#261 Dee Hock's Autobiography of a Restless Mind Volume One and Two

What I learned from rereading Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1 and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [4:39] Quotes: Abraham Lincoln | Pythagoras | Mark Twain | Socrates | Napoleon | Leonardo da Vinci [6:15] One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey. [6:48] Humility and generosity have no enemies. [7:12] Powerful writing should take one side and stick to it tenaciously, ignoring the other even though it may have merit. Objective writing is impotent. [8:02] The essential reward of anything well done is to have done it. [8:07] What becomes known is worthless until it is shared. [9:25] No dream is so great as the person you might become by remaining true to it. [11:04] The wise make great use of adversity. The foolish whine about it. [12:02] Impatience is a perpetual barrier between desire and realization. [12:46] There are two ways to look at opposition: I want to do it and they will not let me or they want to prevent me and I won’t let them. [13:54] When we fully attend to management of self, excellent management of all else is unavoidable. [14:43] A meaningful life cannot be made from denial. It must be made from affirmation. [15:16] We are each the author of our own life. Whatever we write, masterpiece or trash, it will be published and widely read throughout our life and for decades thereafter. [16:21] The wise do not feel demeaned by asking for advice or diminished by following it. [16:37] A wise man goes forth to meet difficulty on rather than agonizing at its approach. [21:27] Superb design and sluggish effort can never compete with modest design and diligent effort. [21:45] It is both foolish and weak to defer confronting what cannot be avoided. [22:04] I have done many great things perfectly—the ones I imagined but never attempted. [22:09] Delaying what we must do eventually does nothing but lengthen the time and distance we must carry the burden. [22:30] The most interesting people are always the most interested people. [22:54] Complaining about life is like hurling sand against the wind. [23:31] Beginning of Volume 2 [27:29] Certainty is not a property of the universe. It is a construct of the mind. [28:09] Any idiot can impose and exercise control. It takes genius to ensure freedom and release creativity. [29:18] Two centuries ago it took a year to send a message around the globe. Now it takes a fraction of a second. We have no idea what this means or what the consequences may be. [30:04] “Use your head, but follow your heart.” is my advice to all my grandchildren. Come to think of it. It's not bad advice for adults as well. [30:54] Man is at war with his own nature. [31:12] There is nothing at all wrong with discipline providing it is self-induced rather than imposed. [31:26] Books are seductive things. All are worth a look and a touch, some a kiss, others an affair, the best marriage and lifelong devotion. [32:41] Genius merely articulates what your heart already knows. [32:45] The young hurl themselves into vast problems that have troubled the world's best thinkers, believing that they can find a solution. It is well that they should for, from time to time, one of them does. [33:20] Great accomplishment often consists of doing little things well. [33:35] The superior man is concerned when his deeds are not better than his words. [34:16] Books are not dead things. They preserve some thing of the intellect and spirit that writes, and are instrumental in forming the intellect and spirit that reads. [34:42] Ignorant commentaries corrupt brilliant thoughts. That may well prove to be the curse of the internet. [35:44] Conduct is a silent sermon powerfully preached without cessation. [36:02] Every organization has one or two heroes who gives it birth, direction, and purpose. [36:20] Minnows of thought dart about in shallow minds with great agitation. Great whales of thought majestically move through oceanic minds without commotion. [38:00] The new and novel should be viewed with suspicion. For it is improbable that one generation can be wiser than all ancestors combined. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  As a young child born in a tiny cottage in a small farming village in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, I discovered three principal loves of my life: nature, reading, and unstructured learning. With school and church came increasing confinement, demands for conformity, and crushing boredom, along with sharp, rising awareness of the chasm between how organizations profess to function and how they actually did. When I was 14, the fourth love of my life appeared: a beautiful, brown-eyed girl. We married at 20. Sidetracked into business to support a growing family, I vowed to escape as soon as possible. It took 35 years.

• 0:44David Senra?

  As partial recompense for a dislike of business, I continued to read and study voraciously. During my business years, I developed the habit of formulating short, graphic assertions, often in the form of aphorisms, maxims, and metaphors, to test and clarify my thinking. In 1980, I took the first steps to keep my vow to escape from business by purchasing 200 acres of ravaged land in coastal hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean with the intent to restore it to health and beauty through personal labor. Four years later, in 1984, I resigned as CEO of Visa, turned my back on the business

• 1:23David Senra?

  world, and turned to my first loves: family, nature, books, contemplation, and the isolation of manual labor on the land. A house was eventually built there, containing a poor boy's dream realized: a library containing 5,000 books accumulated over the years. Rising at 5:30 in the morning to write a thousand words or more before beginning the day's labor became an entrenched habit, unbroken to this day. Each day's writing ended with four or five short reflections on subjects, then occupying my mind. By the late 1990s, my writing had grown to 5,000 pages, containing several thousands of the short reflections.

• 2:08David Senra?

  It occurred to me that a selection of them in the order written would constitute a history of sorts: an autobiography of a mind at work. Since the mind never works linearly by subject matter, but flutters from thought to thought and idea to idea with the agility of a butterfly, I selected one and five in the order written, then indexed them by subject matter for the convenience of readers with specialized interests. The contents of these two volumes of The Autobiography of a Restless Mind were written in the decades spanning the turn of the millennium. Volume one contained selections from those written when I was in my 60s. Volume two contained selections from when I was in my 70s. I make no claim to have fully believed them when written, to believe them today,

• 2:53David Senra?

  or to have fully lived those I do believe. Neither do I pretend that others have not thought or written about many of the same subjects over the centuries, for most reflect common concerns of mankind. The only claims asserted are that they then occupied my mind, seemed worth serious thought, contained some truth, or indulged my lifelong love affair with the music of words. So here is The Autobiography of a Restless Mind. That is from the preface of the first of two books that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition, Volume One, and it was written by D. Hock. So this is part two of a two-part series I'm doing on D. Hock. D. Hock was the founder and CEO of Visa.

• 3:37David Senra?

  He just passed away recently at the age of 93, and I thought a way to honor him, and my own little small way, is to reread three books of his that I've read before and make podcasts on them. And the primary reason I felt compelled to do that is because of the book that I'm holding in my hand. After I read, the first time I read one from many, it was probably like four years ago, I picked up, I went looking for other books that he wrote, and I found this one. It is a book of aphorisms and maxims, just like he said. It's about 200 pages long, and it has almost 1,200 little short reflections. This book has been on my nightstand for years. And so I would say every week or so,

• 4:12David Senra?

  and sometimes a few times a week, I would just pick it up. Turn to a random page, read a few. You know, these are, most of them are a sentence or two, just as a way to prompt my own thinking or learn something really rapidly. And the way I thought about it is like, hey, what if you had like this wise grandfather figure that could pull you aside for a minute or two and just drop some knowledge in your ear? And so the format of this episode is going to be different than any other episode that I've ever done. There's a great YouTube channel that I really like. It's just called Quotes. And I'll leave a few links of some of the videos. I probably listened to, I don't know, maybe like 20 or 25 of their videos. But what they do is they hire voice actors and they make usually short videos, usually like, you know, five, maybe 10 minutes long. And the voice actors just have fantastic, they sound fantastic. But what they do is they read quotes from historical figures.

• 4:57David Senra?

  And in between each quote, they give you, they pause for maybe like five seconds or so, just to give you time to think about that sentence or the two sentences that they had just read you. And I find myself just re-listening to a bunch of these, of their episodes on people like Mark Twain, or Pythagoras, or Socrates, Einstein, Churchill's in there, Voltaire, Da Vinci, Hemingway, Machiavelli, Cicero, people that you and I have covered in the past, like Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt. And so I liked that format so much, I decided that's the format I'm going to use for this episode. Most of these, I don't think I'll have anything to add. If I do, obviously, if anything pops to mind, I'll let you know and I'll just jump right into it now. Happiness may be difficult, but it's not complicated.

• 5:38David Senra?

