👋 Hey, Abhishek here! Welcome to the 112th edition of The Sunday Wisdom. Each week I share ideas on thinking clearly and making better decisions.
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On to this week’s essay!
Today, let’s talk about stability. We hear people yearning for a stable life all the time. A stable life is one where—in theory—nothing goes wrong. You have an okay job, a happy marriage, good kids, you live in a decent neighbourhood with helpful folks, etc. But soon we’ll learn that longterm stability is only a ticking time bomb and, if we know any better, we should avoid too much stability too much reliability too much comfort at all costs.
Imagine someone extremely punctual who comes home at exactly eight o’clock every evening. You can use their arrival to set your watch. This person, even though super reliable, runs with a hidden risk of causing their family extreme anxiety if they are a few minutes late someday. But someone with a (slightly) more volatile—hence less reliable—schedule (with say a half-hour variation) won’t cause any such problems.
A little randomness in a system prevents it from big catastrophes. For example, there’s a reason why small forest fires are beneficial. They periodically cleanse the system of the most flammable material, so that they don’t accumulate and cause a wildfire. If we clear them out, we only create an illusion of stability. Systematically preventing forest fires from taking place “to be safe” makes the big one much worse.
For similar reasons, too much stability is not good for businesses. Devoid of setbacks, companies become weak during periods of “steady” prosperity. Hidden vulnerabilities accumulate silently under the surface and the company is underprepared even for tiny shocks. This is true for governments as well.
Likewise, a bit of volatility is important in the market. A stable market that’s on a steady bull run for a long time would crash badly if it goes down even slightly. People aren’t used to seeing losses for a very long time, and even if the market dips a little, they’ll panic and exit in hoards thereby bringing the whole thing down. Remember the dotcom bubble? A market that everyone thinks cannot fail is just waiting to crash big and hard.
This is the very reason we vaccinate ourselves. We inject ourselves with a little bit of harm in the short term to prevent ourselves from becoming suckers in the long term. One of the reasons why small fights keep relationships alive for a long time.
The gift (and curse) of modern life is our focus on too much stability. Modernity treats hardship as a disease, something to be eradicated. But human beings don’t mind hardship, in fact we thrive on it. What we mind is not feeling necessary, not having thrill and pleasure. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes:
We are moving into a phase of modernity marked by the lobbyist, the very, very limited liability corporation, the MBA, sucker problems, secularisation (or rather reinvention of new sacred values like flags to replace altars), the tax man, fear of the boss, spending the weekend in interesting places and the workweek in a putatively less interesting one, the separation of “work” and “leisure” (though the two would look identical to someone from a wiser era), the retirement plan, argumentative intellectuals who would disagree with this definition of modernity, literal thinking, inductive inference, philosophy of science, the invention of social science, smooth surfaces, and egocentric architects. Violence is transferred from individuals to states. So is financial indiscipline. At the centre of all this is the denial of antifragility.
To prevent stagnation of the mind, we have to take few risks, get into some fights, add a bit of volatility in our lives. Do something a little crazy. Do something that feels slightly stupid. Set yourself up for failure. Visit a new place. Break some rules. Take up a new hobby. Ignore efficiency. Forget stability for a while. Focus on feeling alive, don’t just survive!
Interesting Finds
Most knowledge worth having comes from practice. It comes from doing. It comes from creating. Reading about the trade war with China doesn’t make you smarter—it gives you something to say at dinner parties. It gives you the illusion that you have the vaguest idea what is happening in our enormously complex world.
Meaningful work is something we all want. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl famously described how the innate human quest for meaning is so strong that, even in the direst circumstances, people seek out their purpose in life. New research offers insights into what gives work meaning—as well as into common management mistakes that can leave employees feeling that their work is meaningless. Shared by Rishita.
The many gifts of awkward Silence. You know the meme: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Shutting up helps you immensely when someone is fighting you. It makes the “then you win” part WAY more likely, too.
Timeless Insight
95% of us are imitators, only 5% are initiators. People are persuaded more by the actions of ‘others’ than by any proof you and I can offer—even if the actions are stupid. So next time somebody claims something is true because 1 Mn people have liked/upvoted/shared it, remember W. Somerset Maugham’s words, “If 50 Mn people say something foolish, it is still foolish.”
— No One Thinks Very Much When All Think Alike
What I’m Reading
In biology, nothing is clear, everything is too complicated, everything is a mess, and just when you think you understand something, you peel off a layer and find deeper complications beneath. Nature is anything but simple.
— Richard Preston, The Hot Zone
Tiny Thought
Beauty lies at the intersection of excellence and effortlessness.
Before You Go…
If you have some wisdom to share with other readers—links, books, original thoughts, social commentary, stuff you found interesting on the internet/IRL, jokes, or anything else—simply send them to me. I'll pick one, mention your name, and share it in an upcoming issue.
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Until next Sunday,
Abhishek 👋