reported and taxable income at Enron hard to understand to most
  
• Mysteries spread blame more
  

Million dollar problem

• Homelessness
  
• Alcoholics
  
• 1 million in cost per homeless in medical
  
• Not normal distribution
  
• Power law distribution
  
• Extreme concentration of trouble officers
  
• Middle doesn't need help
  
• Homelessness power law distro not normal
  
• 62m spent annually in ny to shelter homeless
  
• Same guys over and over like lapd problem
  
• A few bad cases
  
• Built free apartments for and followed worst homeless cases
  
• Costs much less than if they were on street
  
• Emissions similar power law problem
  
• A small number of cars way higher emotions than almost all
  
• Some really old cars on road
  
• Better to do mobile smog testing of vehicles using stedman infrared
  
• But against our idea that pollution is a problem we all contribute to
  
• Policing not policy problem
  
• Small boring solution to big problem doesn't feel good; want sweeping reforms
  
• Solving power law problems violates our moral and political philosophy
  
• Special treatment of some; decisions of unfairness just for efficiency
  
• Some homeless need someone to be in charge of him
  

Picture problem

• Air force jets killing missile launch sites
  
• $4M camera
  
• Idea that photo can't lie
  
• Actual number of definite kills due to camera was 0
  
• Mammograms complex
  
• Skilled pair of fingers very effective at exam
  
• Modern bombs are now precise
  
• Now the problem is the precision of info needed
  
• Dcis diagnosis unclear when see it in mammogram
  
• We see more that we don't know how to interpret
  
• Mammo decreases cancer risk by 10%
  

Something borrowed

• Plagiarism
  
• Someone had stolen lewis's essence for a new play
  
• Copyright violations by play
  
• Borrowing as compliment
  
• Lots of music borrows and remakes
  
• Copyrights and patents balance between property rights and public benefits from disclosure and progress and availability/access
  
• Lots of patterns of influence in music
  
• Difference between ideas and things; copying idea doesn't take from me but saves u the work to create
  
• Borrowing that's transformative vs derivative
  
• Play writer borrowed from his article
  
• Borrowing someone's life not ok
  

Connecting dots: intelligence reform

• Syrian attack on Israel
  
• Sept 11
  
• Book: the sell
  
• Couldn't see the pattern
  
• We revise data after attack
  
• Problem of noise in intelligence gathering
  
• Creeping determinism where we rewrite our past probabilities
  
• Create clashes in group to prevent groupthink
  
• False alarms from sensitivity lower sensitivity after
  

The art of failure: choking and panic

• Tennis players failing under pressure
  
• Talented ppl fail sometimes
  
• Implicit learning and muscle memory
  
• In conditions of stress, explicit system takes over and u lose ur unconscious touch
  
• Stress wipes out short term memory
  
• Panic causes perceptual narrowing
  
• Choking about thinking too much
  
• Panic about thinking too little
  
• Choking is forgetting instinct
  
• Panic is reversion to instinct
  
• How failure happens affects our understanding of why it happens
  
• Kennedy air crash: failed under pressure
  
• Book: Inside the Sky
  
• Inability to sense experientially what plane doing
  
• Panicking is conventional failure
  
• Kennedy panicked
  
• Choking is paradoxical failure
  
• Stereotype threat of ethnic students doing worse on tests
  
• Choking is second guessing
  
• Stereotype threat creates choking not panic
  

Blow up: who can be blamed for challenger: no one and we need to get used to it

• Rituals of disaster
  
• Desire not to give up
  
• Disasters inherent in complex tech systems
  
• Challenger wasnt anomaly; because everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do
  
• Assume that risks are manageable but wrong
  
• Three mile island near disaster
  
• Not just about human error
  
• 5 malfunctions each trivial but combined and interacted to make big problem
  
• "normal accident"
  
• Combos of minor normal failures of tech system
  
• Culture of NASA in challenger
  
• Another view: how humans handle risk
  
• Risk homeostasis theory
  
• Book: Target Risk
  
• Changes that appear to make org safer don't
  
• Humans compensate for lower risk in one are with more in another area
  
• Abs brakes made drivers riskier
  
• More pedestrians killed at marked crossings
  
• More poisonings after child proof pill bottles came out
  

Part 3 personality, character, intelligence

Late bloomers: why we equate genius with precocity

• Ben fountain writer success not breakthrough
  
• Took 18 years
  
• Quit job
  
• Had 30 rejections for 1 published
  
• Poets peak young
  
• Study found no relation in poetry publication and youth
  
• Picasso young bloomer but cesanne late bloomer
  
• Writer collected articles he loved and interested in
  
• Traveled to Haiti because was interested
  
• Learned visual language from visual dictionaries and architecture books
  
• Late bloomers experimenters and researchers, trial and error 
  
• Early bloomers conceptual, visionary
  
• experimental artists improve skills over time, learn from each piece
  
• Searching vs finding
  
• Mark twain experimenter and revised huck Finn for 10 years
  
• Conceptual vs experimental
  
• Late bloomer resembles a failure for a while
  
• We prematurely judge late bloomers and thwart many
  
• Need support and patrons
  
• Late bloomers depend on others
  
• Late bloomer stories love story
  

Most likely to succeed: how we hire when we can't tell

• Drafting football players
  
• Teaching profession hard to predict how one will do
  
• Value add calculation of test score improvement
  
• Difference between good and bad huge
  
• Test scores and teaching creds not related to performance
  
• Financial advisors do well at hiring
  
• Lower standards and judge after they try
  
• Apprenticeship camp
  

Dangerous minds: criminal profiling made easy

• Psychoanalyze criminals and bomb notes
  
• Profiler goes from deeds to man description, not opposite prediction
  
• Organized vs unorganized killers
  
• Crime scene reveals personality
  
• Profiles too general and use cold reading tricks
  

Talent myth: is it overrated

• McKinsey study
  
• Book: War for Talent
  
• Talent mindset
  
• CEOs of best companies obsessed with hiring stars
  
• McKinsey billings motivation
  
• Enron hired McKinsey a ton
  
• Enron was ultimate talent company
  
• What if Enron failed because of its mindset
  
• Differentiation and affirmation of employees annually
  
• A's promoted, c's fired
  
• Rank and yank
  
• Practical tacit knowledge unrelated to iq
  
• Ranking fighter pilots easier than managers
  
• Use criteria as specific as possible
  
• Talent separated from performance
  
• Catering to keep employees happy
  
• Enron was place where stars did whatever wanted
  
• Good businesses determined by attractiveness to employees not customers or profits
  
• Pet projects
  
• Greedy vs narcissistic corporation
  
• Some hold fixed view of intelligence vs malleable
  
• If celebrated only for talent instead of malleability then more likely to lie when self image threatened and less likely to work on self improvement
  
• Organizations make ppl smart not other way around
  
• P&g, southwest, Walmart use different management principles than Enron
  

The new boy network: what job interviews really tell us

• Quick instinct u get after first few minutes of interview
  
• Snap judgments
  
• Can rate teachers on 2 second silent video 
  
• Humans don't need to know someone to believe u know someone
  
• Power of first impressions
  
• Same judgment after 1 semester with teacher as after 2 sec
  
• First impression leads to confirmation bias
  
• How we behave more affected by situation than traits
  
• Don't draw broad conclusions
  
• Ask specific situational questions that reveal one small detail
  
• Not classic questions with right answers
  
• Structured interview only one with value
  

Troublemakers: pit bulls teach us about crime

• Bred for aggression
  
• Generalizations
  
• Profile terrorists hard
  
• Testing study found pit bulls less aggressive
  
• Just some bad examples
  
• Category problem
  
• Pit bulls not more dangerous but more numerous
  
• Bad owners create bad dogs

On to the next one! Tipping Point was good, but I enjoyed Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell even more. It delved into the stories of rare cases of success in a number of fields -- lawyers, entrepreneurs, health, pilots -- and showed that success is much less a factor of individual freak talent and much more a factor of being in the right place at the right time and in the right community.

Yes, individual talent and IQ matter, but only to a minimal extent; once they're above a certain minimal threshold, it's about other factors much more. Those other factors are individual hard work (10,000 hours of practice) and being in the right situation. The amazing statistics the book exposed about the birth dates of athletes and famous people were really interesting and showed that success is much more about being born in the right month and year than we expect.

