## Impressions
I had been eyeing this for about a month before I bought it because reading a 400+ page book about the history of the library seemed like a big undertaking. Much to my surprise, it was a fun read and flowed nicely. I expected it to be much more pedantic than it was.

I do wish the contents were organized in a more structured timeline. I don't get why authors who write biographies or histories on something specific try and be creative with the structure by organizing the book by topic, like this one was, or in reverse-chronological order like *[Edison](https://www.amazon.com/Edison-Edmund-Morris/dp/081299311X)* was. This book wasn't completely random and followed a rough outline, but did not advance year to year. 

## Actionable Takeaways
1. A good description of a library could be: *making the genius of man public property.*
2. A good way to tell what's important to someone, or a group of people, is to look at where the store things in their home. If they have a special room for something, it's a good indication that whatever is in there means a lot. We can use this strategy to infer books and the process of writing was very important to monastic monks, because they had a dedicated room for this endeavor: the scriptorium. 
3. The earlier Stages of libraries had chains connected to books to prevent thieves from stealing anything. Once universities started displaying their books on shelves, the got rid of the chains to make it easier for people to study, but this also meant they lost more books. By 1338, over 300 of the mere 2,000 books in the possession of the College of the Sorbonne had already disappeared.
4. Before the invention of the printing press, books were used as a display of wealth. But once they became cheaper to buy, this practice became less so. It's a good illustration of scarcity creating an appearance of wealth and also how, even hundreds of years ago, people still wanted to "show off."
5. Like with any technological advancement, the incumbents thought printed books were not as equal in value to books written by hand. Those critics were often those who were in the business of writing books by hand or who had an uptight taste. The everyday person didn't care whether it was written by hand or printed, they just wanted the value that could be found inside. This is a great illustration about how people don't care what technology is used to build something–they just want that thing.
6. Throughout history, libraries were always a big target during any war. People could steal books to sell them, sure. But what was of more value was changing the city's ideology, for what people read, they became. So if you want to influence a group of people, they realized one of the best places to do that was the library. So they got rid of any books that talked about "the old way" and replaced them with books that matched that attackers philosophy. We see this play out from the early 1000s even up to WW2.

## Notes
- [Pliny the Elder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder), when talking about [Asinius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Asinius_Pollio), the friend of Julius Cesear who would bring Ceser's plan for a library in Rome to fruition, said Asinius was "the first to make the genius of man public property." I quite like that description for a library.
- "A monk who works is troubled by only one devil, while a monk who is idle is troubled by many." This is similar to Newton's quote about resisting temptation by keeping busy with intellectual practices in *[The Clockwork Universe](https://www.daltonmabery.com/book-notes/the-clockwork-universe)*.
- After the fall of the Roman Empire disrupted the papyrus supply throughout the Mediterranean, parchment became the standard replacement. It was more expensive, but lasted longer and could be written on on both sides.
- The importance of books in the monastic life could be symbolized through the existence of the scriptorium or writing room. For no one ever dedicated a room to something that wasn't important. 
- Around the twelfth century, monasteries lost their monopoly on book collections and creations and universities took the reins. 
- The word *studio* is derived from the Latin *studium*, which describes a monk's cell. 
- Eventually, in the rooms of those colleges, books began to be put on display for anyone to use, rather than locked away in chests like they were in monasteries. This was a positive, for it made knowledge-sharing much easier and people could reference books in a much faster way. This also meant it was easier to lose books. By 1338, over 300 of the mere 2,000 books in the possession of the College of the Sorbonne had already disappeared.
- After the invention of the printing press, owning and collecting books no longer became a status symbol because it was much cheaper to get a book. Before, when things were produced by hand, they were much more expensive and it was a fun thing to "flex" on. That was no longer the case after the invention of the printing press.
	- "Ownership of a library no longer marked a man out as a member of the European social and political elite."
	- Paris became the center of printing in Northern Europe; in the south, it was Venice.
- Though some tried to make an argument that printed books weren't as "worthy" of books that were written by hand, owners didn't seem to mind: "Those buyers who bought a book for its text do not seem to have minded whether it came from a press or a pen."
- Whether the press had any role on the value of books is up for debate, but it certainly had an impact on the creation of libraries. Before the press, wealthy people wanted to make libraries to show off their wealth, but they were open for other people to use. But since the press made it much easier for anyone to get a book, the ruling class, the only people building libraries at the time, weren't as inclined to donate their generous books and money. 
- Fernando Colon was one of the first people to recognize building a library for what it is today: a place for all books on all subjects for all people in all languages. This was not the common attitude for most collector's of the day.
- We lost a lot of potential collections and libraries once the owner passed on. Though they had a plan and intention to pass it on to an heir, it was a common thread throughout history that the heir didn't want to bare the responsibility. It was much easier to just get a little pay day from the collections.
- The Reformation had a quite a lasting impact on libraries and it was the beginning of a common pattern that is still happening today. After the Protestant's rose up, a lot of the Catholic works were no longer accurate (which at that point, was a lot of Europe's book stock), so they got rid of the Catholic works in libraries and started to replace them with Protestant works. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 acknowledged King Henry as head of the Church of England. This granted him the power to dissolve monasteries and with it, a lot of their books. Later in 1550, another Act was passed that made owning of the former monastic books illegal, which only sped up the rate of destruction that was currently taking place. But it wasn't just Catholic works that were lost, because when you're in a frenzy of book burning, it's quite difficult to tell the difference between "secular manuscripts of historical importance and works of catholic theology."
- When Queen Mary took over, the reformed books act were reversed and everyone started stacking shelves with catholic works again. This wasn't as vicious of a process as before, but it did have an effect on Oxford and other colleges, for they were where those of the future were being taught. This was again reversed under Queen Elizabeth, which added space for more protestant works again. But to this day, "No Oxford colleges own any Protestant books acquired before the reign of Elizabeth." It makes sense though, for "Why would colleges spend money on books when the books might be confiscated or burned after the next reversal of royal policy?"
	- This pattern of one ideology ruling, burning the others books or trying to censor them, and someone else coming into power would be a running thread through history.
- Between 1550 and 1750, normal tradesmen such as doctors, lawyers, and merchants starting collecting more books. Essentially, they picked up where the monks left off. 
- By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch Republic had become the center of the international book market. Book auctions had been around since the 15th Century, but the Dutch Republic were the first to separate books out from the rest of the estate. They also provided a printed catalogue people could look through ahead of time and come ready to bid. This had an interesting second order effect. Because books were now making much more money posthumously than before, people were much more encouraged to invest in books throughout their life, because they knew it could be used as a sort of an investment for their family when they passed.
- Thomas Bodley restored the Oxford library to what it is today completely on his own dime. He may have been the first to incorporate, strictly, the "silence rule" in libraries. By 1711, this rule had been adopted more widely; where the user in Amsterdam was greeted with this severe warning:
	- "You learned sir, who enter among books, don't slam the door with your tumultuous hand...here it's the dead who speak to them who work." (147)
- Libraries were a popular target to destroy during wars because what people read, they become. So if you wanted to change the culture, starting at the libraries was a good thing to do.
- The success of early public libraries depended on the degree of access and excitement of the leaders to treat it as a genuine public good, not just an off-shoot of their personal collection. **When someone cares about something, they make it last.**
- Starting around 1720, older books became much more valued. Hitherto, a book was valued solely on the contents of it, not when it was published, by whom it was written, or how it was published. This started to change around 1720, as people started to value older manuscripts and earlier printed books as much more valuable as later ones. 
- The Library Company of Philadelphia was the world's first subscription library. We can thank Benjamin Franklin for this beautiful addition to the library economy. It still flourishes to this day.
- Fiction became it's own industry around the 19th Century, even though it carried with it a sense of disrespectfulness and "childish" attitude. 
- Carnegie, with his generous donation of libraries in the Americas and Europe, truly inaugurated the golden age of the public library. 
- WW1 and WW2 destroyed many of Europe's great libraries and books.

