Life Is Good

[Fe 26]

Ocd or some other disorder that drives them to try.

[Fe 26]

That's what my partner used to do with his three stores, pit them against each other.
Dumbest move ever. Why would you direct a customer to another store if you'll get shit on for that store having a better sales day? Why tell the customer the truth when they have you call another store to check inventory for the same reason? Some assholes would go so far as to shit on the other store's employees to discourage people from going to them.
Just one of the things he did that has me scratching my head all these years later as to how he managed to find so much financial success.

Also, he probably got that idea from some self help business book. I feel like a lot of people that had businesses in the late 80s and early 90s tried the whole inner hatred thing.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I’ll be honest, I don’t think he’s read a book in his life.

[Fe 26]

He probably got it second hand then. Moneyed people yapping.

Or basic sportsthink. "He he, I'll set them up as sports teams, and one will always be the winner, and secretly I'll always be the winner. Just as planned"

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Sounds about right. He runs his bar business based on that stupid bar show.

[Drewbacca]

All of that comes from a fundamental greed or insecurity about the nature of power and order. That's no easy thing to overcome, especially in sales-oriented positions like retail, inside sales, or HR recruiting. I'm lucky enough to work in a field where people generally try to be earnest and do a good job, even though it's not always clear how to do it.

When I worked in factory jobs it was a bit like that, with the foreman kind of owning his position and lording it above everyone else. He had generally achieved far more than his education afforded, knew it, and did what he could do horde it. That's terrible.

[Satsuki]

I've been upping my reading game lately. Two books I've read lately are bugging me, and two were great.

I finally got around to finishing 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson. The first half of the book was a chore to get through so I stopped reading it regularly. I found the themes unengaging and the constant references to God and Being and Him in uppercase distracting. I must not be the target audience, because I know several guys who swore this increased their self worth and I felt nothing for anything he stated in the first half. The latter rules (after 8?) started to become more nuanced and interesting, behaviourally-focused and measured. His takes on social progress are far more liberal than the "alt-right" sabre rattlers on the left would like to admit (he believes inequality is a very real and dangerous social issue, for example). The book's writing style remains poor, choppy and meandered throughout. Wouldn't recommend it (his youtube lectures on personality are great though—he's a voluble speaker and I think that's the medium he's best enjoyed in).

To offset Peterson I also read Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power by Noam Chomsky. An interesting take that didn't clarify fundamental issues I normally find confusing about socialism-centric ideas. In fact, Chomsky fails or refuses to outright set the parameters of his socialism in such a way that coming to any conclusions at all is very fuzzy. Money = greed = bad is largely the takeaway. He never explores the positives indicators of capitalism: income and money generation seems to be one of the quickest ways societies improve their citizens quality of life (in different flavours, US-style rich-tides-will-raise-us-all to more distribution-based Scandinavian models). His most interesting and useful ideas are about Media Control and propaganda. He has an entire book on that I'll read next, I think. His writing style is also very... meandering. These thinker-types always brag about over editing their shit. Maybe that's to blame?

To offset the negativity of these books I managed to read two books that were immensely enjoyable:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was a joy to read and an interesting and engaging book from beginning to end. Time and pages breezed on by while I read this. I highly recommend this book, especially if you're going on a flight or something like that where you need to speed up time. Its narrative about maintaining life, understanding, the pursuit of quiality are much better and more relevant than either of the two books above by the actual professional sociologists. I think it's because he simply explores the underlying metaphysics of Western culture honestly without caring much about where people end up or what they think. There's no real agenda. He has another book I intend to read about the development of values and morals.

The last book is Death by Meeting. It's short and about how to run effective meetings. If you hate meetings this is a good book to read. I've slowly been practicing the tactics presented in this book over the last 5 weeks at work and they are legitimately useful. It comes from the perspective that meetings should be valuable.

I d e s p i s e Chomsky. As much as Peterson annoys me, he wears his influence pretty openly and like, if you’re going to subscribe to his 12 step program than whatever, I’m gonna make fun - but you do you. But Chomsky is just intellectual noise gone awry. Not an economist, but talks like one!

I’ve recommended him a few times, but David Graeber is pretty decent. If leftist economics tickles your fancy and you want someone with actual policy experience, try Stiglitz.

[Fe 26]

I recommend committing actions that seem rational and not being an asshole.

And have a good candybar and some pizza sometime.

That will get you further than a lot of this shit.

[YellerDog]

I really enjoy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Bonus points for having a motorcycle at the time.

[EvilMog]

Just got back from a road trip from Wisconsin to Utah’s Mighty 5 and back. It was amazing there. I can’t recommend those National Parks enough. This was our second time checking out Zion so I decided to do The Angels Landing hike. Stunning. Pictures don’t do the area any justice.