[{"content":"List updated from my Skoob backup, with 67 books read.\nBooks That Became Posts Sociedade do Cansaço — Byung-Chul Han: the main book behind Why Are We Always Tired: Han\u0026rsquo;s Diagnosis. Antifrágil — Nassim Nicholas Taleb: became my notes in How to Benefit from Chaos: Notes on Taleb\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;Antifragile\u0026rsquo;. Crepúsculo dos ídolos — Friedrich Nietzsche and Memórias do subsolo — Fiódor Dostoiévski: appear in A Parallel Between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Por que nós dormimos — Matthew Walker: a complementary book cited in Why Are We Always Tired: Han\u0026rsquo;s Diagnosis. Complete List 1984 — George Orwell A Arte da Guerra — Sun Tzu A biblioteca da meia-noite — Matt Haig A Coragem de não agradar — Ichiro Kishimi A hora da estrela — Clarice Lispector A Megera Domada — William Shakespeare A Mente de Stephen Hawking — Stephen Hawking A metamorfose — Franz Kafka A Morte de Ivan Ilitch — Liev Tolstói A prioridade da presença de Deus — Léo Matos A revolução dos bichos — George Orwell A Sabedoria da Insegurança — Alan Watts A Vida dos Estoicos — Ryan Holiday A Vida Intelectual — Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges A vida, o universo e tudo mais (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #3) — Douglas Adams Admirável mundo novo — Aldous Huxley Antifrágil — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Apologia de Sócrates — Platão Até mais, e obrigado pelos peixes! (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #4) — Douglas Adams Campo de Batalha da Mente Para Adolescentes — Joyce Meyer Code — Charles Petzold Crepúsculo dos ídolos — Friedrich Nietzsche De quanta terra precisa um homem — Leon Tolstói Dentro da Baleia e outros Ensaios — George Orwell Dhammapada — Acharya Buddharakkhita Diário Estoico — Ryan Holiday E Tem Outra Coisa\u0026hellip; (O Guia do Mochileiro das Galáxias #6) — Douglas Adams Emburrecimento programado — John Taylor Gatto Filho do Hamas — Mosab Hassan Yousef Gente pobre — Fiódor Dostoiévski Hamlet — William Shakespeare Ilíada — Frederico Lourenço Júlio César — William Shakespeare Macbeth — William Shakespeare Machado de Assis Várias Histórias — Machado de Assis Manual de Epicteto — Epicteto Matemática Para Vencer — Laercio Vasconcelos Maus — Art Spiegelman Meditações — Marco Aurélio Memórias do subsolo — Fiódor Dostoiévski Noites brancas — Fiodor Dostoiévski O Alienista — Machado de Assis O andar do bêbado — Leonard Mlodinow O Cérebro Que Se Transforma — Norman Doidge O Economista Clandestino Ataca Novamente! — Tim Hardford O Existencialismo é um Humanismo — Jean-Paul Sartre O guia do mochileiro das galáxias (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #1) — Douglas Adams O Homem Mais Rico Da Babilônia — George S. Clason O Mercador de Veneza — William Shakespeare O pequeno príncipe — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry O poder do infinito — Steven Strogatz O Príncipe — Nicolau Maquiavel O restaurante no fim do universo (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #2) — Douglas Adams O Salmão da Dúvida — Douglas Adams Os Inovadores — WALTER ISAACSON Otelo — William Shakespeare Por que nós dormimos — Matthew Walker Praticamente inofensiva (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #5) — Douglas Adams Romeu e Julieta — William Shakespeare Sobre a Brevidade da Vida — Sêneca Sociedade do Cansaço — Byung-Chul Han Sonho de uma noite de verão — William Shakespeare Só Pode Ser Brincadeira, Sr. Feynman! — Richard Feynman Teoria Quântica (Encyclopaedia) — John Polkinghorne Tuesdays With Morrie — Mitch Albom Unabomber Manifesto — Theodore J. Kaczynski Vidas Secas — Graciliano Ramos ","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/books/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eList updated from my Skoob backup, with 67 books read.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"books-that-became-posts\"\u003eBooks That Became Posts\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSociedade do Cansaço — Byung-Chul Han\u003c/strong\u003e: the main book behind \u003ca href=\"/en/posts/why-are-we-always-tired-hans-diagnosis/\"\u003eWhy Are We Always Tired: Han\u0026rsquo;s Diagnosis\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAntifrágil — Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u003c/strong\u003e: became my notes in \u003ca href=\"/en/posts/how-to-benefit-from-chaos-notes-on-talebs-antifragile/\"\u003eHow to Benefit from Chaos: Notes on Taleb\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;Antifragile\u0026rsquo;\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCrepúsculo dos ídolos — Friedrich Nietzsche\u003c/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eMemórias do subsolo — Fiódor Dostoiévski\u003c/strong\u003e: appear in \u003ca href=\"/en/posts/a-parallel-between-nietzsche-and-dostoevsky/\"\u003eA Parallel Between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePor que nós dormimos — Matthew Walker\u003c/strong\u003e: a complementary book cited in \u003ca href=\"/en/posts/why-are-we-always-tired-hans-diagnosis/\"\u003eWhy Are We Always Tired: Han\u0026rsquo;s