## Quotes
- As with so many of the libraries we will meet in this book, neglect was a much more potent enemy than war or malice.
- Libraries were a private encyclopedia of the world's wisdom and follies.

<Subscribe />


512zzQOPOxL. SX416 BO1,204,203,200

The Library: A Fragile History

Let's pretend one day you find magic machine that could grant any lifestyle you asked it for. Professional golfer? Done. Star of *Pulp Fiction*? Say no more. Enlightened writer? Easy. Any lifestyle you wished to live could be yours upon demand.

But like with any magical box or genie, there's a catch: **The only thing it gave you was *exactly* what you asked it for.**

If you asked to be a star of *Pulp Fiction*, it could do that, but who knows what *Pulp Fiction* would become. It certainly wouldn't be the genre-breaking film it was. Perhaps it would be a book about orange juice, but hey, you'd be the star!

You could be a professional golfer, but it would be the year 1100 and golf would be nowhere near the sport it is today. It would take your prompt, but it would not give you the assumed preferences–the things you value and care about–unless you *specifically* asked for every single one.

Let's look at a more concrete example: that of a young couple wishing to get married, buy a house with a white picket fence, and have two kids with a dog. If this couple gave the machine with that criteria for a lifestyle, they would get their house with a white picket fence and two kids, but they might be the only people on their side of the Mississippi. Since they didn't specify they wanted a car–or any other technology for that matter–they wouldn't have it.

But for the purpose of this thought experiment, let's say before the young couple entered their lifestyle preferences into the machine, they had a teacher instruct them on the complications of it:

"Make sure to specify exactly the kind of lifestyle you want to live. If you want to live in Paris in the 1950s, make sure to specify you want to live in the 1950s Paris, just as it was in the real 1950s," says the teacher. "This machine will do *exactly* what you tell it to do with no assumed preferences or inherited human belief systems, so be specific and precise about the things you care about. Don't forget anything!"

Even on a good day, that couple isn't getting their lifestyle exactly as it is today. Maybe they have the technology that they have today, but since they didn't specify that they also wanted the ability to love, they now hate each other.

## Complexity of value
The task of defining your every preference is difficult. If you didn't follow along with that thought experiment, just imagine all the different ideals and preferences you have about your current lifestyle. When I say preferences, I don't mean drinking lattes over americanos, though that is a valid preference. Instead, I mean how you define love, the legacy you wish to leave behind, and your definition of living a "good life." You could try listing things for hours and you're guaranteed to miss at least a couple of preferences. 

This idea, the fact that our preferences and values cannot be explained with just a few sentences, is known as our **Complexity of value**. [LessWrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/complexity-of-value), a popular blog geared towards improving decision-making and reasoning, explains that it's impossible for human values to be "summed up by a few simple rules, or compressed."

This is true because of the [fragility of our human values](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GNnHHmm8EzePmKzPk/value-is-fragile). If we all woke up tomorrow and *kindness* didn't exist, the world would be *wildly* different. 99.999% of everything else in the world could be the exact same as it is today, but if we're missing kindness, or love, or humor, the world would cease to be the same. It might not be horrible, or evil, or bad, but it would most certainly be dull. Imagine a world without beauty. Everything, everywhere you look, was just one shade of black or gray. Not black *and* gray, but just different shades of either black *or* gray.

