On the importance of learning to cook

Back in junior high we had cooking classes. With the benefit of hindsight I now know what was all that about. Those classes were not primarily taught for the student to fix himself something when hungry, but to develop discipline and to learn how to follow orders. Some, or maybe the greater part of us, want to go our own way and particularly at that age. Following a cooking recipe demands, not only attention, but the suspension of one's own wants and idiosyncrasies. The recipe is tried and true, has clear concepts and a step by step process. If one just follows the steps as given, the results are there anyone to see and taste. Immediate feedback, cause and effect and consistent results are the name of the game. By just trying, mavericks can see the results of their actions, and begin to adapt themselves to circumstances that demand, as said, discipline.

Emeril and star chefs can get away with adding extra salt, garlic, or whatever (Bam!), because they already have mastery on their craft and know the limits of the elements they working with.  Mastery comes from discipline and only then one is allowed to push the bounds of the art.

There's also the part of shared experience. Much like in sports there's a meeting of minds in cooking. Having watched played in team sports or at least watched, one can make one's point across or get by having actually gotten one's hands into the  thick mess of things. 

Eat that Frog! book review

Quite understandably one can be skeptical of the mounds of self-help books, considering the huge volumes of useless junk out there. However, there are some worthwhile titles among the refuse. Eat that that frog! by Brian Tracy is one of them.

In his book, Tracy puts forth his system of efficiency based around the idea of attacking the most unappetizing/ important tasks first. This sounds common sense, but it is surprising how often we forget  to do so. Tracy distills and packages these and other concepts into bite-sized chapters and tryouts that bring the ideas to the forefront for ready use. By the time one reaches the productive years one is supposed to have a working approach to task management, but not everyone gets to develop one on their own or have actual mentoring on these simple, yet quite important, techniques. The great value of this book is that it supplements this potential lack and quite possibly boosts the plusses that are already there.

The book will benefit the most those who feel overwhelmed by their jobs. That said,it can also benefit those who feel they are already quite efficient in them. For these persons,the book warrants even a small peek to see if they can refine even more their habits.

Probably the only 'negative' aspect is the it centers exclusively on business life with much emphasis on importance on achieving and doing as a necessity of life.  Other areas of one's life are also important and probably one of the regular time-management books can help balance this one out by taking the personal into view and consideration.  With that caveat, you can't really go wrong with this one.

Tusculan Disputations & List of StoicTexts

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could be convinced not to worry about death, pain, and other mental anguishes with no tricks or drugs? Well, there is some old school medicine that does work. Somehow, antique stuff tends to pushed back by newer, shinier offers, but the Tusculan Disputations, among others, deserve to be brought back to the foreground. Written by Cicero in dialogue form after retiring from public office and taking philosophy full time,  it delivers on this promise.

It consists of five journées (can't find an English equivalent: 'days' doesn't quite capture it) of Cicero and interlocutor covering different evils, one at a time. These are: on Death, on Pain, On Affliction, on Other Tribulations (Fear, Joy, Desire) and On How Happiness can be Attained by Oneself. Though presented sequentially, each one can be read by itself and each is prologued with an address to Brutus (yes, that Brutus) to which the work as a whole is dedicated. Chronologically, the Disputations can be placed second in a series of related treatises that also include On the Ends of Good and Bad Things (De Finibus) and On the Nature of the Gods. These treatises, and more, were written in a down period of Cicero's life where he no longer held an important sway on Rome's politics and was grieving over the loss of his daughter.

There are only two participants: Cicero and his interlocutor.The opponent or interlocutor hardly puts up a fight and is always overwhelmed by Cicero's reasonings. These cover all the bases and if something somehow is left out, it is usually pretty minor. Unlike in some Plato's Dialogues, the interlocutor has the courtesy to allow the defendant, in this case Cicero, lengthier, uninterrupted expositions.

Some working knowledge of mythology, a prior read of the Iliad, a passing familiarity with Plato's Dialogues (Apology, Fedo)  and a feel for Roman history I'd say are required to not get lost in the references. Other than that it is an easy straightforward read.

Technically, Cicero's philosophy belongs to that of the New Academy (I think) and tries to stay away as much as possible from the Epicureans and avoid the argumentative excesses of the Stoics. However, I feel that he leans more to the latter.

Far from being a disjointed collection of maxims and viewpoints, Cicero's work is meticulously crafted and seamlessly systematic  which makes it a joy to read. In the end, Cicero's arguments are very convincing, even if you assume a show-me attitude. He completely won me over on each and every of the five days and has changed me for the better. By itself it can work as a self contained secular life philosophy (though I still feel that the Bible and divine revelation is what really allows it to turn full circle).

The Tusculan was the best book I read in 2013. Now that I'm on a roll here I'll mention my "Hall Of Fame" stoic writings:

1. The Tusculan
2. Epictetus' Discourses
3. On Anger by Seneca
4. Epictetus' Handbook
5. Seneca's Letters to Lucilius
6. Seneca's other Moral Dialogues 
7. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 
8. Fragments of the Ancient Stoics
9. Musonius Rufus' Sayings
10. On Duties by Cicero

The first three by themselves make an unbeatable trio.