Diagnosis\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"complete-list\"\u003eComplete List\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e1984 — George Orwell\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Arte da Guerra — Sun Tzu\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA biblioteca da meia-noite — Matt Haig\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Coragem de não agradar — Ichiro Kishimi\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA hora da estrela — Clarice Lispector\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Megera Domada — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Mente de Stephen Hawking — Stephen Hawking\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA metamorfose — Franz Kafka\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Morte de Ivan Ilitch — Liev Tolstói\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA prioridade da presença de Deus — Léo Matos\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA revolução dos bichos — George Orwell\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Sabedoria da Insegurança — Alan Watts\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Vida dos Estoicos — Ryan Holiday\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Vida Intelectual — Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA vida, o universo e tudo mais (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #3) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAdmirável mundo novo — Aldous Huxley\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAntifrágil — Nassim Nicholas Taleb\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eApologia de Sócrates — Platão\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAté mais, e obrigado pelos peixes! (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #4) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCampo de Batalha da Mente Para Adolescentes — Joyce Meyer\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCode — Charles Petzold\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCrepúsculo dos ídolos — Friedrich Nietzsche\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDe quanta terra precisa um homem — Leon Tolstói\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDentro da Baleia e outros Ensaios — George Orwell\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDhammapada — Acharya Buddharakkhita\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDiário Estoico — Ryan Holiday\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eE Tem Outra Coisa\u0026hellip; (O Guia do Mochileiro das Galáxias #6) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEmburrecimento programado — John Taylor Gatto\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFilho do Hamas — Mosab Hassan Yousef\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGente pobre — Fiódor Dostoiévski\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHamlet — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIlíada — Frederico Lourenço\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJúlio César — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMacbeth — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMachado de Assis Várias Histórias — Machado de Assis\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eManual de Epicteto — Epicteto\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMatemática Para Vencer — Laercio Vasconcelos\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMaus — Art Spiegelman\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMeditações — Marco Aurélio\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMemórias do subsolo — Fiódor Dostoiévski\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNoites brancas — Fiodor Dostoiévski\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Alienista — Machado de Assis\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO andar do bêbado — Leonard Mlodinow\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Cérebro Que Se Transforma — Norman Doidge\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Economista Clandestino Ataca Novamente! — Tim Hardford\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Existencialismo é um Humanismo — Jean-Paul Sartre\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO guia do mochileiro das galáxias (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #1) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Homem Mais Rico Da Babilônia — George S. Clason\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Mercador de Veneza — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO pequeno príncipe — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO poder do infinito — Steven Strogatz\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Príncipe — Nicolau Maquiavel\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO restaurante no fim do universo (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #2) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eO Salmão da Dúvida — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOs Inovadores — WALTER ISAACSON\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOtelo — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePor que nós dormimos — Matthew Walker\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePraticamente inofensiva (O Mochileiro das Galáxias #5) — Douglas Adams\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRomeu e Julieta — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSobre a Brevidade da Vida — Sêneca\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSociedade do Cansaço — Byung-Chul Han\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSonho de uma noite de verão — William Shakespeare\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSó Pode Ser Brincadeira, Sr. Feynman! — Richard Feynman\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTeoria Quântica (Encyclopaedia) — John Polkinghorne\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTuesdays With Morrie — Mitch Albom\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUnabomber Manifesto — Theodore J. Kaczynski\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eVidas Secas — Graciliano Ramos\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Books Read"},{"content":"To send me a message, click here: fariablog1@gmail.com.\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/contact/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTo send me a message, click here: \u003ca href=\"mailto:fariablog1@gmail.com\"\u003efariablog1@gmail.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Contact"},{"content":" Here are my notes, made after reading each book (here referred to as a chapter) and the sections contained within those books. These notes are not intended to replace reading the book, which is essential for a better understanding of the concepts, but rather aim to help readers review and complement their reading.\nSome notes have been supplemented with my own observations and ideas. As the book’s author himself suggested, some sections and books are intended for a non-lay audience; such sections and books were skipped in these notes, which are primarily aimed at the lay reader.\nThe edition read was:\nTitle: Antifragile – Things That Gain from Disorder Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb Publisher: Objetiva Publication Year: 2020 Edition: 1st edition Language: Portuguese Number of Pages: 616 ISBN-13: 978-85-470-0108-7 ISBN-10: 8547001085 Chapter 1: The Antifragile: An Introduction 1. Between Damocles and Hydra Something that often goes unnoticed is the difference between being robust and being antifragile. But what is antifragile? It’s evolving through mistakes, being a Hydra—when one head is cut off, two grow back in its place. Being robust or resilient is good, but you don’t gain anything from adversity; you merely endure it. This concept is seen in various areas, such as medicine:\nHormesis: A beneficial response to low doses of a poison. Mithridatization: The process of inducing resistance to a poison or toxin through the gradual administration of sub-lethal doses. 2. Overcompensation and Exaggerated Reactions Everywhere Overcompensation (Redundancy): When exposed to a stressor, an antifragile system doesn’t simply return to its original state—as a robust or resilient system would—but overreacts to become better and more capable of handling future stressors. Example: Post-traumatic growth; censoring something boosts its visibility; weightlifting; etc. Be antifragile, not just robust or resilient!\n3. The Cat and the Washing Machine The cat (an organic system) is antifragile because it strengthens with stress and randomness—when startled, it becomes more alert—whereas a washing machine (a mechanical system) breaks under pressure.\nTaleb criticizes the modern tendency to treat complex systems, like economies or the human body, as machines requiring rigid control, which increases their fragility.\nA bit of randomness and discomfort is necessary! Antifragile systems shouldn’t be used to avoid mood swings but only to prevent catastrophic outcomes like suicide.\n4. What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Others Stronger. The failure of one part can benefit the whole. When a fragile component collapses, it releases resources or eliminates inefficiencies, allowing the system to adapt and become more robust.\nExample: A forest fire destroys individual trees but renews the ecosystem by clearing dead material and making space for new growth, preventing larger disasters in the future.\nRisks = engines of renewal.\nChapter 2: Modernity and the Denial of Antifragility 5. The Souk and the Office Building Office Buildings: Fragile, centralized, and prone to catastrophic failures, such as terrorist attacks or power outages, due to their hierarchical structure. Souks: Represent decentralized systems with multiple access points and diffuse layouts, making them more adaptable and resistant to shocks, like localized damage. Intervention Bias: The modern tendency to create systems that, in trying to eliminate volatility and chaos, end up becoming more vulnerable to unexpected events. 6. Tell Them I Love (a Bit of) Randomness Randomness can be a stabilizing force in certain systems. This contrasts with the common view that randomness is always disruptive.\nModernity seeks control and predictability, resulting in fragile systems vulnerable to unexpected collapses.