[Eliezer Yudkowsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky), a computer scientist who wrote the post cited above explaining the fragility of our value puts it this way:

> Consider the [incredibly important human value of "boredom"](https://www.lesswrong.com/lw/xr/in_praise_of_boredom/) - our desire not to do "the same thing" over and over and over again.  You can imagine a mind that contained _almost_ the whole specification of human value, almost all the morals and metamorals, but left out _just this one thing_ -
> 
> and so it spent until the end of time, and until the farthest reaches of its light cone, replaying a single highly optimized experience, over and over and over again
> 
> Or imagine a mind that contained almost the whole specification of which sort of feelings humans most enjoy - but not the idea that those feelings had important _external referents._  So that the mind just went around _feeling_ like it had made an important discovery, _feeling_ it had found the perfect lover, _feeling_ it had helped a friend, but not actually _doing_ any of those things - having become its own experience machine.  And if the mind pursued those feelings _and their referents,_ it would be a good future and true; but because this _one dimension_ of value was left out, the future became something dull.  Boring and repetitive, because although this mind _felt_ that it was encountering experiences of incredible novelty, this feeling was in no wise true.

Humans are complex. Our values might be even more so.

## Kolmogorov Complexity
If we want to get technical, which I always do, you can say that human values have a high Kolmogorov complexity. [The Kolmogorov Complexity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity) of something refers to the size of the shortest possible description of that thing. If the Kolmogorov Complexity is high, like we know our human values are, it's difficult to describe that thing in any shorter way than actually just actually saying that thing. Since our values are very complicated, we are unable to create a rule, theory, or formula to feed to the magical machine and say "Give us this lifestyle with these parameters," because we have to then go and define every single one of those parameters. It reminds me of that classic illustration where someone is blindfolded and they have to relay instructions to someone else on how to make a peanut butter and jelly, but the person making the sandwich does exactly what the boss tells them to do. If they say, "Put the peanut butter on the bread," but fail to mention anything about opening the peanut butter jar or taking bread out from the bag, the sandwich-maker might just put the peanut butter jar on top of the bag of bread and call it good. In this case, the Kolmogorov Complexity of making a PB&J is high.

Inversely, if something is low in Kolmogorov Complexity, its description can be shorter without sacrificing any detail.

Let's pretend you and I went out for Chinese food after a long day at the office. I don't like fortune cookies, so I gave you mine and said you could pick the best one. Here they are:

    dmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdm
    83jsns02u84nlw9jsn48anw2kfmv8940

After reading both of them, I ask you what the first one said. You could say, `"It says dm 32 times"`, which is only a 19 character response and is a simple description. Now I ask you what the second one said. The only real way to describe it is to say aloud the random string of characters exactly as they appear.

So naturally, *the first set is less complex than the second set* because the description of the first set is shorter (without sacrificing any detail) than the actual output. If for some reason I wanted to copy the fortunes, you could have said "Write dm 32 times." That's a very short input for the same output.

Conversely, what you might say for the second string, "Write `83jsns02u84nlw9jsn48anw2kfmv8940` ", is longer than the original output, so the Kolmogorov Complexity is high. It's interesting, though, that the complexity of any string cannot be much higher than the length of the string itself. Even with our high complexity string, the input is only 6 more characters long.

## Why this matters
Calculating the Kolmogorov Complexity of a 32 character strings is not exciting, but when using Kolmogorov Complexity as a model as to how the world works, it gets fun. You start to understand the intricacies of everyday life and see how the world is actually really complicated, no matter what someone else says. It's hard to accurately represent something using just a map or description of that thing. As you start to realize that more and more, you become aware of all the possible, "Oh and this too"'s that are in the world.

battle scene 2000.159.1

An attempt to understand the Kolmogorov Complexity of human values

I chose to read a 500+ page biography on a strange renaissance artist because, [much like Einstein](https://www.daltonmabery.com/essays/albert-einstein), I was fascinated with how he approached the world through curiosity. I read Isaacson's biography of [Einstein](https://www.daltonmabery.com/book-notes/einstein-his-life-and-universe) first, and he made comments about how da Vinci's life was filled with even more wonder and curiosity than Einstein's, and I wanted to know how, what that was like, and how I can do the same.