Intro

• Roseto Italy
  
• Immigrants to US
  
• Vastly lower heart disease rate
  
• Not genes or food or location but social situation they set up
  
• 3 generations under 1 roof and ppl stopping to talk to each other
  
• Have to look beyond  individual to culture to understand health
  

Part 1 opportunity

Ch 1 Matthew effect

• Hockey teams
  
• Judged on Individual merit?
  
• Key is not who they are or what they are like
  
• Key is their situation and context
  
• Hockey players most born in January and Feb
  
• Nothing special about these months. Just jJn 1 is cutoff for teams so those who make it are about 1 year older
  
• Selection, screening, and superior experience to those just at cut off date
  
• Small initial advantage persists for years for sports and school
  
• Confusing maturity and ability
  
• Those who are successful get more practice
  
• Success is cumulative advantage
  
• Didn't start outlier; started just a bit better
  
• Systems that screen at precise date or too early in age aren't efficient
  
• Success not just simple function of individual merit; rules we write as society make huge difference
  
• Could educate kids in maturity groups based on quartile of year born in
  
• Big for his age
  

Ch 2: 10000 hour rule

• U Mich CS dept
  
• Bill Joy
  
• Created Unix, Sun, Java
  
• Just talent and merit?
  
• Is there innate talent? Yes
  
• But the smaller the role for talent and the bigger for preparation
  
• Star violin students research study: 10,000 hours of practice
  
• 3 hours per day over 10 years
  
• Magic number of greatness
  
• Applies across disciplines
  
• Almost none do it in less
  
• And almost none who do the time don't succeed
  
• Bill Joy programmed for 10k hours to learn
  
• Got to work on timeshare system 
  
• Beatles played for 8 hours per day, 7 days a week before getting discovered; their practice is what made them great
  
• Bill Gates
  
• Happened to go to elementary school with a rare computer
  
• Got many opportunities to practice
  
• Incredibly lucky series of events
  
• Not extraordinary talent but opportunity
  
• Most Silicon Valley moguls born around 1955 and had perfect age when minicomputer Altair came out in 1975
  
• Most of the richest men in history born in 1834 and had perfect age for industrial revolution
  

Ch 3 troubled geniuses part 1

• 1 vs 100 game
  
• Langham genius
  
• IQ has a threshold
  
• Just has to be high enough like 120
  
• Rest matters less
  
• Affirmative action students do just as well in life as white in study
  
• Nobel winners among all
  

Ch 4 the trouble with geniuses part 2

• Practical intelligence orthogonal from general intelligence
  
• Family background and class biggest determinant/separator between geniuses who succeeded and didn't
  

Ch 5 three lessons of joe

• Last partner of skadden
  
• Lesson 1: Importance of being Jewish
• Not of right background or class meant they were rejected from best firms
• So had to go out on own
  
• Accepted work others didn't want: proxy fights and takeovers
  
• What started as adversity became opportunity
  
• They happened to have practice of 10k hours in the fields that later became popular
  
• Lesson 2 demographic law
  
• Depression generation fewer babies
  
• Benefits of being born in smaller generation
  
• Lesson 3 the garment industry
  
• Jewish background in clothing work
  
• Immigrants sowing in apartments
  
• 3 factors that taught entrepreneurs skills and caused them to work hard: autonomy, complexity, connection between effort and reward
  
• Same 3 factors determine if work is satisfying and meaningful
  

Part 2 legacy

Ch 6 Kentucky die like a man like your brother did

• Killings between two families in small town in Kentucky
  
• Multiple famous family feuds in Appalachians
  
• Culture of honor among herders where man's reputation because depends on society
  
• As opposed to farmers whose crops can't be stolen
  
• Settled by scotch Irish who knew violence
  
• Reproduce in new world the culture of honor they had before
  
• In south, murders way more personal
  
• It matters where you're from including many generations back
  
• Experiments on culture of honor by insulting subjects
  
• Men who were from south were way more angry than north; that was only thing that mattered
  
• Call a southerner an asshole and he's itching for a fight
  
• Traditions and attitudes from forebears and legacy affect us just like background and cultural surroundings from part 1
  

Ch 7 theory of air crashes

• Korean Air had way more crashes
  
• Then turned itself around
  
• It did not succeed until it acknowledged the role of its cultural legacy
  
• Crash requires 7 human errors
  
• Requires lots of communication
  
• Mitigating tone: hedging to be polite with superior
  
• Bad when need to be direct in emergency
  
• Plane safest when flown by least experienced pilot because then crew won't be afraid to speak up
  
• Crashes might be due to captain's cultural background
  
• Hofstidi cultural dimensions
  
• tendencies, assumptions, reflexes handed down by generations
  
• Uncertainty avoidance, power distance
  
• Americans most willing to push back against superiors
  
• Colombians much less so because have higher respect of authority
  
• Required English fluency when fixing Korean air
  
• Language was key to separating pilots from Korean legacy
  
• In west it's transmitter's job to communicate clearly; in east, it's receivers
  

Ch 8 rice paddies and math tests

• Rice is life in south china
  
• 7 digits memory in US because we can memorize 2 second audio loop
  
• In China can memorize more numbers because each number is faster to say
  
• English counting system and number word naming irregular
  
• Asian is regular so Asian kids can count higher earlier than English
  
• Math more logical and enjoyable so kids do it better in Asia
  
• Easier to state fractions more logically
  
• Being good at math rooted in culture and language
  
• Cultural legacies matter
  
• Work on rice farm really hard and similar to Jewish garment work
  
• 3000 hours per yr
  
• Willingness to concentrate and not give up on hard problem directly related to math ability
  
• Seeing how long students spend filling out long test exactly predicts their math outcome
  
• Countries with culture of hard work ethic and long hours (proverbs about long hours of work in rice paddies) directly related to math ability
  

Ch 9 all my friends go to Kipp

• Kipp school
  
• Poor kids learn nothing over summer vacation but rich do, and both learn the same during the year so achievement gap all due to differences in summer
  
• Students in Asian schools get shorter break
  
• 50% more learning time at Kipp
  
• Not about intelligence or resources
  
• Ppl just need to be given a chance
  
• Make a league for hockey players born in second half of year
  
• More schools that make kids work longer
  

Epilogue

• Jamaica, story of his mom
  
• Mom owes success to timing of her birth and many other random occurrences
  
• Outliers are not outliers
  
• Just got lucky breaks
  
• Gates, Jobs, Joy born within 6 months of each other
  

Alright. Enough reading about manliness for now. Back to some nice psychology classics.

I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's Blink a few years ago and had his other books on my reading list. I just completed Tipping Point  and enjoyed it quite a bit as well.

I like how he explores subjects where we have a knee-jerk response of what should be the obvious answer, but when you dig deep into the evidence, it's not. In this book, he explores a number of phenomena that seem to "come out of nowhere" (the way people understand Pinterest's rise is a perfect Tipping Point story).

My biggest takeaways are that the smallest details can make the biggest differences, and that one thing's or person's rise over others is often much more a matter of circumstance and context than specific traits or actions. I still believe in the importance of one's own actions above the other factors, but this book made me give more weight to the context. In addition, the book reinforced the importance of control of the details of execution (in your product and your work). This point reminded me of the importance of being an expert in your craft and building things the way you think is right, down to the last detail (like Howard Roark of The Fountainhead did). It also reminded me of how Zao Yang of FarmVille told us in a talk on gamification that the size of a character's pupils in a game makes the character's and game's popularity change dramatically (artistic quality and design details can cause things to tip/explode).

Below are the rest of my notes.

