Four Principles of Change
On Four Principles of Change, The Orthodoxy of Originality, Reading Recommendations and What I'm Doing.
The ‘Read. Learn. Enjoy.’ community continues to grow. This is the fourth edition of the letter.
Subscribe now if this letter was forwarded to you.
Four Principles of Change
This essay outlines Four Principles of Change distilled from personal experience.
Change is the only thing constant in life.
Life is change.
But change creates uncertainty and hence makes us uncomfortable.
My Four Principles of Change are:
1. Nothing happens unless something changes.
2. Only by taking responsibility can anything be changed.
3. You can only change yourself, not others.
4. To change the world, you need to change yourself first.
The Orthodoxy of Originality
A postcard on the orthodoxy on originality that plagues today’s society.
Today’s society puts creativity and innovation on a pedestal with imitation in any form frowned upon.
Society’s demand for originality affects most creators.
The demand for originality and the increasingly ‘winner-takes-it-all’ marketplace creates a race to be the ‘first’ or ‘original’ in every sphere of human activity.
But is anyone, ever, truly original?
Mark Twain views plagiarism as the kernel, the soul of all human utterances.
Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that ‘plagiarism’ farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism!
The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism.
For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.
When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington’s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed.
It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing — and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did.
These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest.
Oliver Sacks adds:
All of us, to some extent, borrow from others, from the culture around us.
Ideas are in the air, and we may appropriate, often without realizing, the phrases and language of the times.
We borrow language itself; we did not invent it. We found it, we grew up into it, though we may use it, interpret it, in very individual ways.
What is at issue is not the fact of “borrowing” or “imitating,” of being “derivative,” being “influenced,” but what one does with what is borrowed or imitated or derived; how deeply one assimilates it, takes it into oneself, compounds it with one’s own experiences and thoughts and feelings, places it in relation to oneself, and expresses it in a new way, one’s own.
Here’s Steve Jobs, the man we consider to be the creative genius of our times.
Creativity is just connecting things.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity.
A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.
The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
Salvador Dalí put it succinctly:
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Reading Recommendation
Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker
This book packs a punch in its short seventy pages. A few nuggets of wisdom that I found useful.
On strengths:
Concentrate on your strengths.
Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
On relationships:
Managing yourself requires taking responsibility for relationships.
On planning:
It is rarely possible—or even particularly fruitful—to look too far ahead.
A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific.
Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?
You can read my review and summary of the book here.
Book Reviews and Summaries
You can read 40+ book reviews and book summaries on my blog Reading.Guru.
Three popular reviews and summaries:
Poems for the Soul by Sanober Khan – Yes. My review of the first full poetry book I have ever read is also the most popular one!
The Zurich Axioms by Max Gunther – A book that challenges conventional wisdom about investing, money and risk.
Freedom from the Known by J Krishnamurti – A book about freeing yourself from the past and the known.
More to come.
What I’m Doing
What I’m doing now and what’s coming up next.
Now
READING 📖
Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier
This book has been on my “to read” list for long.
THINKING 🤔
I keep going back to this thought from The Bhagvad Gita.
I am come as Time, the ultimate waster of the people, ready for the hour that ripens to their doom.
The warriors, arrayed in hostile armies facing each other, shall not live, whether you strike or stay your hand.
Following nursery rhyme points to the ultimate Truth that Buddha realized. It is the best advice to live life.
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
WRITING ✍️
In addition to this edition of the letter:
Published the title essay of this letter: Four Principles of Change.
Updated a year-old article We are Stardust inspired by a quote from the book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
How to Measure Your Sleep Health – SATED Questionnaire. We spend one-third of our life sleeping, but our understanding of sleep is poor. SATED questionnaire helps assess sleep health. Complement by reading the absolutely eye-opening book on Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
Next
A hint of what’s coming up in the next few editions.
Book Review and Summary of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.
WordPress version upgrade. Still pending.
Thank you for reading till the end.
I would love to hear if you liked reading this edition.
Please use the Like ❤️ icon at the top of this letter, or
Add a comment if you are reading in your browser, or
Email your comments to “newsletter@reading.guru”.
Until next week,
- Satyajit
- Please take a moment to join the 1,960+ strong Reading.Guru community on Twitter.
- Forward this letter to others (family, friends, colleagues) who may find it useful.
- Subscribe now if this letter was forwarded to you.
- Share on social media using the Share button below.