  Dismiss desire, discard opinion, honor the past, trust the future, and treasure the moment. You can give no greater gift than to speak and write that which is useful to your own heart. Reading academic prose is like trying to slake your thirst in a mud flow. There's moisture there, somewhere, but getting to it is the rub. Expecting to achieve all that we demand of ourselves is a love affair with disappointment. This next one is one of my favorite ones ever.

• 6:16David Senra?

  One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey. Academia has an incurable compulsion to explain that which is simple with something complex, that which is direct with something labyrinth, that which is intuitive with something verbose, and that which is obvious with something obtuse.

• 6:42David Senra?

  In the soil of every satisfaction sprout the seeds of discontent.

• 6:49David Senra?

  Humility and generosity have no enemies. A fool is no less a fool when a wise man errs.

• 7:00David Senra?

  Society will not progress until we cease endless discourse about right ideas and consider right values. It is not the mind of society that is sick, it is the soul.

• 7:12David Senra?

  Powerful writings should take one side and stick to it tenaciously, ignoring the other even though it may have merit. Objective writing is impotent.

• 7:24David Senra?

  As my grandfather used to say, "There's them that talks and them that does, and them that does gives them that talks something to talk about."

• 7:33David Senra?

  If you never test your courage and strength, how can you measure the validity of your fears?

• 7:39David Senra?

  Do not get angry, stubborn, and imperious. Get curious.

• 7:45David Senra?

  Books like nature never praise, never condemn, and never ignore me. I love them as much for that as for the edification and pleasure that they bring.

• 7:55David Senra?

  That which is growing looks only ahead. That which is declining looks only behind.

• 8:02David Senra?

  The essential reward of anything well done is to have done it. What becomes known is worthless until it is shared. When one has fallen among wild beasts and serpents, it is best to be alert, cautious, and quiet. This is particularly true in business.

• 8:24David Senra?

  To speak is craft. To listen is art.

• 8:29David Senra?

  Everything we say, do, or write belongs to the world. Others will take meaning from us that we never imagined or intended. We can do no more than choose our words and act with all the integrity, wisdom, and beauty that we have at hand. Ethics pale when money growls. Constructive humane behavior cannot be achieved by external force. It arises from within. It can be adduced but cannot be compelled. It is a rare leader who understands this simple fact, let alone puts it into practice. When life is frightening or distasteful, scholarship is always a suitable sanctuary.

• 9:09David Senra?

  We judge others harshly by the standards we profess, rather than those we practice. Yet we resent it bitterly when they return the favor. Language, no matter how carefully crafted, is inadequate to fully convey what is in one's mind. No dream is so great as the person you might become by remaining true to it.

• 9:32David Senra?

  There is so much to learn, do, and become in this mysterious, magnificent life, that it seems foolish to waste the least bit of it.

• 9:41David Senra?

  Strange semantics indeed, to speak of free schooling, when young people are compelled to attend and have nothing to say about their indoctrination while incarcerated. I really like this one. "We need not be limited to small dreams or accept the notion that large dreams cannot be realized, providing we are willing to pay the price required for their realization." What is my life made of? Love of nature? Love of literature? Love of solitude? Love of thought? And love of another? One could do much worse. Educational systems are giant abstractions in which people forego experience, humanity, and wisdom in favor of symbolism, rationalization, and indoctrination.

• 10:24David Senra?

  This one is a great description of how D would want institutions to act or to be. "The universe does not exert force in any meaningful sense. The sun does not force the planets into orbit or command them to do anything. It merely places an attraction in their path to which they respond in accordance with their nature. It would be a blessing if people who aspire to be great could understand this principle and behave in accordance with it." Every word sent forth ricochets in a different direction when it strikes another mind. "The universe seeks perfection by patient attention to small things. A marvelous life is no different."

• 11:05David Senra?

  The wise make great use of adversity; the foolish whine about it. "Each new thing must make its way against opposition from all that came before."

• 11:16David Senra?

  Solitude has its merits, but who has ever seen a wave traveling alone or a single flake of falling snow? Ideas arise from analysis; concepts arise from synthesis. One who cannot act effectively has no practical use for new ideas.