Intro

• Hush puppies
  
• Word of mouth brought brand from dying to alive all of a sudden
  
• NY crime rate dropped all of a sudden
  
• Huge change in short time
  
• Fashion trends
  
• Best sellers
  
• Word of mouth
  
• Think of these like epidemics of thoughts
  
• Contagious behavior
  
• Infected ppl with hushpuppies virus by wearing them
  
• Little changes have big effects
  
• Incremental changes then have dramatic effect
  
• Changes happen in a hurry
  
• Rise or fall in a moment
  
• Yawning is contagious
  
• Visually and orally contagious
  
• Creates thoughts and makes emotionally contagious
  
• Epidemics are geometric progression
  
• Single sheet of paper folded fifty times has height going to sun
  
• Sudden change possibility hard to accept
  
• Point of critical mass
  
• Neighborhoods and social problems don't decline in steady profession
  

Ch 1 three rules of epidemics

• Boston syphilis epidemic
  
• Crack was little push that changed everything
  
• Medical treatment breakdown
  
• Changes and destruction of housing projects in other parts of state
  
• Spread function of 3 things: ppl who spread infection, infectious agent, and environment (law of the few, stickiness factor, and the power of context)
  
• Epidemic happens when one of the three changes
  
• 80/20 principle
  
• In epidemics even more extreme
  
• STDs started by a handful of ppl who have way more activity than others
  
• HIV and flu viruses change to become deadlier
  
• Increased stickiness
  
• Epidemics influenced by environment, season
  
• Bystander problem: one variable that mattered most was number of other witnesses
  
• Responsibility for acting in a group is diffused
  
• Key to getting ppl to care lies in smallest details of situation
  

Ch 2: the law of the few, connectors

• News of Paul Revere's ride
  
• Word of mouth epidemic
  
• Shopping decisions most from wom
  
• News tips based not just on content but also on gifts and talents of the men spreading it
  
• Connectors and salesmen
  
• Milgram package mailing experiment to test connectedness
  
• Surprising because we have few friends
  
• Proximity overpowers similarity
  
• Friends with ppl we do things with
  
• Half of letters touched 3 influential ppl
  
• In every walk of life, there are a few individuals who make a ton of friends
  
• Kevin Bacon 6 steps
  
• Lots of weak ties
  
• Span many different worlds and and subculture
  
• Lois Weisberg
  
• Paul Revere
  
• Finds everyone interesting
  
• Mavens ppl of info
  
• Collectors of info and people
  
• Connector and maven personality; mavens obsessed with finding and sharing info
  
• Info brokers
  
• Mavens give data
  
• Collectors spread
  
• Salesmen persuade
  
• Facial expression persuades
  
• Nodding and peter Jennings's smile affect people subconsciously
  
• Micro movements of body
  
• Micro rhythms of synchronous movements, synced to words
  
• Both ppl in convo dance with body and face
  
• Emotional mimicry
  
• Emotional gestures infectious
  
• If I can make u smile, I can make u happy
  
• "Sender" personality with special facial muscles
  

Ch 3 the stickiness factor, sesame street, education

• Spreading virus of literacy
  
• Learning epidemic through tv
  
• By making small adjustments in presentation it became sticky
  
• Direct marketers
  
• Blue's Clues
  
• Repetition
  

Ch 4 power of context part 1: rise and fall of NYC crime

• One of worst crime epidemics in 80s then fell all of a sudden
  
• Crime as epidemic
  
• Ppl very sensitive to context
  
• Broken windows theory
  
• Sense of anarchy
  
• Graffiti symbolic
  
• Cleaned all trains thoroughly
  
• Crackdown on fare cheating
  
• Small crimes were tipping points for violent crime
  
• Zimbardo prison: some situations overwhelm our natural state
  
• Honesty influenced by situation (studies of student cheating
  
• Fundamental attribution error: attribute wrongly to action or attributes instead of context
  
• Try to remove inconsistencies and cognitive dissonance
  
• Good samaritan experiment: only thing to alter behavior was context of whether were in a rush or not
  
• Community influence more important than family influence
  

Ch 5 power of context part 2: magic number 150

• Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood book sales tipped by word of mouth
  
• Context of a group changes everything
  
• Channel limit of being able to categorize among different groups; magic number 7
  
• Social channel capacity of number of good friends
  
• Dunbar: neocortex size for group management; humans 150
  
• 150 tipping point
  
• Gore Associates: small company feel thru rule 150; new plant building every 150 ppl; all depts know each other
  
• Hutterite clan splits at 150
  
• Couples form joint memory system
  

Ch 6 case study rumors

• Airwalk cult start
  
• Sponsored athletes
  
• TALC
  
• Mavens translate from visionaries to something more applicable
  
• Rumors distort and spread
  
• Most details dropped and some sharpened
  
• Ppl change to achieve better gestalt and meaning for them
  
• Follow a set of hip ppl around country and check in with them monthly to see what doing, thinking, wearing, goals
  
• Do ads showing ur product in the new trend ur starting to find
  
• Airwalk went down because sold off too much to mainstream
  

Ch 7: Case study on suicide and smoke

• Micronesia seven times higher suicide rate
  
• Part of culture
  
• Like teenage smoking in us
  
• Suicide and traffic fatalities surge for 5 days after big news suicide
  
• One suicide or deviant act gives permission to others to do same
  
• Suicide language between ppl in subculture
  
• Secret shared language of smoking, emotions, images
  
• Salesmen who give permission to smoke
  
• Teens drawn to traits of smokers (indifference to others, impulsivity, risk taking)
  
• Smokers, not smoking, cool
  
• But also sticky
  
• Contagiousness from messenger, stickiness from message
  
• Prevent permission givers from smoking
  
• Tell kids to look elsewhere for images
  
• Twin studies: half of personality from genes, half from environment
  
• Adopted kid study shows that environmental influence is peers not family
  
• New pills that fix depression by fixing brain chemicals help smokers quit by replacing high feelings
  
• Could also lower nicotine per cig so daily total dose below addictive level
  
• Like chippers who can smoke without addiction
  
• Experimentation/contagiousness is different than stickiness; few cocaine users try again
  
• Create safer less sticky form of smoking
  

Conclusion: focus, test, leave

• Sometimes band aid solution quick and dirty works great
  
• Our intuition of the world and differences among ppl not good: powerfully influenced by surroundings and small differences social change so volatile and inexplicable
  

Afterword

• Word of mouth
  
• Rise of isolation
  
• Columbine was infection that spread
  
• Mass hysteria
  


• Rise of immunity in communication
  
• Changes role of connector
  
• Email was great but now immune to it because such large network
  


• Role of maven
  
• Maven trap: 800 number on soap package
  
• Now defined by status among friends
  

I don't remember how I heard about this book, but it was hilarious. Joel Stein, a writer for Time Magazine, wrote a book called Man Made, chronicling his quest to find masculinity when his son was born. The self-effacing, brutally honest stories in the book made laugh as much as they made me think.

It's been interesting to compare and contrast some of the books I've read recently on the topic, like Iron John. In Joel's book, I found myself finding many parallels and similarities between my own life and his, so a lot of what he described resonated with me. There were many times though where I was shocked at just how scared and dainty Joel seemed; in that sense, just reading the book makes you feel manly (compared to Joel). But in other senses, you definitely feel respect for him (like fighting for 5 minutes with a UFC champ).

I've made some of my own steps towards doing "manly" things, and I've done them in my own way, which I'm proud of -- like scuba diving, learning to fly, and martial arts. His take-home message -- that you learn by doing and push your comfort zone -- made a lot of sense to me.

I'm curious if others out there have gone on similar quests and what they experienced.

Below are my notes and takeaways from the book (sorry for any name misspellings).

Intro

• Father to a boy
  
• Freaks out
  
• How to find own masculinity
  
• There are gender differences and important different roles for both to play
  
• Too much feminism wrong
  
• Learn how to be a man
  
• Had a soft life, avoided guy activities
  
• List of tasks to turn into man
  
• Fears are just list of things to do
  
• Not old style man tasks, not über modern
  

Ch 1: surviving outdoors

• Start out as 11 year old boy
  
• Didn't join boy scouts
  
• Never was outside as kid
  
• Spend weekend as boy scout
  
• Without modern comforts
  
• Firestone Scout Reservation in Los Angeles
  
• Scout leader Rick Pierce
  
• Mom didn't let him join boy scouts
  
• Goes for weekend
  
• Mom liberal feminist therapist
  
• Snipes are fake birds hunted
  
• Boyish delight, being born happy
  
• List of life advice for kid
  
• Experience of birth of child
  
• Cries more after son born
  

Boy scout weekend

• Wants to learn man skills so doesn't pass on inadequacies to kid
  
• Don't need so much clothing or niceties
  
• No pooping
  
• Peeing on trees
  
• No brushing teeth or changing underwear
  
• Learn to unbrush, unfloss
  
• Lose the baggage
  
• Barfing on each other
  
• Passed boy scout test
  
• Confrontation and fighting part of manhood
  
• Nerdiness is big part of manliness
  

Ch 2: helping the helpless

• Service projects 
  
• Learn from Firefighters
  
• Bravery
  
• Real men use military time
  
• Captain Buzz Smith of LA County Fire Dept No 27
  
• Go reading to kids
  
• Firefighters sleep at the station instead of like shifts
  
• Like frat house
  
• Like each other
  
• Visit hospital where they bring patients to
  
• Love donuts
  
• Men in fire house each have project they're building with their own money
  
• Lunch at In n Out
  
• Being a liberal isn't manly
  
• Most republicans
  
• Is manliness needed with technology?
  