It turns out it's simple: Never complete what you say you're going to and spend years perfecting every intricate detail of your work. Easy, right?

Joke aside, da Vinci was infamous for not completing most of his commissions (more on that later) and was also known for spending hours perfecting the stroke of a tiny rock in the background that the normal layman would probably never see. But this isn't what made him so intelligent and wise in a broad array of fields. Oh no. That, he can thank his "relentless curiosity" for. His goal in life, above being an amazing painter, war machine architect, or city designer, was to know "everything there was to know about the world." Although he didn't quite get there, it wasn't for a lack of trying.

✓

How did da Vinci's life start?
------------------------------

Being born out of wedlock in 1400s Italy didn't leave a lot of options for the son of a multi-generation notary. It was custom in that day for the sons of tradesmen to acquire the skills of the father, but da Vinci didn't have that luxury since he was illegitimate. That fact also made it very difficult to engage in proper schooling, which da Vinci lacked. Most people would attempt to use this as a crutch against him later in life. But to him, it was a strength. What he did didn't require *words* but *experience*, which he learned early on how to become an apprentice of. Da Vinci, going against the typical image of the "Renaissance Man" that loved acquiring knowledge and wisdom from lost work, once wrote:

> He who has access to the fountain does not go to the water jar.

As he matured though, it became clear that knowledge is neither all experience or past wisdom, but a combination of both.

Though da Vinci lacked education in the traditional sense, he did attend an abacus school to learn useful skills in math and commerce. It was here that he learned the value of thinking about subjects through analogies and patterns, which became "for him a rudimentary method of theorizing."

It was after, where he got an apprenticeship in [Verrocchio's workshop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_del_Verrocchio), that his true genius began to shine.

On da Vinci's art
-----------------

One critique I have with the book is that Isaacson doesn't go into much detail about how da Vinci got into the different paths of life. Nevertheless we know da Vinci became an apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435 - 1488) at about 14 years old, but it seems he was mostly a natural.

The first painting da Vinci worked on with Verrocchio was *[The Baptism of Christ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baptism_of_Christ_%28Verrocchio_and_Leonardo%29)*. It's believed he worked on the leftmost angel because of its soft facial features, which the other subjects in the painting are not graced with.

Being a disciple of experience, da Vinci noticed when he looked at something in real life, it wasn't obvious where one object ended and another began, like it is so often painted in pictures. It's hard to describe what he saw, but he didn't think there should be a harsh boundary between different objects in paintings. This lead him to embrace a painting technique called *[sfumato](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato)*. The word, derived from the Italian word for smoke, *fumo*, can be roughly translated to "soft, vague, or blurred." It makes the painting look very airy and kind of smashed together.

This was just one example of da Vinci's acute observational skills represented in his paintings. He wrote in a notebook:

> If you wish to have a sound knowledge of the forms of objects, begin with the details of them, and do not go on to the second step until you have the first well fixed in memory.

The genius of Da Vinci isn't realized in his incredible observational skills about how the world works though. Instead, it was realized in his ability to make those observations appear on a canvas. This was the true genius.

When he had an idea for a new painting, he would think about what type of social setting and emotion the piece should illustrate. When he got his answer, he would go to the places that held that type of emotion and observe how people behave, how their bodies are positioned, and what their faces look like. Then, "he noted it in a little book which he was always carrying on his belt." But da Vinci didn't just recreate that scene on a canvas. He used that as a starting point in reality and would add imagination and fantasy to make the painting truly come alive. Isaacson notes:

> Leonardo wove an argument that was integral to understanding his genius: that true creativity involves the ability to combine observation with imagination, thereby blurring the border between reality and fantasy

Leonardo's artistic genius is undoubted, but his business suave could have been a bit better. He seemed to get by okay, but was never truly rich because he couldn't finish most of the pieces he was commissioned to do. There's no *real* reason why this happened, but there are some hypothesis.