• 11:35David Senra?

  If you listen to a bunch of the early episodes of Founders, this reminds me of, this is Dee's way of saying something I used to repeat over and over again that critics don't know shit. "There are hundreds eager to criticize and admonish for each one willing to constructively assist."

• 11:51David Senra?

  "If you can't be precise, be concise. If you can't be concise, be silent." "If learning is so exciting, why are textbooks so pompous and dull?" "Impatience is a perpetual barrier between desire and realization."

• 12:10David Senra?

  "Nothing satisfies weak, dull people more than publicly confronting strong, creative people with a list of their sins." "The worst books benefit from the genius of the best readers, but the worst readers do not benefit from the genius of the best books." "A magnificent mind has no defense against a hard heart, especially when they occupy the same body." "Transcending disagreement and confrontation through reconciliation is the test of an enduring marriage. Opportunity to love is the reward."

• 12:46David Senra?

  "There are two ways to look at opposition: I want to do it and they will not let me, or they want to prevent me and I won't let them."

• 12:55David Senra?

  "Life is never indifferent and never in balance. We are steadily overcoming our problems, or they are steadily overcoming us."

• 13:05David Senra?

  "Wait patiently and listen carefully until something whispers to your soul, then quietly follow the sound."

• 13:14David Senra?

  "When we believe we are everything, we are on our way to nothing. When we believe we are nothing, we are on the way to everything."

• 13:23David Senra?

  "A dog chasing its tail never catches more than part of the dog. A man chasing his thoughts never catches more than part of the man."

• 13:34David Senra?

  There is no shortage of men who would set civilization on fire to warm their fingers. An academic education too easily prepares one to make a living at the expense of life, to be narrowly expert while broadly ignorant, to know much and understand little.

• 13:55David Senra?

  When we fully attend to management of self, excellent management of all else is unavoidable. It is not the poor and humble who are desecrating the earth, waging wars and demeaning people. It is the rich, the educated, the honored, and acclaimed. Men of seventy may make a lot of fuss, but they rarely make revolutions. This one reminded me of Henry Ford. "Why supposed experts are so often employed to point out that which is obvious to anyone with common sense is a mystery never to be solved.

• 14:30David Senra?

  Old people have so little left of life, they should cease trying to make it bring what they desire and make the most of what it offers. Come to think of it, that's not a bad policy for young people as well." I've probably read the next one 100 times. "A meaningful life cannot be made from denial, it must be made from affirmation.

• 14:51David Senra?

  To discover new lands, we must lose sight of the shore for a very long time, and one must carry a large cargo of courage, confidence, and faith as well."

• 15:03David Senra?

  An old country saying, useful is either compliment or chastisement. Youngin', you keep on movin' where you're headin', you're gonna get where you're goin'.

• 15:13David Senra?

  I think the next one is gonna resonate with anybody that reads a lot of biographies. "We are each the author of our own life. Whatever we write, masterpiece or trash, it will be published and widely read throughout our life and for decades thereafter."

• 15:28David Senra?

  Our words conceal more than they reveal, contain more than they convey, achieve less than we desire, and offend more than we intend. Should have cannot create a better life. It can only make miserable the one we have. Ought to, with commitment, has a chance. We push our children out the door with one hand, urging them to conquer the world, and cling to them tenaciously with the other, wishing they would remain with us forever. Fortunately, neither is our choice to make. Tyranny shouts, "You must." Leadership whispers, "Perhaps we should." It is a prudent man who never reveals how little he thinks of others or how much he thinks of himself.

• 16:12David Senra?

  Vision without effort is impotent. Enjoy the convenience of prosperity, but treasure the benefit of adversity.

• 16:22David Senra?

  The wise do not feel demeaned by asking for advice or diminished by following it. Carnal love can create people, but it takes selfless love to perfect them. This might be, might be my favorite one. A wise man goes forth to meet difficulty rather than agonizing at its approach. When speaking of oneself, seldom and modest should be the rule.

• 16:49David Senra?

  What I have been is immortal. It cannot be changed. What I have yet to be is filled with possibilities from which I must choose my becoming. Fear, when it adds nothing to safety, is pain without utility. Retirement is confrontation between what we wish we were and what we have actually become. When someone says, "Let's be completely objective about this," you may be confident that they will not. Envy is admission of inferiority. Common sense is wisdom in working clothes.

• 17:25David Senra?

  Never go to a wise man for an elegant answer. Go for a beautiful question. The greatest achievement in life is to become your own best self. Nothing external can help with that.

• 17:38David Senra?

  Purpose is not a possession. It's a direction. We should always keep in mind that the world is replete with those who preach like angels and behave like beasts. Old minds should be like ripe, falling fruit, rich with seeds of wisdom for the evolution of the species. All things that have capacity for self-organization and self-governance should be revered, respected, and left free from interference. If we trash the past rather than build on it, the future will be filled with garbage. Few adults of great achievement were cooperative, conformist children. More often, they were shunned, iconoclast, protecting themselves as best they could from the contempt and persecution of conformists.

• 18:24David Senra?

  Social conformity is not virtue.

• 18:28David Senra?

  Young students who are not naturally docile are often labeled as having a disorder and drugged into submission. Conformity and docility are poor qualities for anyone who would be curious, creative, and free. That students should be drugged into tolerance of banal, boring curriculum and shoddy teaching is tragic. Patience married to will gives birth to persistence. The greatest writers have no purpose but to incite the minds of each reader with the highest and best thought of which they are capable. What we think of as an original idea is merely one that never knew its parents.

• 19:07David Senra?

  Those you would destroy, you'd best destroy utterly, else they will linger on to quietly plot your destruction. Wisely waiting is one of the most productive acts of man. Foolishly waiting is one of the least.

• 19:22David Senra?

  Don't preach, don't teach, don't judge. Take a loved child by the hand and explore something fascinating together. Each morning, I rise determined to change the world, to make a lot of money, to meditate, to exercise, to write something original, to paint a grand picture, to plant some trees, to read a good book, and to spend more time with family. It does make some days a bit difficult. In the beginning, few things are as delicate as a new idea. But once deeply rooted in a determined mind, its tenacity is astonishing. Originality and creativity do not result from calculated effort, but from the natural state of consciousness, an open mind at play.

• 20:07David Senra?

  No one can ever fully know the wealth of creativity, curiosity, and love of learning in all children. What a pity we send them to school to have it crushed. Every mistake is a bargain if you learn the lesson it contains and remember it well.

• 20:23David Senra?

  Approach great enterprises with audacious abandon and small enterprises with meticulous care. When disagreeing with those you love, deal only with the moment, neither resurrecting the past nor anticipating the future. Great thought, great achievement, and great love have this in common: all involve great risk. You can't make a good child by abusing a bad one, but you can easily make a bad child by abusing a good one. Every life is a subjective epic. Knowledge is never in doubt; wisdom is never certain.

• 21:01David Senra?

  The swiftest means to an end is rarely the best. If we could see ourselves as others see us, improvement would be instantaneous, for few of us could tolerate the sight. Nature and evolution don't whine. Why should we? You can't reason your way to hope. You can't logically arrive at hope. You can't beg, borrow, buy, or steal hope. You either hope, or you do not.

• 21:28David Senra?

  Superb design and sluggish effort can never compete with modest design and diligent effort. We never know our power until great difficulties or great opportunities have need of it. Scorn and ridicule slip effortlessly from a furious mind. The troubles of life are rarely as terrible in reality as they are in imagination. Is there anything more barren and futile than arguing with a critic? It is both foolish and weak to defer confronting what cannot be avoided. I have done many great things perfectly, the ones I imagined but never attempted.

• 22:09David Senra?

  Delaying what we must do eventually does nothing but lengthen the time and distance we must carry the burden. The experience, meaning, and destiny of each life are unique and cannot be compared to those of any other. Nothing is more conducive to silent communication or solitary communion than reading a book. The most interesting people are always the most interested people. It is wise to avoid or eliminate problems in the beginning, for that is when they are least powerful and least pervasive. There is nothing so pleasant, cheap, ubiquitous, and independent of circumstance, time, and place, as reading.