• Progress = enemy of masculinity
  
• Guy trips together on days off
  
• Two families each has
  
• Guys bond over pranks
  
• Affection masked as hostility
  
• Dinner called family time
  
• Game to decide who washes dishes
  
• And then everyone does the dishes anyways
  
• Stop thinking about stuff and start doing stuff
  
• Use the pole because more awesome than stairs
  
• Risking life for something as a team makes him happy and productive
  
• Sad when beaten by other trucks to fight fire
  
• Firemen clean up after fighting fire
  
• Woken up in middle of night
  
• More like social workers and chauffeurs for the poor than superheroes
  
• Great bonding
  
• Common purpose of sacrifice
  
• Made him glad he has a boy
  

Ch 3: engaging in competition

• Excitement of hanging out with the guys
  
• Need more entry points to convos with real men
  
• Shawn Green MLB all Star coached him on baseball
  
• Book: The Way of Baseball
  
• Shawn went to Stanford like Joel
  
• Likes meditation
  
• Girls have hotness
  
• Boys have quantifiable measure of value: athletic ability
  
• Not knowing about football kills convos with men
  
• Pro-Ball indoor baseball training facility
  
• pomade by crew or unite creamy paste
  
• Badass Jew
  
• His dad was very aggressive and conflict seeking
  
• Dealt with antisemitism
  
• Line cutting vigilantism
  
• Focusing on physical talent is invigorating
  
• Shawn took 2 Buddhism classes at Stanford. Philosophy of acceptance
  
• 20 min daily meditation and yoga
  
• Learns to throw baseball
  
• Swing on ball with tee
  
• Focus on present moment
  
• Drink tea and wine, no coffee or beer
  
• Non-Jewish wives
  
• Try chewing tobacco
  
• Can be wimp inside but just expand and try new things
  
• Hates football
  
• Tribal, warlike, anti intellectual football
  

Goes to friends to watch football

• Prepares with sports newscaster
  
• Tip 1 to watch game: shut the hell up
  
• When don't know how to act like a man then act like my dad
  
• Ass slapping 
  
• Arm slapping
  
• Group of guys experiencing something together
  
• Swimsuit calendar
  
• Only no perfect grade on report card was gym
  
• Family crest
  
• Wants to learn how to fight from UFC champion
  

Ch 4: bonding with men

• Learns to drink scorch from Macallan brand manager
  

Ch 5: making money

• learns from day trader
  
• Posts on dealbreaker blog for someone to give him 100k to trade for a day 
  
• Step in when no one's trading and scared
  
• Trading not about money but about quantification of competition and your pursuit to be the best u can
  
• just trade in first hour and don't trade rest of day
  
• A bit at end too
  
• Traders cursing
  
• Lights off
  
• No women
  
• Midday breaks
  
• Didn't avoid the big chances
  
• Like taking risks
  
• Matt doesn't drink alcohol
  
• After hours trading important
  
• Was afraid of change but now ok for danger and change
  
• Al the action is in taking risk
  
• Manage risk more actively
  

Ch 6: using machines

• Son loves cars
  
• Needs to learn about cars
  
• Takes Lamborghini to drive for 3 days
  

Ch 7: taming animals

• Owning a dog
  
• Get over fear of dogs
  
• Reduced uptightness
  
• Limited himself in past to maintain his identity and to belong to tribe
  
• Rescue dogs
  
• Playing with pit bull
  
• Feels present with dog
  
• Dog anal glands
  
• Learning to be fearless and gentle
  

Ch 8: building shelter

• Do things yourself and be proud of your results
  
• Build your own world and your own house
  
• Learn from father in law
  
• Self reliance
  
• Learns to fix up home
  
• Learns to see beauty everywhere
  
• Perfectionist who likes creating good work
  
• Being dad just requires being present
  
• Skills of new manhood
  
• Son a bit wimpy after all
  
• Stand the way you want your son to stand
  

Ch 9: providing food

• Need to practice destroying stuff
  
• Understand violence
  
• Learn hunting from Matt Stefina of Vermont trap fun tour company
  
• Have to really care about turkeys to want to kill
  
• Peaceful fishing
  
• Accept discomfort of loneliness and boredom
  
• Calm mental chatter
  
• Standing up for wife
  
• Doesn't regret not going over to beat other guy up and regrets not regretting it after all done
  

Ch 10: defending my country

• Get military to force him to change and grow
  
• Been anti military his whole life
  
• Joins marine bootcamp
  
• 54 hours of challenges
  
• Gets hair shaved
  
• Pain is weakness leaving your body
  
• Really bad at joining a group and submerging who
  
• Joins army bootcamp and fires a tank
  
• Happy and present at army bootcamp
  
• Honorable conduct
  
• Discipline
  
• Always looking fresh
  

Ch 11: protecting my family

• Got punched in face by reality show guy who lived with lions
  
• His brain skips anger entirely
  
• Anger deficient
  
• Works with fighter/boxer
  
• Goes through with fight with randy couture even when feels pain
  

Conclusion

• Didn't totally change himself
  
• Changed how he reacts to conflict
  
• Change not by deciding but by doing
  
• Taking punches makes you tough
  
• Change is possible
  
• Attitude to face fears and challenges
  
• Dad gives gift of making son feel safe
  
• Man needs to learn for himself

A couple good friends recommended Iron John by Robert Bly to me, and I recently finished it. It was a dense, interesting book examining modern masculinity and what men and women can learn about "manhood" from myths and stories of cultures around the world.

The idea is that "men" in modern society have a lot less of a foundation and context in which to grow and find strength than they did in prior generations, and there are lessons to be learned from the way more "primitive" cultures do male initiation through stories and physical acts.


Overall, I found the book enjoyable, and the literary interpretations of multiple texts reminded me of high school English (the good parts). I found the anthropological details and the studies of initiation rites around the world the most compelling as lessons to learn from. I found the heavy and "between the lines" interpretations of the stories and texts to be a bit over the top at times; I'm still skeptical that fairy tales and myths have that many secrets hidden in the diction and language/style to learn from.

My notes are below. I find myself now thinking about how I can grow and improve as a man based on the big lessons in the book and what institutions and activities can help with that growth for me and other men.

Big lessons

• Breaking from the mother
• Finding a male mother/male mentor
• Physical initiation rite prepares and matures men
• Inner warriors and kings can be cultivated and re-discovered
• Proper respect and fighting technique for mature relationship with Woman

Preface

• Modern masculinity
  
• Male initiation
  
• Second father
  
• Old stories don't work
  
• Not challenge to women's movement
  
• Savage man vs wild man
  
• Men's grief
  
• Wild man examines own wound
  
• Stories are the reservoir of old knowledge
  

Ch 1: the pillow and the key

• Changing models of manhood in America
  
• Soft male, nice guys
  
• Not happy, not life giving
  
• Remoteness from fathers
  
• Receptivity not enough to carry relationship
  
• Young men not able to show resolve
  

Finding Iron John

• Grimm Brothers story
  
• Every man has inner wild man side, hairy primate
  
• Hard work to find it inside
  
• Deep male feels risky
  

• Loss of golden ball that unites all kids under 8 before have split off
  
• Finding ball back requires going into male sphere, not asking woman for it
  
• Not compatible with niceness
  
• Wild man energy taken with resolve not cruelty
  
• Bucketing out water from pond in which wild man lives
  
• Freud, Jung
  
• Psyche likes making deals
  
• Wild man gives golden ball back if boy opens cage but boy runs away
  
• Schools and church teach against this
  

• Older adult finally ready to converse with wild man, full of grief 
  
• Key to open cage is under mother's pillow
  
• Pillow is where mother puts dreams for boy
  
• The key has to be stolen
  
• Mother would lose her boy if gave him key
  
• Confront family and say won't carry shame anymore
  
• Dance crazy and let yourself go
  

• Wild man let free
  
• Boy must carry John out of courtyard
  
• Must be ok with hair, body, etc.
  