\n7. Naive Intervention Iatrogenics: Interventions, such as medical treatments or economic policies, that cause unintended harm while trying to “fix” systems. Over-intervention vs. Under-intervention: Excessive action in low-risk situations and inaction in real crises weaken systems. Complexity In Praise of Procrastination: Delaying decisions allows additional information to emerge, reducing impulsive and unnecessary interventions. This contrasts with the modern culture of immediate action. The signal is more important than the noise; more data doesn’t necessarily mean better science. 8. Prediction as a Fruit of Modernity Making predictions has an iatrogenic effect. For Taleb, the predictive method itself is flawed. The focus should be on the robustness or antifragility of systems, not on forecasting future models. The ideal world isn’t one where we get all predictions right, but where prediction errors don’t cause harm due to the robustness built into systems.\nInstead of predicting failure and the probabilities of disaster, we should focus on exposure to failure.\nChapter 3: A Non-Predictive Worldview 9. Fat Tony and the Fragilistas Fat Tony thrives in environments of uncertainty and volatility, profiting by identifying and betting against fragile systems. In contrast, Taleb presents the “fragilistas”—typically academics and policymakers—who try to control the world through theories and predictions.\nAntifragility isn’t based solely on planning or predictions but on the ability to act and adapt to uncertainty.\n10. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Seneca Seneca trained his mind to accept losses. He embraces the advantages of being wealthy and “ignores” the disadvantages, contrary to what many “stoics” preach today.\nBarbell Strategy: Allocate the majority of resources (90%) to safe options and a small fraction (10%) to high-risk investments.\n“Fragility implies having more to lose than to gain, which equals more downside than upside, which equals unfavorable asymmetry.” (p. 185) “Antifragility implies having more to gain than to lose, which equals more upside than downside, which equals favorable asymmetry.” (p. 185) 11. Never Marry a Rock Star Barbell Strategy: Extreme stability with calculated risks, avoiding the vulnerable middle ground.\nInstead of marrying a rock star (something volatile and risky), opt for a secure base (marrying an accountant) and allow small exposures to risks (flirting with the rock star). This protects against severe losses while maintaining the chance for unexpected gains.\nMixing safe investments with risky ones, keeping a stable job while exploring side projects, breaking furniture and then being rational (Greeks), having conversations with taxi drivers and scholars, etc.\nIn short, avoid the middle ground!\nChapter 4: Optionality, Technology, and the Intelligence of Antifragility 12. Thales’ Sweet Grapes Thales placed small deposits to secure the exclusive right to use local olive presses during the harvest season. Option: “The right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell.”\nAsymmetry:\nBad Scenario: If the harvest was poor, he would lose only the small deposits paid for the options. Good Scenario: If the harvest was good, he would control the presses and could rent them out at high prices.\nOptionality can be more valuable than traditional intelligence. 13. Teaching Birds to Fly Imagine elderly professors, dressed in black togas, trying to teach birds to fly through technical lectures filled with jargon and complex equations. Birds don’t need theoretical lessons to learn to fly, just as many technological innovations don’t primarily arise from academic theory.\nRandom experimentation → Heuristics (technology) → practice and learning.\nInstead of:\nAcademia → Applied Science and Technology → Practice\n“Causality is not correlation, and vice versa.” (epiphenomena) “The history of the wheel also illustrates the central point of this chapter: both governments and universities do little, very little, for innovation and discovery, precisely because, in addition to their blinding rationalism, they seek the complicated, the sensational, the noteworthy, the narrated, the scientistic, and the grandiose, rarely the small wheel on a suitcase. Simplicity, you see, doesn’t win medals.” (p. 221) 14. When Two Things Are Not the ‘Same Thing’ Knowledge we consider “essential” can be completely irrelevant to practical success.\nExample: Joe Siegel and “green wood”; despite his success, he thought the wood was painted green.\nExample 2: The world’s top expert in Swiss franc exchange rates doesn’t know where Switzerland is on a map.\nEducation doesn’t generate wealth but stems from it. It should be pursued for its own merits, not for economic gains. Innovations come from taking risks, not from research (theory vs. practice).\nTalkers are terrible at explaining narratives but excel in practice. Academics are the opposite.\n15. History Written by the Losers. “We don’t put theories into practice. We create theories from practice.” Most errors that exist and were developed over time were “empirical developments, based on trial, error, and experimentation by skilled artisans trying to improve productivity and thus the profit of their factories.”