• 22:51David Senra?

  The true value of anything is best discovered in the loss of it. Complaining about life is like hurling sand against the wind. Fear is the father of most misfortune. And then the last one before he gives us some parting advice. Ignore logic and reality. Live entirely in the strength of your imagination, passion, and commitment, and you may become one of the prophets of your error. And then he closes Volume One with this. "After more than three-quarters of a century on this planet, it is apparent to me that I know nothing about truth, and neither does anyone else. Here is one way to think about it, is as definitive as one can get."

• 23:31David Senra?

  So now I'm going to jump to volume two. I'm going to pull out a few things from the introduction before I go to the maxims. He's just updating us on what occurred in the last 10 years of his life. "After selling our rural paradise in 1999, we moved to the state of Washington where we bought a derelict house on two acres of land. Sales for my recently published book, One From Many, were brisk and brought even more invitations to speak and consult, which I had little desire to pursue. After 10 years of intense effort to catalyze institutional change without notable success, I had become disillusioned." And I would say, if you pick up both of the books, this one is, to me, I like volume one better. Volume two is a little more cynical, or disillusion, I guess, is a good way. You could see his disillusion in his writings, basically what I'm trying to tell you.

• 24:15David Senra?

  And so to express his disillusionment, he quotes Voltaire here. He says, "Perhaps it is just as well to stay home and tend one's garden. I wanted no more of travel, notoriety, and fruitless effort. I methodically put aside activities of the past as I turned my attention to rebuilding the derelict house, creating two acres of gardens, oil painting, hand lettering in stone, and as ever continuing my incessant reading, writing, and studying, including another 2,200 reflections on life and living. I continued to make an occasional speech and work with the Patient Safety Institute, which is a non-for-profit effort by leading people in the medical field who were attempting to create an electronic medical information system to reduce a rising tide of medical

• 25:00David Senra?

  errors resulting in death or serious injury. Ironically, the cartilage in both my knees gave out and double knee replacement became necessary. The surgery was successful, however, when I regained consciousness, both my arms were extremely painful, and the side of both hands and two fingers of each were paralyzed. Neurological testing revealed major damage to the ulnar nerve in each arm. The surgeons, nurses, and hospital administrators denied any knowledge of possible cause, yet the fact remained that both arms and hands had been in perfect shape when anesthesia was administered and were severely damaged when I awoke."

• 25:43David Senra?

  Six months later came news of colon cancer. With great trepidation, I returned to the hospital for more surgery to have a third of my colon removed, this without apparent medical error. Within months of the cancer surgery came diagnosis of sleep apnea, requiring use of a machine that delivers constant air pressure through the night via a face mask. Then chest pains due to a blocked heart artery that put me back in the hospital to have the artery probed, open, and a stent inserted. In spite of five major medical problems in less than two years, my treasured routine of rising each morning at 5:30 for a half hour of meditation and two hours of writing, followed by six to eight hours of work in gardens, painting studio, and wood and stone

• 26:27David Senra?

  shop, then four hours of evening reading and study, became even more entrenched. Towards the end of the decade, the habit of ending the morning's writing with four or five short observations came to a close, and selecting and arranging them for publication took its place. And so here is the second volume of The Autobiography of a Restless Mind. Life is messy, only death is neat. Trusting a politician to put the public interest before his own is like trusting a dog to deliver a pound of hamburger to your neighbor. Under precise, scientifically-controlled condition, life does as it damn well pleases.

• 27:09David Senra?

  Every man, no matter how intelligent and learned, conceals within a dunce in a dungeon and a madman on a chain. Life offers everyone truth and comfort. Choose carefully. You rarely can have both. In the gratification of every desire lies the creation of more demanding ones. Certainty is not a property of the universe. It is a construct of the mind. Power demands, wisdom requests.

• 27:39David Senra?

  Every decision, other than those essential to secure food, shelter, and clothing, should be made based upon its effect a hundred years hence. The great ideas of the past centuries continue to titillate our minds, but they no longer touch our hearts. They have become intellectual toys rather than fundamental beliefs. We reason about them, but do not live them. They are in the brain and not the bone. You can't reason with ideology any more than you can with deceit. Any idiot can impose and exercise control. It takes genius to ensure freedom and release creativity. Any third-rate person can make things more complex and complicated.

• 28:21David Senra?

  It takes a first-rate, wise person to make them simple again. Everything we think, experience, or feel is infinitely richer and more complex than the language we have to explain it. Love, wisdom, and beauty may not be the same thing, but they are as near to identical triplets as any three things are likely to get. The functioning of the finest mind, no matter how advanced, is forever beyond comprehension by itself or by any other. An impossible dream realized becomes ordinary when repeated. Unrecorded thoughts are elusive and effervescent. When they are recorded, they take on permanency,

• 29:02David Senra?

  enabling us to discover error, improve content, and refine expression. The essential nature of control is tyranny. The essential nature of order is liberty. The only thing a wise man is certain of is his ignorance. Two centuries ago, it took a year to send a message around the globe. Now it takes a fraction of a second. We have no idea what this means or what the consequences may be. Man's knowledge and ability have dangerously exceeded his capacity to understand either. To the majority of people, truth is as welcome as a broken nose. We always pretend to know what will result from our actions, yet they always have unintended consequences.

• 29:44David Senra?

  From this, we have learned neither humility nor caution. There is always some fool or charlatan to articulate an immediate, simple, wrong solution to every problem, and a great many more to believe and implement it. When this is professionalized, this becomes politics and economics.

• 30:02David Senra?

  This next one might be my favorite one from this book. "Use your head, but follow your heart," is my advice to all my grandchildren. Come to think of it, it's not bad advice for adults as well.

• 30:14David Senra?

  A book is far more than what the author wrote. It is everything you can imagine and read into it as well. Nature offers nothing simple. Man detests anything complex.

• 30:27David Senra?

  Inducing acceptance of prior conclusions and beliefs is indoctrination, not education. No matter how adept the author, writing can evoke no more than what is already within the reader.

• 30:41David Senra?

  Welcome experience and be wary of hearsay. A secondhand life is not worth living. It is foolish to accomplish with more what can be accomplished with less, but that is the heart and soul of government. Man is at war with his own nature.

• 30:58David Senra?

  That which fails to fiercely protect and enhance the spontaneous lust to learn, inherent in all children, cannot be education. If the good life isn't composed of health, liberty, love, and wisdom, I don't know what is.

• 31:13David Senra?

  There is nothing at all wrong with discipline, providing it is self-induced rather than imposed. A poorly-lived life fears death. To a richly-lived life, death is just another part of the adventure. Books are seductive things. All are worth a look and a touch. Some a kiss, others an affair. The best, marriage and lifelong devotion.

• 31:37David Senra?

  Human compulsion to mess about in things it does not understand is infinite. The capacity to move in a new direction is immensely more valuable than either submission or rebellion. There are few things more expensive and dangerous than a large, well-developed, vigorous assumption. We spend the first 30 years wanting to be older, the next 30 years wanting to be younger, and the remainder just wanting to be. If one knows how to formulate penetrating questions and assiduously seeks answers, education with or without schools is inevitable. The happiest and best parts of formal education are haphazard experiences with others and the eclectic reading of excellent books.

• 32:21David Senra?

  Life is one grand tumble into chasms of uncertainty. Good writing consists of the simplest, clearest, fewest words that make the point. Effectiveness knows what efficiency will never learn. The superior mind distinguishes clearly between its knowledge and its ignorance; the inferior mind cannot. Genius merely articulates what your heart already knows. The young hurl themselves into vast problems that have troubled the world's best thinkers, believing that they can find a solution. It is well that they should, for from time to time, one of them does. We are all in the same raft adrift on cosmic seas of uncertainty.

• 33:05David Senra?

  The question for everyone is, "What sort of shipmate will I be?" Language is man's most useful tool. Endless wrangling over minor details accompanies the death of every great idea. Great accomplishment often consists of doing little things well. It matters little how we come to wisdom, compassion, and courage, but it matters a great deal if we do not. A good part of leadership is knowing what not to do. The superior man is concerned when his deeds are not better than his words. The more egregiously flawed people's judgment and beliefs, the less doubt they have about them.

• 33:47David Senra?

  Do what you can, suffer what you must, and leave the rest to providence; it all comes down to that. Loneliness is a much better companion than an evil person. Life has limited meaning until it finds someone or something worth dying for. Freedom from worry, confusion, and fear may not be the good life, but it will do. That which we have taken from others may be taken from us, but that which we give to others cannot. Books are not dead things; they preserve something of the intellect and spirit that writes, and are instrumental in forming the intellect and spirit that reads. A reward to ignorance is an insult to genius.

• 34:32David Senra?

  It is strange that human nature has much greater capacity for the ordinary than the exceptional, and at the same time, much greater propensity for arrogance than humility. Ignorant commentaries corrupt brilliant thoughts. That may well prove to be the curse of the internet. Many are the books written to tediously expound what is clearly stated in simple proverbs. Those who will not venture before taking everything into account, never venture at all. When we impose rigid rules and regulations, the best we can hope for is mindless conformity. To dominate others and enrich self have been the two most common compelling impulses of man throughout the ages.

• 35:15David Senra?

  Controlling others is force. Controlling self is power. If you attempt something new and innovative, do not think people will remove obstacles from your path. Expect them to add a great many more. Stupidity is much more predictable than intelligence. The boundless anxieties and uncertainties of freedom are not easily tolerated. One who departs from custom and innovates is as likely to be destroyed by friends as by enemies. Conduct is a silent sermon powerfully preached without cessation. Every child endowed at birth with biological capacity for 10,000 different lives is destined

• 35:56David Senra?

  to live but one. Choice makes all the difference. This is a great way to think about a founder. Every organization has one or two heroes who gives it birth, direction, and purpose. It is an exceptional person who transcends the conditioning of formal education. In a very real sense, we imagine the universe into being. I had to read this one twice. Minnows of thought dart about in shallow minds with great agitation. Great whales of thought majestically move through oceanic minds without commotion. Fury, frenzy, and fanaticism can destroy in a day what it took wisdom, foresight, and

• 36:40David Senra?

  prudence centuries to construct.

• 36:45David Senra?

  What one says and another hears may be as different from one another as a tropical jungle and the North Pole. Intellect and imagination are inseparable. Every idea is a dance between the two in the ballroom of the mind. Those who require little of themselves have even less to give others. Superior people achieve everything in themselves that they expect in others. It matters little whether my book reaches a handful of people or millions, for if it influences the right few, others will follow. There are times when it's wise to be ignorant, but never a time when it is ignorant to be wise.

• 37:28David Senra?

  Self-knowledge is an ocean without surface, shore, or bottom. Life begins in fire, burns briefly, and ends in ashes. Make it your business to create, not compare; contemplate, not critique; compliment, not condemn. This one is to his wife. "We were inseparable from the age of fourteen. She was the early bird, and I the worm. The foolish, the ignorant, and the indifferent make up a large majority of the public, yet we still insist the majority should rule. The new and novel should be viewed with suspicion, for it is improbable that one generation can be wiser than all ancestors combined.

• 38:09David Senra?

  Someone has to be original, or else others would have nothing to copy. There are many problems best left alone, since time and patience are powerful remedies. If you don't know your destination, every road is the right one. Those who succeed chance upon opportunities more often than they create them. There is but a single day and night, no matter how many times experienced." And then the last one. "Teach children to think deeply, read precisely, write concisely, and stimulate their curiosity about everything. Skip the rest of the stuff." And so that is where I'll leave it. To read all of these short thoughts, pick up Autobiography of a Restless Mind, Volume

• 38:53David Senra?

  One and Two, I'll leave a link in the show notes, and if you buy those books using that link, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 261 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.