Going off with wild man

• Modern boys don't get initiation
  
• Need intervention of older men to break bond with parents and become man
  
• Few men's clubs left
  
• Boys talk ugly to moms to make break
  
• Older men need to take over
  
• Industrial revolution pulled fathers away
  

Remote father

• If son doesn't see what dad does everyday all day, doesn't develop as close of bond and malehood
  
• Starts to think dad's work evil
  

Zeus energy

• Healthy male power
  
• Mom gives son bad view of dad
  
• Obsession with mom until about 35-40, then want to see dad for real
  
• Discover for self what father masculinity is, good and bad
  
• Stories good guide free from modern issues
  
• Hindus offer Shiva, good and bad
  
• Hawaiian kahuna
  
• Divine associated with mad dancers, hair, power, not just niceness
  
• Ability to shout
  
• Dionysus
  
• Kala energy, shouting
  
• Not domination
  

Ch 2: when one hair turns gold

• Initiation of boy in many cultures starts with meaningful infliction of pain
  
• Old men tell young story of original man
  

Wild man brings son to forest

• Took him to golden spring and asked him to guard
  
• Boy had wounded finger, dipped in pond and had it turn to gold
  
• Wounds are inward and outward injuries
  
• Not receiving blessing from father
  
• Not seeing father when small is injury
  
• Critical father is injury
  
• Father gives blow, son remembers for years
  
• Father gives blow with axe
  
• Mother pours on shame
  
• Beatings and blows to self esteem
  
• Being lied to by men is injury
  
• Gang members try to learn discipline and loyalty from each other instead of from older men
  
• Few soul unions with other men in modern times
  
• Infantile grandiosity beaten down by shame blows
  
• Blows to princehood
  
• Everyone has something wrong
  
• When people identify as wounded child, radiates destruction
  
• Recovery and initiation critical
  
• Grandiose road, Depressed road both bad
  
• When key remains under mom's pillow, stay stuck
  
• Even when steal key, can complain of wound for a while, still not good
  
• Look for mentor who possesses right attributes
  
• Can't just be wild man immediately (grandiose)
  
• Manic excitement, victim excitement: 2 bad paths 
  
• Male mother figure is the solution
  
• If instead of first two bad paths, climb onto shoulders of wild man, then 3 good things happen: wound seen as gift, secret spring will appear, and the energy of the sun will go into man's body
  

Water is sacred spring

• Holy wells in mythology
  
• Water of soul life
  
• Being both fisherman and fish
  
• Being active with soul
  
• Gold on fingertip won't wash away
  
• From old myths across world same image
  
• Divinity inside you
  
• Mentor guides you to your own gold
  
• Initiation is knowing when to dip wound in water in front of mentor
  

• Where your wound is (drunk dad, shaming mom, etc.) is not your place of shame but the place from which you'll find your gift to the community
  

• No polarization of earth and sky for genders
  
• Water both masculine and feminine
  
• Sky and earth both masculine and feminine, not just male sky and female earth and water
  

The second day

• Boy lets hair fall into spring by accident
  
• Wounds ate impersonal, need to be lifted up
  
• Hair symbol of animals, sexuality, excess, spontaneity -- all good 
  
• Boys instinctively drawn to hunting
  
• Hair is intuitions that come when unobserved
  
• When human takes action, soul adds to it
  
• Dream manifests in response to action
  

The third day

• Boy tries hard not to move finger
  
• Looked at face in water and hair fell into spring and turned gold
  
• Looking at own face in mirror powerful
  
• Look for your other half, hidden half, soul
  
• He does what you don't do
  
• Your shadow
  

Going out into world

• When man sees glimpse of true self, gets golden head
  
• Wild man as meditation instructor
  
• Initiation is expanding sideways into wilderness, forest
  
• Iron John is initiation story
  
• Teaches man power he has
  
• Fails at wild man's trials three times but attempt more important than success
  
• Told to leave forest but gets gift of being able to come to forest edge if in trouble and get help from wild man
  

Ch. 3: road of ashes, descent, and grief

• In childhood we know we belong to grandeur and try to forget details that don't meet that
  
• Flying people: The Little Prince, Don Juan
  
• Grandiose ascenders
  
• Ascent as revolt against female earthiness
  
• Boy into bird like creature
  

• Passivity, naïveté, numbness
  
• Men moving into passivity, women into activity
  
• Boy learns to sulk, be passive to own hurts
  

Naïveté

• More in touch with women's pain
  
• Listening to others' pain different from carrying it
  
• Believes in own and others sincerity
  
• Unaware of boundaries
  
• Gives away eggs
  
• Wants ecstasy through feminine
  
• Sink into a mood like a hole, attached, can't separate
  
• Mood trance: not present to wife
  
• Lacks natural brutality, instead waits until major wounding
  
• Timing off
  
• Link to betrayal, lies
  

Numbness

• Mother's protection makes numb when replaces father's protection
  
• Numbness in chest
  
• Not finding own feelings
  

Story

• After boy ascends and knows gold, Iron John sends him into world to know poverty but tells him that if ever needs help to come to edge of forest, call his name, and he has gold riches
  
• Boy goes to town, gets job in kitchen (descent from king's son to kitchen helper)
  
• Lowly work path to getting past naïveté
  

Catathesis

• Greek name for "drop"
  
• Next step in initiation is rat's hole, darker way, way down and out
  
• College education, entitlement to homeless lowest rank: important for growth
  
• Old shame surfaces, old man comes out
  
• Men fail to notice own suffering
  
• Wound, kitchen work, is a door
  
• Lives the shaming, multiplies inner effect to draw contrast
  
• Requires fall from status with consciousness
  
• Divorce feels like a discharge
  
• Use divorce as invitation to catathesis to enter wound as door and come out different at end
  
• Conscious act of descent
  
• Grief is conscious, intentioned; depression external, unconscious
  
• Repentance
  
• 12 steps of AA
  
• Discovering the dark side of mother earth
  
• Only the wild man can stand up to her
  
• Baba Yaga
  
• Boat tusked, dark queen, Grendel face
  
• Not about killing her but developing energy as intense as hers
  
• When achieve that, she will ask him what he wants to know
  

Taking the road of ashes

• Descent or kitchen work can take 3 other forms: Taking the path of ashes, learning to shudder, moving from mother's world to father's world
  

Ashes and cinders work

• In fairy stories like Cinderella this is the right task
  
• Cinder biters of Norway
  
• Ash Wednesday
  
• Ashes remind of death, kill inner infantile
  
• Disneyland (our culture) means no ashes
  
• Coolness of American men haven't found own ashes
  
• Catathesis about abrupt social change
  

Learning to shudder

• Feel strong emotion, let out physical feeling like grief, shock, anger
  
• Boys do this well but then numb themselves
  

Going from mother's house to father's house

• Boy cannot change into man without intervention of older men unlike girl who can change into woman just by bodily changes
  
• Because both initially raised by mother
  
• Clean break with mother required
  
• Convincing comfort loving young man inside to die
  
• Increases stomach for ashes, terrifying facts, grows ability to shudder
  

Ch 4: hunger for the king in the time of no father

• modern: "there is not enough father"
  
• Father hunger like lacking protein
  
• Women cannot replace it
  

Distrust of older men

• Poorer bonding between father and son with each generation
  
• Son couldn't see father working anymore
  
• Imagines his father as suspicious
  

Temperament without teaching

• Just see dad's temperament at end of workday but no teaching
  
• Touchy mood, shame, hate of job
  
• Before, could teach physical skills
  

Disappearance of positive kings

• Darkened father
  
• Father feebled
  
• Rejected
  

• How can son view future for self if father viewed negatively
  
• Some go to darkness of own
  
• Some compelled to be bright against darkness of father
  
• Redeeming darkened father by becoming enlightened
  
• Bird like modern men: charming, open to addiction
  

Story

• Descents like Joseph, Job
  
• Second king appears in picture
  
• Boy takes job as kitchen helper
  
• Cook gives him order to carry food to king
  
• Gold hair helps us to survive in adolescence but sore point later
  
• Why do we have so much hunger for the king? Celebrities, teachers, mentors, gurus
  