One hypothesis is that *what could be* excited Leonardo much more than *what was*. He got so excited about an idea when he thought of it that he abandoned everything else he was working on. This cycle just continued. Isaacson wrote, "he was a genius undisciplined by diligence."

Another example could be that da Vinci wasn't about "the grind." He preferred to work very little and follow his curiosity about the world instead. This was found in one of his notebooks:

> Men of loft genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Another reason he may have not been able to finish paintings, was because his ideas were so close to reality, they could never be pulled off to the degree of perfection Leonardo expected of himself. So, he got as far as he could on some paintings and then just stopped. He didn't like to finish pieces because he would inevitably learn a new technique or fact about how a body should be positioned that he could use to make the piece better. To him, nothing was more beautiful than representing Nature like it ought to be represented:

> Though human ingenuity may make various inventions it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, more direct than does Nature; because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

An example of this relentless perfectionism can be seen by examining *St. Jerome in the Wilderness.* This painting was done in two phases: the first being in 1480 when he started the painting and the second being in 1510. Under infrared analysis of the painting, one can see there were dual neck muscles and other parts added in 1510 that were not part of the original drawing. The muscles and parts added seem to align with the anatomical discoveries da Vinci was making through his autopsies (coming soon). This implied he started the painting in 1480, but then changed it *30 years later* to add small neck muscles that he didn't know existed before. His perfectionism was a virtue, but it was also his vice.

So back to the autopsies. Da Vinci was so much a disciple of experience that he dissected some 300+ bodies throughout his lifetime. This wasn't some crazy fantasy for him though, he wanted to understand the layout of the human body so he knew which muscles moved which body parts. He also did a detailed analysis of the skull and brain.

He made very, very detailed drawings of his work and debated with himself about writing a treatise on the anatomy of the human body. He discovered things about how the body works centuries before someone would make the "real" discovery. But because Leonardo didn't have the organizational skills, drive, or desire to publish many of his writings or drawings, he didn't get credit for them until they were discovered.

Lesson: Be more curious
-----------------------

Da Vinci never intended to be a famous painter and artist, he simply went about his life as he thought he should and had some lucky breaks along the way. So even though he didn't intend for his life to come under a microscope 500 years later, there is one thing we can learn when we do so: **to observe and be curious about the little things in life more often**.

Isaacson writes:

> I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.

He continued:

> Yes, he was a genius: wildly imaginative, passionately curious, and creative across multiple disciplines. His genius was based on skills we can aspire to improve in ourselves, such as curiosity and intense observation.

If we look at Leonardo for a thesis on how to approach life, he might say to do so "with a sense of curiosity and an appreciation for its infinite wonders."

That, Mr. da Vinci, I will strive to do.

91Ey0+6N-LL

Book Review: da Vinci

I like schedules.

I like to be able to look at my week and know exactly what I'm doing when and what I'm supposed to be working on.

This is a beneficial attribute of mine, but at the same time it’s tormenting because it makes it nearly impossible to completely relax and take time off.

For the past four weeks though, I've been able to incorporate a time of deliberate leisure and it's delightful. Here's what I do:

During July and August, the company I work for is taking Fridays off. It's very nice. Not just because you have a three day weekend, but because the work week is only four days. Instead of using that Friday as a bonus Saturday, I've been using it to leisure deliberately. For me, that means planning a very structured day of rest.

I sleep in an hour later than normal, so I'm up around 6:00 or 6:30 am.

Once I wake up, I make my coffee and read for about an hour. I then take care of my dog and head to the gym. I workout for an hour but spend extra time in the hot tub and sauna to relax and think about my week. I then shower and head to my favorite coffee shop.

I order a bagel sandwich with an extra fried egg, bacon, and no tomato aioli with an iced pour over. While I wait for my sandwich, I unpack my backpack that contains my laptop, two or three books, my notebook, and headphones. I then scroll Instapaper to catch up on anything I saved that week. Articles that look interesting I read and those that seem boring I archive. I continue reading Instapaper while I finish my scrumptious bagel.