Honorable mentions:

• Life is a Dream by Calderón de la Barca. Worth a read in any case
• Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy

And one more thing: if you are interested in the life itself of Cicero, there's a great bio from Anthony Trollope on Librivox. Although the ongoing theme with it is that Cicero is wrongly accused by other authors of being a coward or unsteady in his views and political affiliations, it is a fine read for all the detail and context that Trollope provides. I'm re-listening to it right now. If you're in a hurry, Plutarch's life on him might suit you.

Ghostly occurrence

Time now for this year's Halloween special. 

A certain man had just died and left his house unoccupied. My cousin, who lives right at the US border and some of his friends decided to take a look inside at night. Among whatever else they might have found, they discovered a book of black magic. To have a better look at it they swiped it and buried it in an empty lot somewhere for later perusal. When they came back for it a couple of days later, the book was gone. They went back to the empty house but found it now guarded by a police officer.

This happened back in the 80s. My cousin told me about it not long after and I stayed with the story all this time, retelling it from time to time and probably adding some of my own and forgetting some other parts.  You know how it is with these stories where it is always a cousin, as in this case, or a friend of a friend that has the adventures. These people consistently seem to have more interesting lives than one does. Well, unlike the friends of friends that are unreachable by the degrees of separation, I could contact my cousin anytime. I decided to corroborate the facts next time
i saw him.  If I got full confirmation, or better still, more details, I was sure to submit it to the Hometown Tales podcast. My opportunity came in 2005 at my brother's wedding. There, I took my cousin aside and had him listen to the story told back to him which he heard with amusement. He chuckled at the buried book bit and when I pressed him to verify what I had just told him, he paused for a moment, solemnly pronounced that something of the sort did happen and said no more.


You can read last year's special here

Better by Gawande book review

Surgeon Atul Gawande has also a fine penmanship. After reading his book on when things go awry in medicine, Complications, I was eager for more and immediately began reading  his next book, Better.

Better is the inside view on how doctors, and medicine as a whole, tries, and often succeeds in  getting better results: less deaths per thousand cases, more with less, new approaches to old problems.

Despite its engaging stories, Better is not a mere continuation of Complications. It has more insight and footholds on which our minds can work upon making it a companion of sorts to Talent is Overrated of which we talked last time.  Probably one of the greatest interest for us, lay readers, is how we ourselves can get better at our own particular endeavors by looking at a generally veiled field, that of medicine, which not only relies on performance but which has lives on the line as well.

Besides the performance and ingenuity sections there is also one on doing right which explores the ways how doctors not only have  to perform well, but also do what is right simultaneously, which can and do conflict with one another.  Nudity, negligence and malpractice, insurance companies and compensation are explored here.

Gawande has two more books to his credit, The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal.

Talent is Overrated by Colby book review

Being the heirs of the Judeo-Christian tradition, we Westerners conceive of talent as a divine gift stemming perhaps from the Parable of the talents in Matthew. It may come to a surprise that talents, in the modern sense of the word, have a dominating component of behind-the-scenes thought & effort.

In Talent is Overrated, Colby makes a quite convincing case that talent is not the result of luck or grace but rather from directed effort towards a goal. In the first four chapters he examines the evidence bringing many specific cases to bear, such like that of Mozart, and puts forth an alternate hypothesis to the gift/luck scheme that, in its core, consists of conscious, deliberate practice.

Once he has convinced the reader he minutely looks at the specific components that makes talent happen in chapters 5-7 and, what may be the best part, how to do that for oneself.  These chapters warrant careful combing. For these I'd recommend have take pencil & paper close at hand to unearth all the treasures.

The application doesn't end with the individual as Colby expands the framework to include organizations. In chapter 8 he shows that this can be done and what steps might be necessary to incorporate the framework to larger scale entities.

On the closing chapters he addresses some miscellaneous topics, such as creativitity & innovation, youth & age and the sources of passion.

For someone who simply wants to get better at something or excel at top levels or who coaches someone else on physical or mental skills, this book might refocus your efforts for the better or reinforce what you already believe works.

If you're in a hurry, some of the very same concepts, but without the application component, are explored in the Scientific American July 2006 cover article, Secrets of the Expert Mind by Phillip E. Ross. Now, If you want an even deeper understanding on how this stuff works there is The Mind And the Brain by Sawyer. The Willpower Instinct is also a good companion to any of these.

The Way to Willpower book review

It is reasonable to suppose that once that you have struck gold, the neighboring lots might be valuable as well. Same thing happens with authors: once you have found a great book from one, it is not too far off to think that he or she might have others. Having greatly enjoyed Thinking As a Science by Henry Hazlitt I came across his bibliography on Wikipedia and discovered that he had a book on willpower as well. I immediately went on to acquire it and it also is great stuff.

As with Thinking, Hazlitt goes with great care dissecting the subject and making it accessible to the reader. This book, having been written in the early 20th century lacks all of the recent scientific developments of which The Willpower Instinct (the other great book on willpower I've read) bases itself on. Notwithstanding,  Hazlitt builds his program on the philosophy and psychology from his time and ends with commendable results. The founding stone for his method, and a very controversial one at first, is the negation of the existence of the will.  Allowing that, he builds on it by adding the costs of exercising willpower and the way of habit formation. This trio allows him to offer methods and recommendations that if, are unexplored by The Willpower Instinct, are no less powerful.

Once more, as in Thinking, one is very well rewarded by taking notes.