\n“Practitioners don’t write; they do. Birds fly, and those who lecture about them are the ones who write their history.” Most innovations arise unplanned and empirically.\n16. A Lesson in Disorder Ecological Domain: Represents real learning, based on direct experience with reality. Ludic Domain: Represents artificial, controlled learning detached from reality. Overprotective parenting results in fragility, not protection.\nStudy what interests you most, be self-taught, but value the boredom and difficulties to be overcome in studying and reading.\n17. Fat Tony Debates Socrates It’s not necessary to explain something to truly know it. The Socratic method “kills” functional knowledge through intimidating interrogations that make people feel foolish for following their instincts and traditions, without offering practical alternatives.\nChapter 5: The Nonlinear and the Nonlinear This chapter was skipped, as noted in the footnote on page 305: “The lay reader can skip Book V without any loss: the definition of antifragility, based on Seneca’s asymmetry, is sufficient for a literary reading of the rest of the book. Here, it’s a more technical reformulation.”\n18. On the Difference Between One Large Stone and a Thousand Pebbles 19. The Philosopher’s Stone and Its Inverse Chapter 6: Via Negativa 20. Time and Fragility Neomania: The unhealthy tendency to constantly seek the new, the modern, and the “progressive.”\nLindy Effect: For the perishable, each additional day in its life translates to a shorter additional life expectancy. For the non-perishable, each additional day may imply a longer life expectancy.\nNon-perishable: Immaterial or replicable things without physical wear, such as ideas, books, theories, cultural practices, etc.\nPerishable: Entities subject to wear, consumption, or physical obsolescence, such as food, living beings, manufactured objects, fuels, etc.\nVia Negativa: Removing harmful elements instead of always adding new components.\nExample: Knowing what doesn’t work is more robust than knowing what works.\nExample 2: Knowing what won’t exist in the future is more robust than knowing what will.\n21. Medicine, Convexity, and Opacity 1. First Principle of Iatrogenics: Empiricism\nThe natural doesn’t need to prove its efficacy, but the unnatural does. Medical intervention must be justified, not non-intervention. Avoid unnecessary treatments. 2. Nonlinearity\nThe effects of medicine are nonlinear—the response is not proportional to the dose. Iatrogenics increases convexly (at an accelerating rate) as the severity of the condition decreases. Removing the harmful is more effective than adding treatment. Intervention only when the benefits significantly outweigh the risks (near-fatal: justifiable). Nature operates through opaque processes we don’t fully understand. Act as if we don’t have the full story. Sophistication requires accepting that we’re not as sophisticated as we think. 22. Living Long, But Not Too Long Applying via negativa to health and longevity, advocating the subtraction of harmful elements like smoking, iatrogenic medical interventions, and excessive wealth to promote antifragility instead of superficial additions. Promote fasting, nutritional randomness, and acceptance of mortality.\nChapter 7: The Ethics of Fragility and Antifragility 23. Skin in the Game: Antifragility and Optionality at Others’ Expense Don’t trust those who don’t risk their own skin: opinions without personal cost generate fragility for everyone.\n24. Fitting Ethics to a Profession Emphasizes that ethics should shape professions, similar to what was proposed by the Code of Hammurabi, i.e., “skin in the game.”\nCriticizes “Big Data” for its excess noise and scarcity of signals. Above all, it proposes prioritizing antifragile systems that avoid convenient moral adaptations for personal gain, such as former public officials using their knowledge and experience at others’ expense in private companies.\n25. Conclusion “All things gain or lose from volatility. Fragility is what loses from volatility and uncertainty.”\nTables and Charts The Triad: The fundamental distinction between the Fragile (which breaks with chaos), the Robust (which resists chaos), and the Antifragile (which benefits from chaos), using the metaphors of the Sword of Damocles and the Hydra.\nTable 1: The Triad in Economics and Finance Domain Fragile Robust Antifragile Business Industry Microenterprise Artisan Finance Debt Equity capital Venture capital Finance Public debt Public debt without bailouts Absence of convertibles Economic Life Econofastro sects Entrepreneurs Finance Banks, hedge funds managed by econofastros Hedge funds (some) Hedge funds (some) Companies Efficiency, optimized Redundancy Degeneracy (functional redundancy) Economic Life Selling options Family business Buying options Financial Dependence Corporate employee, tantalized class Dentist, dermatologist, niche worker, minimum-wage worker Taxi driver, artisan, prostitute, f*** money Options Trading Selling volatility, gamma, vega Uniform volatility Buying volatility, “gamma,” “vega” Table 2: The Triad in Knowledge, Science, and Philosophy Domain Fragile Robust Antifragile Thinkers Plato, Aristotle, Averroes Early Stoics, Menodotus of Nicomedia, Popper, Burke, Wittgenstein, John Gray Roman Stoics, Nietzsche, Montaigne, young Silver, Hegel (Contradiction), Jaspers Philosophy / Science Rationalism Empiricism Skeptical empiricism, subtractive Science / Technology Directed research Opportunistic research Stochastic experimentation (antifragile experimentation or tinkering) Science Theory Phenomenology Heuristics, practical artifices Ancient Culture (Nietzsche) Apollonian Dionysian Balanced mix of Apollonian and Dionysian Ethics The weak The magnificent The strong Knowledge Explicit Tacit Tacit with convexity Epistemology True-false Sucker-non-sucker Knowledge Academia Expertise Erudition Science Evidence-based phenomenology Table 3: The Triad in Personal and Everyday Life Domain Fragile Robust Antifragile Psychological Well-being Post-traumatic stress Post-traumatic growth Human Body Softening, atrophy, “aging,” sarcopenia Mithridatization, recovery Hormesis, hypertrophy Food Food corporations Restaurants Physical Training Organized sports, gym equipment Barbell: parents’ library, street fights Medicine Via positiva—additive treatment (prescribing medication) Via negativa—subtractive treatment (eliminating consumption items, e.g., cigarettes, carbohydrates, etc.) Life and Thought Tourist, personal and intellectual Flâneur, with an immense personal library Human Relationships Friendship Kinship Attraction Characteristic The Mechanical (Non-Complex) The Organic (Complex) Maintenance/Repair Requires continuous repairs and maintenance Self-repairing Relationship with Randomness Hates randomness Loves randomness (small variations) Recovery No need for recovery Requires recovery between stressors Interdependence Little or no interdependence High degree of interdependence Effect of Stressors Stressors cause material fatigue Absence of stressors causes atrophy Aging Ages with use (natural wear) Ages with lack of use* Reaction to Impacts Undercompensates with impacts Overcompensates with impacts Effect of Time Time brings only senescence Time brings aging and senescence After reading this chapter, Frano Barović wrote to me: “Machines: use them or lose them. Organisms: use them or lose them.” Note also that everything that is alive needs stressors, but not all machines need to be left alone—an aspect we will address in our discussion of tempering.\nTable 4: Fragilizing Interventionism and Its Effects Area of Knowledge Example of Interventionism Iatrogenics / Costs Medicine, Health Excessive treatment, constant feeding, thermal stability, etc., denying the randomness of the human body, addition rather than subtraction, dependence on medications Fragility, medical errors, sicker (yet longer-living) people, richer pharmaceutical companies, antibiotic-resistant bacteria Ecology Micromanagement of forest fires Increased total risks, “large fires” more destructive Politics Central planning, U.S. support for “engaged” regimes “in the name of stability” Informational opacity, chaos after revolution Economics “No more boom-bust cycles” (Greenspan, USA); Labour (UK); Great Moderation (Bernanke); state interventionism; optimization; illusion of pricing rare events, Value at Risk methodologies, illusion of economies of scale, ignorance of second-order effects Fragility, deeper crises when they occur, support for solid corporations allied with governments, stifling of entrepreneurs, vulnerability, pseudo-efficiency, large-scale explosions Business Positive advice (what to do), focus on returns rather than risks (what to avoid) Richer charlatans, corporate bankruptcies Urbanism City planning Urban decay, decaying urban areas, residential areas in city centers, depressions, crime Forecasting Forecasting in the Black Swan Domain (Fourth Quadrant) despite a terrible track record Hidden risks (people take more risks when they have a forecast) Literature Editors trying to modify the author’s text Blander writing, in the commoditized style of the New York Times Child-Rearing Helicopter parenting, eliminating all levels of randomness from children’s lives Touristification of children’s minds Education The concept is entirely rooted in interventionism Ludification—transformation of children’s brains Technology Neomania Fragility, alienation, nerdification Media High-frequency sterile information Breakdown of the noise/signal filtering mechanism, interventionism Table 5: Ethics and the Fundamental Asymmetry DO NOT RISK THEIR OWN SKIN (Keep the upside, transfer the downside to others, hold an ace up their sleeve at others’ expense) RISK THEIR OWN SKIN (Keep their own downside, assume their own risk) RISK THEIR OWN SKIN FOR OTHERS OR PUT THEIR SOUL IN THE GAME (Assume their own downside for the sake of others or universal values) Bureaucrats Citizens Saints, knights, warriors, soldiers Empty talk (“bullshit,” in Fat Tony’s dialect) Actions, not bullshit Costly conversations Consultants, sophists Merchants, entrepreneurs Prophets, philosophers (in the pre-modern sense) Business Artisans Artists, some artisans Corporate executives (in suits and ties) Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs / innovators Theorists, data miners, observational studies Lab and field experimenters Independent scientists Centralized government City-state government Municipal government Editors Writers Great writers Journalists who “analyze” and predict Speculators Journalists who take risks and expose frauds (powerful regimes, corporations) Politicians Activists Rebels, dissidents, revolutionaries Bankers Traders (Do not engage in vulgar commerce) The fragilista Prof. Dr. Joseph Stiglitz Fat Tony Nero Tulip Risk sellers Taxpayers (put their soul in the game somewhat involuntarily, but are victims) Quotes I Highlighted During Reading: “My idea was to be rigorous in the open market. This made me focus on what an intelligent anti-student needed to be: a self-taught person—or a person of knowledge, compared to the students called, in Lebanese dialect, ‘swallowers,’ those who ‘swallow school material’ and whose knowledge comes solely from the programming of courses. I realized that the difference wasn’t in the package of what was in the official bachelor’s curriculum—content that everyone mastered, with small variations that multiplied into large discrepancies in grades—but precisely in what was outside the curriculum.”\nP. 283, Book IV\n“Their strength [academics’ strength] is extremely domain-specific, and their domain doesn’t exist outside of ludic and well-organized constructs. Indeed, their strength, just like that of hyper-specialized athletes, is the result of a deformation. I thought the same applied to people selected for trying to get high grades in a small number of subjects rather than following their curiosity: try taking them slightly away from what they studied and watch their disintegration, their loss of confidence, and their contradictions. [\u0026hellip;] I’ve debated many economists who claim to be experts in risk and probability: when they stray slightly from their narrow focus, but still within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate expression of an academic rat facing a professional hitman from organized crime.”\nP. 284, Book IV\nWhen asked for a rule about what to read: “As much as possible, the least of what was written in the last twenty years, except history books that aren’t about the last fifty years.”\nP. 383, Book VI\n“A half-man (or better, a half-person) is not someone who has no opinion; it’s just someone who doesn’t take risks for their opinion.”\nP. 438, Book VII\n“A lesson I learned from this ancestral culture was the notion of megalopsychia (a term expressed in Aristotle’s ethics), a sense of grandeur that was supplanted by the Christian value of ‘humility’. There is no word for this kind of magnanimity in Romance languages; in Arabic, it is called shhm—for which the best translation is ‘not small.’ If an individual takes risks and faces his fate with dignity, nothing he can do can make him small; if you don’t take risks, there’s nothing you can do to make yourself great, nothing. And when you take risks, insults from half-men (small men, those who don’t risk anything) are like barks from non-human animals: you can’t feel offended by a dog.”\nP. 438, Book VII\n“Verba volent, words fly. At no other time in history have people who talk a lot and do nothing been so visible and played such an important role as in modern times. This is a product of modernism and the division of tasks.”\nP. 446, Book VII\n“Think a bit deeper: the more complex the regulation, the more bureaucratic the network, and the more a regulator who knows the system’s loopholes and flaws will benefit from it later, since his advantage as a regulator would be a convex function of his differential knowledge.”\nP. 477, Book VII\n“First, the more complicated the regulation, the more prone it is to be arbitraged by people with privileged information. This is another argument in favor of heuristics. A regulation with 2300 pages—something that could be replaced by the Code of Hammurabi—will be a goldmine for ex-regulators. The incentive for a regulator is to rely on intricate legislation. Once again, those with confidential information are enemies of the less-is-more rule.”\nP. 478, Book VII\n“Distributed randomness (as opposed to the concentrated type) is a necessity, not an option: everything that is large has low volatility. And everything that is fast too. Large and fast are abominations. Modern times don’t like volatility.\nAnd the Triad gives us some clue about what should be done to live in a world whose charm comes from our inability to truly understand it.”\nP. 488, Book VII\n💬 Enjoyed the article? Leave a comment and share your opinion!\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/posts/how-to-benefit-from-chaos-notes-on-talebs-antifragile/","summary":"\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere are my notes, made after reading each book (here referred to as a chapter) and the sections contained within those books. These notes are not intended to replace reading the book, which is essential for a better understanding of the concepts, but rather aim to help readers review and complement their reading.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome notes have been supplemented with my own observations and ideas. As the book’s author himself suggested, some sections and books are intended for a non-lay audience; such sections and books were skipped in these notes, which are primarily aimed at the lay reader.