Once I'm finished with my breakfast, I put on my headphones, listen to brown noise, and read one of the books I'm currently working through. I typically read one for an hour or so and then move on to another book to spice things up. I like to stay for 3 or 4 hours, but sometimes I get much too hungry and can't focus. Whenever my stomach comes knockin', I head home for lunch and TV. If I'm up for it, I'll make another cup of coffee and read some more, write, and do some programming until about 4 or 5. At that point, my wife and I decide what we want for dinner (usually take out on Fridays), pick a movie, open up a cold beer (sometimes), and watch away.

I love it. For me, it’s true leisure, real otium. It’s not about sleeping in, having donuts for breakfast and binge watching Stranger Things for the third time. None of that is a true act of rest, it’s just an attempt to numb the mind in hopes you forget about your problems for a while.

Instead, a day (or time period) of deliberate leisure is a day filled with things you love but things that also make you feel refreshed and productive. Personally, the days I learn the most are the days I end up feeling the most refreshed.

Creating space for this routine was hard for me when I only had Saturday and Sunday off because I had errands to run, a honey-do list, or a side project to work on. But now, Fridays act as a buffer for me and I've been able to truly rest.

This wasn't a post to make you feel like you have to have Fridays off to leisure deliberately. Instead, it was meant as an exercise to recognize what truly makes me feel "rested" and to start thinking about how I can do this on a Saturday or Sunday morning when we go back to 5-day workweeks.

To figure that out for yourself, run a thought experiment planning a day full of deliberate leisure. Next, look at the different parts of the day and think about which you value the most. Is it sleeping in? Making breakfast with your partner? Going to dinner with family or friends? Whatever it is, try to do that once every other week, if not more often.

The part I value the most is reading at the coffee shop. Whenever I’m there, time withers away and I'm no longer focused on the next thing. Luckily, nothing is stopping me from getting there right when they open (just in time for my favorite lemon-blueberry scone to come out of the oven) and reading for an hour and a half on a Saturday morning. That would be enough time for me to feel relaxed and refreshed, but not take up too much of the day.

I'm sure there's something small like that you value just as equally that could be incorporated somewhere in your weekly routine. How should we expect ourselves to work deliberately if we don't leisure deliberately?


FYNW88QUUAAsSV2

Deliberare Otium

When it comes to our ideas and mindsets, we're one of three personalities.

We're either a preacher, a prosecutor, or a politician.

Preacher mode comes out when our long-held, sacred beliefs are in jeopardy. We preach elegant messages and illustrations to protect and promote our precious ideas.

Prosecutor mode reveals itself when we see mishaps, flaws, or illogical thinking in someone else's argument. We do everything we can to prove them wrong and win our case.

Finally we all become "influential" politicians when we're trying to win over a crowd or an audience. We flash a smile, crack some jokes (or laugh at their corny jokes), all in hopes they will choose our idea to start thinking.

## The Danger

But there's danger in each of these. As Adam Grant puts it in the book, "**The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we're right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don't bother to rethink our own views."**

Once we choose how to think of something, we often stick to that mindset no matter the evidence that presented to us.

So instead of being a stupid "P", Grant proposes we need to all be scientists. Don't worry, you don't have to quit your job and go buy a white lab coat, although you could. Instead, being a scientist means to search for truth, embrace evidence that seems to differ from your current position, and run experiments and tests to discover what the world holds beyond the views you've held for the past twenty years.

If you change your mind in preacher mode, it's a sure sign of weakness. But in scientist mode, it shows you have intellectual integrity.

But what if we're in scientist mode, have the data and research, but can't get other people to change their mind. Then what do we do?

