Counterintuitive Ideas

If you know who you are, you get a civilizational war, if you don’t know who you are, you get a culture war.

If your boss asks for loyalty, give him integrity. If your boss asks for integrity, give him loyalty.

A razor is a decision rubric that has an element of paradox or counter-intuitiveness to it, and as a result is particularly challenging and costly to apply.

“I don’t know” is not an admission of ignorance. It’s an expression of intellectual humility.

“I was wrong” is not a confession of failure. It’s a display of intellectual integrity.

“I don’t understand” is not a sign of stupidity. It’s a catalyst for intellectual curiosity.

The appeal of learning through others is that it can be efficient. Books, mentors, case studies all compress years of experience into hours of consumption. But compression has a cost: it assumes a decoder. Without proper tacit knowledge, the message can lose meaning or, in some cases, be actively confused. In these cases, theory isn’t wrong, just o... See more

" Rest is not something that the world gives us. It's never been a gift. It's never been something you do when you've finished everything else. If you want rest, you have to take it. You have to resist the lure of busyness, make time for rest, take it seriously, and protect it from a world that is intent on stealing it. "

Science fiction is about strange rules, while fantasy is about special people.

“Your garden is not complete until there is nothing else you can take out of it.”