The greatest advice I ever got

The last newsletter was titled “Anti-advice”. There I described my aversion towards receiving most advice.

Today’s title is “The greatest advice I ever got”. Strange… But not quite as you’ll soon figure out.

The greatest piece of advice I ever got was to question authority. I distinctly remember reading a quote by the great American polymath Benjamin Franklin,

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”

Later, Post-its of “Question Authority” would be found stuck on the walls in my room.

The whole idea was really profound to me. And although at first it was all in-principal only, soon I could see the effect of toying around with that little piece of “advice” in my everyday life.

I’d start questioning the standard things that I’d never questioned before but that now seemed frivolous. I realized norms could be questioned. They should be questioned.

That opened a whole new horizon of thought in my mind. A place I’d hardly have been able to go to before coming to this understanding.

Hence I write about this advice. As you’ll see, it aligns with my aversion towards conventional seeking and application of most advice.

Question everything.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

A short sci-fi story on hope:
“The Gentle Seduction” by Marc Stieglerz

This story explores the relationship between humankind and technology. It depicts a future where technological progress has completely transformed the experience of life as we feel it in the present.

It’s short and lovely. You can read it on the web here (for free).

We can deliberately choose to have no catastrophes at all:

“There are no catastrophes that loom before us which cannot be avoided; there is nothing that threatens us with imminent destruction in such a fashion that we are helpless to do something about it. If we behave rationally and humanely; if we concentrate coolly on the problems that face all of humanity, rather than emotionally on such nineteenth century matters as national security and local pride; if we recognize that it is not one’s neighbors who are the enemy, but misery, ignorance, and the cold indifference of natural law—then we can solve all the problems that face us. We can deliberately choose to have no catastrophes at all.”
— Isaac Asimov

Seneca on the “change of place for the change of state”:

“… the mere place avails little for this purpose, unless the mind is fully master of itself, and can, at its pleasure, find seclusion even in the midst of business; the man, however, who is always selecting resorts and hunting for leisure, will find something to distract his mind in every place. Socrates is reported to have replied, when a certain person complained of having received no benefit from his travels: “It serves you right! You travelled in your own company!”

“Suppose that someone has broken a leg or dislocated a joint: he does not take carriage or ship for other regions, but he calls in the physician to set the fractured limb, or to move it back to its proper place in the socket. What then? When the spirit is broken or wrenched in so many places, do you think that change of place can heal it? The complaint is too deep-seated to be cured by a journey.”

Posts from my blog this week:

On the problem with keeping false beliefs for psychological comfort (#164):

There’s a whole side of argument that supports the idea of keeping false beliefs for psychological consolation—beliefs that act as some sort of a placebo. There are a couple of holes in this argument that make it a bad explanation which I wish to point out in this blog post.

Some thoughts on death (#163):

“If I were to die today,
will have I lived?”

Thank you for reading.

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Onward,
Arjun