The Social Animal

In a follow-up study by Melita Oden in 1968, the people in the group who seemed to be doing best had only slightly higher IQs. What they had was superior work ethics. They

Intuition and logic exist in partnership. The challenge is to organize this partnership, knowing when to rely on Level 1 and when to rely on Level 2, and how to organize the interchange between the two.

Eventually—not soon, not until after many months or years of arduous observation, with dry spells and frustrating longueurs—the wanderer will achieve what the Greeks called métis. This is a state of wisdom that emerges from the conversation between Level 1 and Level 2. Métis is very hard to put into words. A person with métis possesses a mental map

The modest person uses both methods, and more besides. The modest person learns not to trust one paradigm. Most of what he knows accumulates through a long and arduous process of wandering.

This is a different sort of knowledge. It comes from integrating and synthesizing diverse dynamics. It is produced over time, by an intelligence that is associational—observing closely, imagining loosely, comparing like to unlike and like to like to find harmonies and rhythms in the unfolding of events.

In other words, there is a big difference between mental force and mental character. Mental character is akin to moral character. It is forged by experience and effort, carved into the hinterland of the mind.

He is on guard against his weaknesses. He pays attention to the sensations that come up from below. He makes tentative generalizations and analyses and focuses on sensations anew. He continues to wander and absorb, letting the information marinate deep inside. He is playing, picking up this and that. He sees a section of the landscape and slowly fe

There is the Pareto Principle. We have in our heads the idea that most distributions fall along a bell curve (most people are in the middle) But this is not how the world is often organized. The top two percent of Twitter users send 60 percent of the messages. The top 20 percent of workers will contribute a giant share of any company’s actual produ

He dreamed that someday some all-knowing mentor would sit him down and not only tell him how to live but why he was here. But his Moses never came. Of course he could never come, because you can only discover your vocation by doing it, and seeing if it feels right.