Profoundities

Insights, wisdom and thinking from books that I have read that resonate within me…

Autumn poses the question we all have to live with: How to hold one to the things we love even though we know that we and they are dying. How to see the world as it is, yet find light within that truth. 

Autumn Light by Pico Iyer

Religious and ideological dogmas are still highly attractive in our scientific age precisely because they offer us a safe haven from the frustrating complexity of reality. As we have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in hell after they die, or that the creator of the universe doesn’t like it when a Brahmin marries a Dalit—yet billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

But then again, I know very few people who have grown all the way up. The best most of us can do is manage intermittent maturity.

My Mistake by Daniel Menaker

People take sides in debates not on the basis of evidence or argument but on the basis of the side where they feel more at home.

However, just as you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink, so you can lead a mind to reason but you cannot make it think.

The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World by Julian Baggini

Somebody once defined the meaning of life as “the interruption of an otherwise peaceful nonexistence.”

Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and, “the Worst Baseball Team in History”—The 1973–1975 Texas Rangers by Mike Shropshire

Where you die, and who is around you at the end, is a strong signal of your success or failure in life.

Invest in experiences over things. Drive a Hyundai, and take your wife to St. Barts.

The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway

If religion makes people more moral, then why is America seemingly so immoral in its lack of concern for its poorest, most troubled citizens, notably its children?

The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer

Nowadays, science provides better and more consistent answers, but people will always cling to religion, because it gives comfort, and they do not trust or understand science.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking