Author Archives: sasham

Jay Smith “Better Queens”, quote

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Preuzeto iz knjige Jay Smith-a “Better Queens”. Available for reading here, thanks to Michael Bush:    http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueenswthumb.htm

Life to me has been such a paradox, so much happiness and joy yet so much misery and sorrow, that makes one wonder just what it is all about. I will close by quoting my favorite poem by Leigh Hunt, as it best gives my aim in life.

Abou Ben Adhem

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
An angel writing in a book of gold:-
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Ben. “Nay not so.”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerful still; and said “I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.”

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night it came again, with a great awakening light,
And showed the names who love of God had blessed,-
And, lo Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!

Victor’s Hugo last will

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Victor’s Hugo last will:

Je refuse l’oraison de toutes les Eglises. Je demande une prière à toutes les âmes.

Je crois en Dieu. »

[In English:]

I leave 50 000 francs to the poor. I want to be buried in their hearse.

I refuse [funeral] orations of all churches. I beg a prayer to all souls.

I believe in God.

[Srpski:]

Oporuka Viktora Igoa:

Ostavljam 50 000 franaka siromasima. Hoću da budem sahranjen kao siromah. Odbijam opelo bilo koje crkve. Molim za molitvu za sve duše.
Verujem u Boga.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo

Life lessons

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Life lessons, my favorite topic.  Written by Gordon Dean was an American lawyer and prosecutor.

Here is the list:

  1. Never lose your capacity for enthusiasm.
  2. Never lose your capacity for indignation.
  3. Never judge people. Don’t type them too quickly. But in a pinch, never first assume that a man is bad; first assume that he is good and that, at worst, he is in the gray area between bad and good.
  4. Never be impressed by wealth alone or thrown by poverty.
  5. If you can’t be generous when it’s hard to be, you won’t be when it’s easy.
  6. The greatest builder of confidence is the ability to do something–almost anything–well.
  7. When confidence comes, then strive for humility; you aren’t as good as all that.
  8. The way to become truly useful is to seek the best that other brains have to offer. Use them to supplement your own, and be prepared to give credit to them when they have helped.
  9. The greatest tragedies in the world and personal events stem from misunderstandings. So communicate!

Source: http://www.inc.com/harvey-mackay/9-life-lessons-every-entrepreneur-needs.html

From the: “Lazy way to success”

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General von Moltke divided the entire officer corps into four distinct types, depending on their mental and physical characteristics:

1) mentally dull and physically lazy,
2) mentally bright and physically energetic,
3) mentally dull and physically energetic, and
4) bright and lazy.

The officers who were both mentally dull and physically lazy were given simple, repetitive, unchallenging tasks.

The officers who were both mentally bright and physically energetic, Von Moltke felt were obsessed with micromanagement and accordingly would be poor leaders. Therefore, he never promoted this type of officer to the status of commanding officer of the German General Staff.

The officers who were mentally dull but physically energetic, Von Moltke considered dangerous. To him, they were walking, talking mistake generators that required constant supervision. Because they created messes faster than could be fixed, these officers were too much trouble and were dismissed.

The mentally bright yet physically lazy officer, our hero, is the type of person Von Moltke felt should ascend to the lofty heights of ultimate command. Why? Because he is smart enough to see what needs to be done but is also motivated by laziness to find the easiest, simplest way to succeed. And, of course, such an officer would never sully his hands with details, vastly preferring to delegate those concerns to the eager beaver types.

From the: “Lazy way to success” by Fred Grazon http://lazyway.blogs.com/lazy_way/

Experiments, liberty and success

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Found somewhere on the net. Something I thought about. Why some societies fail when other prosper? One of the important reasons is explained in the text cited below. Simply the successful ones experiment and find solutions better, while the stagnating ones follow the models which don’t function anymore, thus leading to decay and growing chaos.

 

“Work by some prescient social scientists has produced a great many insights about what characteristics are conducive to social formations capable of adaptation and innovation. For example, the economist Friedrich Hayek emphasized that individual liberty is “essential in order to leave room for the unforeseeable and unpredictable. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it” (The Constitution of Liberty, 1960).

 

Nathan Rosenberg, an economic historian, pursued the question of why the United States became the predominant economy of the 20th century. He highlighted the key roles that economic and organizational experiments, marked by both a high degree of autonomy and a large number of independent, decentralized decision-makers, played in such events (Why in America?, 1981).

The urban historian Jane Jacobs studied why some cities remain economically vibrant over long periods of time. Jacobs sees economic life “as a process of continually improvising in a context that makes injecting improvisations into everyday life feasible. We might amplify this by calling development an improvisational drift into unprecedented kinds of work that carry unprecedented problems, then drifting into improvised solutions, which carry further unprecedented work carrying unprecedented problems” (Cities and the Wealth of Nations, 1984). The diversity “of economic activities, ideas, lifestyles, neighborhoods, social groups, and individuals” is for Jacobs the essential foundation that allows a city to successfully improvise, adapt, and innovate. Or consider the explanation offered by the philosopher Karl Popper as to why “open societies” have prospered (The Open Society and its Enemies, 1945). For Popper, human existence is first and foremost a process of problem-solving; successful societies are therefore those societies which are conducive to problem solving. Because problem-solving calls for the production of trial solutions which are then subjected to evaluation and criticism, Popper saw as superior those forms of society that permit the untrammeled assertion of differing proposals, followed by the genuine possibility of change in light of open discussion and criticism.”

 

Giving Up Control?

A Santa Fe Institute Business Network Discussion White Paper (Discussion Draft)

Authors Alpheus Bingham, Eli Lilly

José Lobo, Santa Fe Institute

John Miller, Santa Fe Institute and Carnegie Mellon University

Jim Rutt, Santa Fe Institute

June 19, 2003

 

Freelancers & Pirates

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Cool article on Wired about freelancing and freelancers as pirates of the modern age. And here is my comment:

Message for all “cubicle-jockey’s”: you are all freelancers, you are just not aware of it.  The moment you stop being useful to the man you’ll become “free”. People who are freelancers are aware of this painful fact, so instead of miring themselves in fake security, they have already taken the leap on their own terms.
Consider this: however special or intelligent you my think you are, there are plenty people which can and will replace you. Places like India, China and so on, have plenty of skilled and smart people which are willing to work for much less compensation. And lets not talk about the rising technology induced unemployment.
All in all, it reminds me on something B. Franklin said: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”