• Want praise and validation badly
  
• Small glimpse allowed of king but then ends quickly
  
• Flash of light then back to darkness
  
• Addiction is attempt to break limitations of reality
  
• Singles bars are visits to the king extended too long
  

• King and queen have long history in stories
  
• 3 kings: upper sacred, earthly middle political, inner king 
  

Sacred king

• Sacred king rearranges molecules of ppl like a magnet
  
• Sacred king blesses
  
• Encourages creativity as his realm
  

Earthly king

• Mesopotamian king
  
• Rejection of political kings
  
• Now live in national enquirer
  
• Fathers appear broken like fallen kings
  

Inner king

• Connected to our inner passion
  
• Knew what wanted inside
  
• Dies in young age
  
• Controls our moods
  
• When my king is weak, ask wife what to do
  
• Step 1: Finding Your king: Attention to tiny desires, hints of what one likes
  
• What were the delights we felt as kids before gave control to those we had to please?
  
• Step 2: Long grieving over dead inner king
  
• Step 3: Once resuscitated requires feeding king properly
  

Double stream inside sacred king

• Second darker side of king encouraging disorder
  
• Poison king
  
• Destructive trickster and playful trickster
  

Double stream inside father

• Have to deal with that part of the father who hit us with an axe (myth)
  
• Beatings
  
• Abandonment
  
• Some feel strong blood tie to fathers
  

Longing to live with the king

• Son must furnish house in mind to prepare for king to visit
  
• Add rooms for father's dark side and rooms for light side
  
• Talk to friends of father
  
• Make and furnish two rooms
  
• Invite mentor in with two rooms
  

The male as a set apart being

• Fetus begins female
  
• Father set apart from wife and kids
  

Ch 5: the meeting with the goblin in the garden

• Maternal feminine and private feminine
  
• Boy meets gold-loving feminine
  
• Spiritual, playful
  
• Moon energy
  
• Moon attracted to sun
  
• Meeting the king's daughter
  
• Fruitful meeting with woman only after both have done the work, ashes
  

Boy expelled from kitchen to garden work

• Took off head cover in heat and showed gold hair
  
• Princess makes him get flowers to trick him and take his hat off and does this a few times giving him gold coins but she doesnt win; he holds hat and refuses coins
  
• Acts of serendipity between man and woman make you think comes from other world
  
• Woman who starts things, asks for flowers
  
• King's daughter so from holy world
  
• Likes gold, gold hair
  
• She knows something
  
• Garden work for boy; natural plants developed by intent in walled garden
  
• Mercury's well/fountain
  
• Hermetically sealed
  
• Hermes guides cultivation, alchemy
  
• Walled garden (university)
  
• Hortis conclutis (walled garden), poem
  
• Garden is place to flee from world, distrust, haven to develop introversion
  
• Cultivation
  
• Initiation asks every young man to develop a lover inside him
  
• Learn poems, music, garden work
  
• Robert Moore: "appreciative consciousness"
  
• Lovers full of praise
  
• When man falls in love, he's in the garden
  
• Attention to boundaries to prevent care taking all the time
  
• Addiction to perfection means no garden
  
• Garden is personal space and time
  

The woman with golden hair

• Gold woman's beauty may just hide insecurity
  
• Marilyn Monroe
  
• But inside highly vulnerable girl
  
• Falling in love with beautiful woman across the room may mean he has soul work to do; go to river, write poetry
  
• Wild woman
  
• Divine feminine each woman partakes of
  
• Mans decisive move towards legends
  
• World of law vs world of legends
  
• Instigating woman who looks both ways
  
• Shakti
  
• Czarina
  

Saturn is g-d of ashes

• Condensed
  
• Driven
  
• Bitter
  
• Correct failure
  

Hermes allows quick messages between parts of body

• He is mercury
  
• Wednesday, mercredi
  
• Witty contributions
  
• Can't hold in fingers quicksilver
  
• Freudian slip is Hermes precision
  
• Choosing of wild flowers rather than tame
  
• Mercury is nearest plan to sun
  
• Mercury can liquefy gold and silver
  
• Flow between masculine and feminine
  
• Hermes and Aphrodite work well together
  
• Hermaphrodite
  
• Artist should be cautious to show gold quickly
  
• Hermes hermetically seals spaces
  

Ch 6: to bring the interior warriors out to dance

• Can't give sword to man who can't dance
  

The warriors inside

• Inner warrior stands up to defend own mood but if crushed too early by dominating dysfunctional family, can lose it
  
• When parents don't respect child's boundary and castle sovereignty by yelling and stuffing food in mouth, it makes child feel invaded and shamed
  
• Inner boy in messed up family gets killed, can't grow up
  

The outer or disciplined warrior

• 3 soil layers: king, warrior, farmer
  
• 3 ceremonies, 3 ways of living life
  
• Warrior in service to true king
  
• Role of strategy
  

Eternal or sacred warrior

• Divine battlefields
  
• Aries not present on modern battlefield
  
• Matter of aggression looks different when you've been invaded
  
• Warrior made irrelevant in mechanized war
  
• Man must be able to defend on own space
  
• Outer world connected to inner world
  

The story, the battle scene

• Kingdom invaded
  
• King in story goes to war
  
• Boy in garden given lame horse, wants to help in war
  
• Boy goes to forest and asks iron John for war horse
  
• He receives it and army of iron soldiers
  
• Triumphs
  
• returns horse and army to Iron John and comes back anonymously
  
• Made fun of in court because warrior identity was secret
  
• Kingdom invaded like boys psyche invaded
  
• When king losing battle, time for warrior to fight 
  
• Must kill all to the end, no halfway measures
  
• Need decisive move
  
• Right for boy to be in contact with enemy directly, not through someone
  

Gaining four-legged horse

• Instead of three-legged horse he got before
  
• Four is right number
  
• Horse is animal side of human
  
• Fourth leg is shamed leg
  
• When we were tiny, horse galloped happily with four legs
  
• Boy's horse needs to be brought to mentor Wild man
  
• Ask him for better horse, Even to ride temporarily
  
• Work to prevent further shaming
  
• Work to get in contact with four-legged original horse
  

Warriorhood in education

• Disappearance of fierce debates in teaching
  
• Warriorhood just left to sports now
  
• Warrior acts in business
  
• Japanese business culture
  
• Sense of duty
  

Creation myth

• Modern man needs sword to cut psychic umbilical chord with mother
  
• Cut us from self pity, victim hood, rage
  
• Divine cutter myth of creating world by separating opposites
  

Warriorhood in marriage and relationships

• Conscious fighting is productive
  
• Never seen parents fighting productively
  
• Husband fights in office
  
• Adult warrior can get hit and still maintain form and courage
  
• Knows rules of war
  
• Doesn't take cheap shots or use word "always"
  
• Fight clean
  
• Interior warrior can help fight on human plane instead of damaging battles on divine, poisonous plane
  

Iron vs copper

• When vutra sword does its proper cutting, man less needy and can face world of opposites
  
• Child in messed up family may feel intense tension between cold father and warm mother
  
• Child goes from iron work to copper work, becoming a bridge of that good conductor
  
• Boy conducts intense emotions from others through him to earth
  
• Can conduct intense ones without heating up because good conductor
  
• Son loses his distinctiveness as a man by becoming conductor
  
• Need to see father step up against mother's abuse
  
• Father must set limits to mother's raging or else children become copper wires to dissipate others emotions and ground them like electricity
  
• If not, will be conductor as adult and find more situations to be such bridge
  
• False androgyny
  
• Can have boundaries in marriage that allow different points of view
  

Living between the opposites

• Accepting both to survive
  
• Rejoicing in both
  

When Paris chooses

• Choosing the one precious thing requires our warrior
  
• As long as nothing is clear, the king sleeps on
  
• Choosing our one path in life wakes up our king
  
• Requires courage to say no to many paths available
  
• Break addiction to harmony
  

Moving from copper to iron

• Imagine bringing inner warriors back to life
  
• Find your boundaries
  
• Put the doorknob to ur room on the inside and in your control
  
• Don't let others shame you. Name the shame they're trying to put on you. 
  