<Callout title="Note" Content={Note, there are times when preaching and prosecuting make the argument stronger. Grant puts it this way, "Research suggests that the effectiveness of these approaches hinges on three key factors: how much people care about the issue, how open they are to our particular argument, and how strong-willed they are in general"} />

Through an incredible story about how Steve Jobs was first resistant to creating the iPhone, Grant demonstrates there is power in arguing what will stay the same. Change is scary. People might think if things are going well in the moment, why change what we're doing now? But when you affirm what's going to stay the same through this change, they're more open to hearing and enacting your idea. They realize, "Oh, not that much is *actually* changing. A,B,C, and D are all staying the same, we're just changing E. Sure, let's try it."

## Counterfactual Thinking

If reinforcing what will stay the same won't help, you could try leading them down a path to imagine a world in which their lives circumstances would have unfolded differently. This is what psychologists call "Counterfactual thinking."

It's easy to forget how influential things like where we were born, who raised us, or where we went to school can be on our thinking. If you can successfully get someone to understand how easy they might have held different initial opinions or stereotypes, they might be much more willing to change their view.

If you're in a heated debate, argument, or conflict at work (or elsewhere), it can helpful to ask, "What evidence would change you mind?" Because sometimes, that answer is nothing. And that's okay. I don't know about you, but I'd rather know that before I spend hours investing in trying to do so.

## The Confident Impostor

I played baseball for 15 years as a child (My goal was to play in college, but I had other plans I guess.)

No matter where we played or who we played against, there was always the teammate or parent on the bleachers who thought they could do a better job of coaching the time than the actual coach. Sometimes they honestly might have been able to, there weren't many requirements for being a baseball coach in travel ball. But most of the time, they weren't.

That's what's called the armchair quarterback. The parent or fan who thinks they know how to do a better job than the actual coach. Armchair quarterbacks confidence exceeds competence.

On the other end of the spectrum is the imposter syndrome. This is a bit more common than the armchair quarterback but people who have imposter syndrome's competence exceeds their confidence. They are actually really good at what they do, but don't believe in themselves enough or don't want others to think they are good.

Obviously either end of that spectrum is negative. If your confidence exceeds your competence, you're just a jerk. But if you're competence exceeds your confidence, you won't get anything done and no one will trust you. So the ideal amount of confidence lies somewhere in the middle. Your competence and your confidence need to be in sync. You have to be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future, yet humble enough to question whether you have the right tools or you're the right person for the job.

It's when someone *lacks* skills in a certain area that they're afraid to ask for help or for someone else to do it. When someone tries and forces them to change their mind, they just double down. If that person is leading your team, you're headed straight for a nose dive that ends in a fiery crash.

Humility is a reflective lens: It helps us see weaknesses clearly. Confident humility is a corrective lens: it enables us to overcome those weaknesses.

## You Are Not Your Ideas

When we think we know better than someone else, it's not just the armchair quarterback doing all that work by themselves. He's got a teammate and that teammate is the totalitarian ego.

The totalitarian ego is like a mini-dictator living inside your head, sitting right next to that pesky little armchair quarterback. Their job is to control the facts that flow into our heads, swatting down anything that disproves our hypothesis about a topic.

This happens in a two-step process:

First, the opinions that we hold are shielded in "filter bubbles." These filter bubbles get bigger and bigger with the more information that *proves* our opinion; and with the bubble grows the ego.

Once these opinions are reinforced by enough confirming data, they're sealed behind an impenetrable safe that forms an echo chamber of information  only saying what we want it to say. Sound familiar?

There's only one cure to this totalitarian ego and it comes from Daniel Kahneman -- detachment.

As a psychologist, Kahneman doesn't go a day without thinking of a new, weakly held opinion. But also as a psychologist, his job is to look at the studies, interpret the data, and see if his hypothesis was right. And if it wasn't, change it. The only way he's able have so many fleeting ideas is that he refuses to let his beliefs become apart of his identity.

One practical way to go about this tomorrow is whenever you form a new idea, opinion, or hypothesis about how something works, ask yourself, "What would have to happen to prove this false?"

Dalton

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