• Talk about reality and do the hard work instead of talking about dreams
  
• Communicate about reality. Name the conduction. Say you won't be conductor for someone anymore. 
  

Ch 7: Riding the red, black, and white horses

• In other tribes, when adolescents begin acting out, the tribe starts terrifying initiations kept secret which produce real men
  
• Our society just backs away
  

Overview of classic initiation

• Linear process of five stages
  
• Overall initiation resembles a sphere
  

• Step 1. Bonding with mother and separation from mother. First part we do ok, second not. 
  
• 2. Bonding with father and separation from father. First part delayed, second maybe never. 
  
• 3. Arrival of male mother or mentor who helps man rebuild greatness. Haphazard if at all
  
• 4. Apprenticeship to hurricane energy like wild man culminating with a drink from divine water. Such a drink adolescents are yearning for. 
  
• 5. Marriage to holy woman or queen
  

• Conscious mother vs unconscious mother who doesn't want to release grasp
  
• Must steal key from possessive mother
  
• Psychic incest between mother and son
  
• Mom sharing too much info
  
• Mother looks to son for companionship
  
• Substitute husband
  
• Elders are those responsible to start initiation
  
• Men feel guilt when can't rescue mother and then punish themselves with career or wife or something bad for them
  
• Need male mother mentor
  

The story chest full of golden apples

• Men need to be able to be in warrior mode and dancing mode
  
• Daughter wants to know identity of secret knight
  
• Throws dinner and throws golden apple to see who catches
  
• Boy asks Iron John for horse and armor and help to catch ball
  
• He catches but gallops off after
  
• Repeats twice and king tells men to chase knight with sword
  
• Gets leg wound and loses helmet, all see he has golden hair
  

• Apples golden
  
• Old ritual
  

Threshold space

• Ritual space entered by threshold
  
• Change only in ritual space
  
• Ceremony before
  
• Heated space
  
• animal displays of beauty, dances
  
• Boy rides to display without shame
  

Red white and black horses on 3 days

• Strong associations of colors historically
  
• 3 phases of life all need to go through
  

Ch 8: the wound by the kings men

• Wound slows him down and deepens feeling
  
• Wounds as part of ritual initiation
  
• boar wound myths
  
• Wound as male womb
  
• Gives second heart
  

Story

• Boy gives apples to gardener's kids
  
• Called in by king and admits to being knight
  
• Directly asks to have daughter for wife
  
• Before refused public acknowledgment
  
• But can now acknowledge
  
• Can now join with feminine after doing full masculine walk
  
• Can now show golden hair
  

Wild man and his qualities

• Has been ignored by our society for a while and feared
  
• Love of ordinary things and animals
  
• Lame Deer, native American autobiography
  
• Positive side of male sexuality
  
• His wants are to be trusted
  
• Prepares emotional body that can take grief and intensity
  
• Prefer Intensity even with risk of fall
  
• Importance of kitchen ashes work
  

Community of beings in grown man

• King
  
• Lover (garden)
  
• Warrior
  
• Wild man
  
• Trickster
  
• Mythologist or cook/magician/shaman
  
• Grief man: man's grief is unique but less allowed in culture
  

Story: wedding feast

• Parents of boy attend
  
• Iron John arrives as knight says was enchanted before
  
• Gives all his gold to boy
  
• Wild man becomes king
  

Epilogue

• Men learn to worship animals and their sorrow
  
• Wild man through the ages
  
• The animal g-d
  
• Esau hairy man in old testament
  
• Christianity antisexuality killed wild man
  

I recently spent a week volunteering as a camp counselor. I've never done anything like that, and I was really nervous about the experience beforehand. This camp was for kids with chronic or severe illnesses. I had never really worked with kids outside of Reading to Kids, and in particular I had never done a lot hands-on in the medical world.

I ended up learning a ton -- about medicine, kids, philosophy, and myself. It was a lot of fun, and I'm sad it went by so quickly. Below are my top 10 lessons learned from the experience.

1. All kids share something unique and human in common.

I was initially afraid of the kids, worrying about what they'd be like and how I could possibly "lead" them. It turned out that all the kids were silly, playful, and interested in the same things: sports, art, creativity, imagination, cars, video games, and super heroes. We had a group of boys aged 7 to 11, and there was something core that they all shared as boys and connected through.

They bonded as boys and as friends, not as kids who were sick. They were happy, optimistic and interested in having fun. That was so awesome to see and facilitate.

2. Treat people as people, not as illnesses or ideas.

The entire experience was about having fun at camp, doing everything you've wanted to do, and having all your medical/physical needs met behind the scenes. While the medical stuff could've been front and center, it rarely emerged or was discussed. Everyone was having too much fun.

I recently saw the movie The Intouchables. Not only was this movie awesome because it was in French, but it was a deeply moving story (I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried at the end for a while and am still thinking about the movie). It was about an amazingly authentic and honest man who took care of a handicapped man and treated him like a person, not as a handicapped person.

It's so easy and natural for us to label and categorize and generalize. It's much harder but much more effective to deal with the facts of each person's situation and approach each individual as a human with desires and a separate experience, one that might be very similar to your own in many ways.

3. Spending time among men doing manly things is great.

I got to spend a week bonding with guys and spending time as men together. it's not something I'm lucky enough to do on a regular basis, and it's something that I've learned is important in a man's development and growth. It was fun to beat our chests, play competitive games, and jointly write our cabin's "Man Laws" which we enforced with vigor and pride.

Because the camp was pretty much technology-free for a week, I learned that I can survive perfectly well on 30 minutes of email once per day. That was pretty liberating.

4. Finding your inner kid isn't so hard; you just have to be open to it.

When the camp started, I realized how out of place and inside my head I felt. We were doing cheers and games, and I kept worrying about how silly I looked. I wondered how I could let myself be more free, how I could let myself yell and sing. I found that just by practicing some of the camp cheers and being around others who were already more "loose" and open, I could open up too. Doing art and sports helped as well.

I'm naturally so much in my head that I found I had trouble relaxing at times, and I kept thinking that my own personality wasn't as funny or silly as some of the other more funny counselors and guys in our group. It took practice and intention, but I found that I could accept myself and feel silly like a kid too if I let my guard and shell down for a bit. It was interesting going through the experience of being a kid while also being an adult.

5. Counselors at camps can have a lot of fun, for the kids and for themselves.

We played awesome games, did improv activities, sang lots of funny cheers that I still repeat to myself at home for fun, and ate lots of s'mores. It was awesome. Even during training, with no kids around, we were doing cheers and games. I learned a big lesson about camp culture: everyone at camp is positive, happy, open, and (literally) cheerful all the time, and that's a cool way to be.

Maybe this "fun" wears off after a while, but I hope not. I know this "fun" can also get tiring for the staff and takes a lot of work, so I feel very appreciative of and impressed by all the staff who works at camps all summer. I can see the dedication and endurance that requires, and I applaud it. I was so impressed by how down to earth, respectful, energetic, positive, and smart all my fellow counselors were.

6. Kids are great at taking care of themselves, and sickness can force them to grow up quickly.

I was really impressed how most of the kids knew about their conditions and knew how to deal with their own treatments very well (keeping the adult nurses on their toes). I can see how experiences cause them to think about "adult" topics like health and medications earlier than one would have to if one didn't have a condition, and I acknowledge what's in them that allows them to grow up quickly in this regard.

7. in dealing with kids, tone of voice and parenting tricks help a ton.

In dealing with the campers in my room, I quickly learned that adult tone of voice and reason/rationality don't work that well. I needed to learn a special tone of voice, and I found myself emulating some of the more experienced counselors' words and tone, and that worked much better. It felt to me like the tone sounded more female, higher pitched, which makes me wonder how a modern "man"/father can raise kids without mimicking a mother. I realized that camp is a good place to learn parenting.

8. Games and daily rituals help teach lessons.

There were lots of little games and rituals that occurred that gave kids a good structure for the day and also taught them valuable lessons. I thought it was cool how they were learning in such a casual way. For example, there was a song when a meal ended, and it meant everyone would dance and clean up their own dishes. There was a game to see who would get to wash their hands first (and a song for hand washing). There was a ritual of making a wish before a meal. There was a song for drinking water and hydrating. There was a Book of Firsts that announced the proud moments of "firsts" of the various campers' accomplishments for the day. There was also the concept of "warm fuzzies," which were written or oral acknowledgements of each other, good vibes people would send to each other with special hand gestures or little notes placed in individually-designed bags. That was such a cool ritual.

If people acknowledged each other in the real world and sent each other warm fuzzies like we did at camp, the world would be a better place.

9. Daily quiet rest hour in the afternoon and cabin chat at the end of day were a great way to collect one's thoughts and lessons learned from the day.

A time to rest in the middle of the day and a time to process the day's highs and lows provided some great opportunities for reflection, introspection, bonding, and learning about each other and ourselves. This ritual has direct applications for business and adult relationships.

10. Camp life -- 24/7/365.

The lessons and ideas from "camp" can be applied to real life, every day. Cheers can be great even (maybe especially) for adults to relax, cheer up, and drop our pretenses. Camp makes you ask yourself, "How can I practice giving love fully?" Camp is good practice for this, and so is real life. Can you keep an attitude of being in camp all the time in the real world, acknowledging others around you authentically and being positive? I think you can; it just takes some trying and being silly.

Some recent interactions with medical researchers and conferences I've attended have caused me to think about incentives in the field of research, and I'm quite worried.

First, I've realized how extremely finicky and sensitive the scientific process is. Final results can be significantly skewed in the "wrong" direction by variations in equipment, ingredient formulations, specific techniques, and parameters used. Many intermediate ingredients (cells, RNA, etc.) are available off the shelf, which seems convenient, but often has the risk of quite variable quality (I personally saw researchers re-ordering some RNA compound because twice they received something that failed to work as advertised).

The scientific process is complex, difficult, and still so labor-intensive. You would think that in the 21st century the "rote" work would all be outsourced to cheaper labor destinations and/or fully automated with machines, but that's still far from prevalent. Science is still being done in many of the most prominent research universities in a form that's closer to high school chemistry than to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Secondly, I've frequently heard about "publish or perish" and the extreme focus on publishing positive, statistically significant results. This makes people care more about quantity than quality and on "proving" hypotheses right rather than disproving them or trying new techniques, even if they don't work. There are no rewards for failure, and you can't get a patent for trying. In professional science, as opposed to school, there is unfortunately no "A for effort." And I think we lose a lot of valuable information and create a lot of wasted time by duplicating techniques instead of sharing with each other by publishing things like, "I tried these 5,000 combinations. They didn't work. So if you read this, you might want to try something else."

This results in several complications to the pure pursuit of knowledge and improvement of the human condition. The best publications are peer-reviewed, and the "peers" are the ones competing with the authors for the same publication slots. The one-way anonymity (not double blind) means that people scratch the backs of their friends and form "societies" (which like to meet at conferences) that are really like old boys' clubs for cheering each other on and publishing each other's work.

Also, the focus on publishing creates so much published research that no one can follow it and keep track of it. I'm always shocked when I see scientific citations listing that an article was on pages 1,056-1,064. Who out there is reading thousand-page long journals? I see the same problem with patents: sure, publishing research and filing a patent make the knowledge accessible (when searching for it) but they don't make it prevalent and don't cue anyone to read the findings by themselves.

In addition, because of the drive to publish quantity and show "results" even when they're suspect, it drives the quality of research down, yielding false results. John Ioannidis at Stanford wrote about how too much medicine relies on flawed assumptions, explaining how most published research findings are false. The WSJ wrote several articles explaining how pharmaceutical companies are unable to reproduce most research findings (see above about scientific complexity and sensitivity to specific conditions and compounds).

It's like we're giving people prizes for trying something a thousand times until finally they get lucky enough (or are careful enough) to produce something scientifically significant instead of rewarding them for working hard and producing truthful results (and sharing their experiences either way).

I'm not trying to diss researchers or publications or universities. I know almost all the individuals are honest and extremely hard-working and do believe in the deeper goals of science. I just think the current system is sub-optimal, and I don't know how to fix it. I'm curious to hear what others think.

From psychological, historical, and inspirational standpoints, I thoroughly enjoyed recently reading Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The book is divided into two parts: the author's story of surviving a concentration camp and the resulting foundation for the psychiatric therapy based on hope and meaning the author created (called logotherapy). I enjoyed all the details of the stories, even if much of it has already been displayed in numerous movies and museums (the lessons are still relevant and cannot be emphasized enough). I found that I truly identified with the author's enthusiasm, sense of purpose, and underlying optimism.

Below are my notes on the book, which was a fast, enjoyable, and powerful read. I recommend it for anyone interested in the history of the Holocaust and/or psychology.

Preface

• Psychology of concentration camp
  
• Logotherapy
  
• Written by psychiatrist who lost everything in the camps
• Comparison to Freud
• Search for purpose in life
  
• Why do you not commit suicide day to day?
  
• What human does when has nothing further to lose
  
• Make larger sense of life
  
• Existentialism
  
• To live is to suffer (zen
  
• To survive is to find meaning in suffering
  
• He who has "why" to live can deal with any "how"
  
• How to awaken in patient sense of purpose

Preface to 1984 edition

• Book is best seller means people are really suffering and searching for meaning
  
• Wrote book anonymously to start
  
• Unintentional best seller
  

Part 1; Experiences in a concentration camp

• Auschwitz
  
• 3 phases of prisoner: admission shock, adapting to daily routine, liberation
• Cigarettes as currency
• Illusion of reprieve: hang on to false hope until last minute
  

Phase 1:

• Possessions taken
  
• Wash and shave naked
  
• Nakedness is what you're left with
  
• All identity lost
  
• Nothing else to lose except lives leading to humor and curiosity
  
• Shave every day to look younger ad fit for work to avoid getting gassed
  

Phase 2:

• Next stage of apathy and emotional death and lack of response at horrors
  
• Most painful part of beating is insult it implies
  
• Frequent selections between workers and dead
  
• Apathy necessary self-defense
  
• Dreams of bread, cake, and baths
  
• 1 bread and 1 soup per day
  
• Walking through snow and ice with no socks
  
• Deep religious beliefs and small prayer gatherings in secret
  
• Love is the ultimate salvation man can aspire to
  
• In utter desolation, only through loving contemplation can he survive
  
• Find beauty in nature
  
• Ad hoc gatherings for art, skits, joking on life and horrors of camp
  
• Semblance of art and humor in a camp
  
• Humor as salvation
• Luck, joy relative
• Man became a number
  
• Everything can be taken from man except for his freedom to choose attitude and reaction to surroundings
  
• Emotion of suffering is no longer suffering when it becomes an idea you can analyze objectively
  
• Man's meaning and destiny and life all unique
  
• No one meaning of life
  
• Life is just concrete tasks
  
• Suffering is unique task
  
• Opportunity is way he bears his burden
  
• Kindness could be found among guards and SS
  
• Two races of men: decent or indecent
  
• Not split among racial lines
  

Phase 3:

• Could not accept that freedom theirs
  
• Lost the ability to feel pleased
  
• De-personalization, can't believe dream is true
  
• Sudden uplifting of pressure dangerous too, like the bends
  

Part 2: Logotherapy

• Focuses on future, not past
  
• Reoriented toward meaning of life
  
• Logos in Greek = meaning
  
• Striving to find meaning, will to meaning (not will to pleasure)
  
• Existential vacuum
  
• Neuroses from meaning search
  

3 Ways to find meaning:

• Work and duty
  
• Experiencing something or someone, Love
  
• Suffering and our attitude of it
  
• Suffering ceases to be suffering when it finds a meaning through change in attitude
  
• View life as if from deathbed
• Super meaning as viewed from higher plane we can't understand
• Paradoxical attention to what you're most afraid of to fix neuroses/phobias
  

Postscript

• Tragic optimism amidst triad of pain, guilt, death
  
• How to say yes to life despite that
  
• Force optimism