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"How to Benefit from Chaos: Notes on Taleb's 'Antifragile'"},{"content":" A few days ago, I started exploring Latin a bit, and for that, I’m using Latin Grammar by Napoleão Mendes de Almeida. Upon reading the preface of the work, I was captivated by the author’s opinions and justifications for studying Latin, and I decided to compare them to the study of other subjects and education in general, as we share similar views.\nI wrote this text in a slightly different style than I’m accustomed to, as my goal here was to complement what I read and share this valuable knowledge with readers.\nHe begins by discussing three internationally renowned mathematicians who visited Brazil.\n1. The Mathematicians’ Observation: Memorization vs. Reasoning “Upon arriving in Brazil, we were amazed by the vast array of memorized mathematical formulas with which Brazilian students complete secondary education—formulas that in Italy—the three professors were chairs at different Italian faculties—are taught only in the second year of university. However, we were shocked by the poverty of reasoning, the lack of logical deduction among Brazilian students. We ask Your Excellency that, in the planned reform, less mathematics and MORE LATIN be included in secondary education, so that we can teach mathematics at the university level.”\nThis observation about the poverty of reasoning among Brazilian students was also made by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman in his work Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:\n\u0026ldquo;After much investigation, I discovered that the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what it meant.\u0026rdquo;\nHe also highlighted the lack of interaction and discussion among students, which hindered collaborative learning and deep understanding, giving way to superficial “memorization.”\n2. The Latin-Mathematics Connection and Interdisciplinarity “2 — Professor Albanese used to say—and many people are proof of this—‘Give me a good Latin student, and I will make them a great mathematician.’”\nHere is another quote that underscores the importance of interdisciplinarity.\nI believe that nowadays, we’ve reached a high level of specialization, no longer producing polymaths as in the past. Today, we produce highly intelligent individuals in extremely specific subjects. I think this is due to the compartmentalization of disciplines in universities, where you focus on a single subject throughout your master’s, doctorate, etc., without room for other equally important disciplines that are not directly related to your field of study.\n3. The Myth of Latin’s Absence in the U.S. and Political Influence “4 — It is also entirely false for educators—so-called because, amidst political struggles and ambitions, they held education portfolios or, at most, wrote books on child psychology—to say—these words were spoken at a session of the ‘guidelines and bases of education’ commission, appointed to fulfill article 5, item XV, d, of the federal constitution—‘in the United States of America, a country no one denies is at the forefront of progress, Latin is not studied.’\nFortunately, at that same meeting, the misguided claim did not go unanswered; one of the commission members was quick to respond: ‘What do you mean it’s not studied? It’s easy to prove; let’s request programs from various American institutions—various, because secondary education programming there is not uniform as in Brazil—and we’ll see the truth.’ Days and days passed, and no programs arrived; when questioned, the ‘educator’ replied that they hadn’t arrived. One day, however—whether due to someone’s oversight—the Latin advocate examined an open, forgotten drawer and found the requested programs, hidden or stored away, and in all of them, Latin was rigorously required.\nThat ‘educator’ was, at the time… president of a state section of a political party.”\nHere, we see how much our education is modeled after the American system, which John Taylor Gatto, a renowned New York teacher, proved in his book Dumbing Us Down to be flawed and riddled with serious errors, clearly observable in Brazilian education as well.\nI will write an article specifically on this topic in the future.\n4. Latin, Intellectual Development, and Student Distraction “5 — The poor Brazilian student finds no one to prove that Latin, among all disciplines, is the one that most fosters intellectual development. Perhaps they don’t even understand the meaning of ‘developing intelligence,’ such is the crudeness of their mind, preoccupied with things other than studies.\nThe habit of analysis, the spirit of observation, the education of reasoning—we, poor teachers, can hardly achieve this in a student solely concerned with grades, vacations, balls, and magazines.”\nHere, we see another point I often discuss: students’ preoccupation with things other than studies and the death of intellectualism ingrained in today’s world. I’m not saying students should only think about studies; they must engage in other activities besides studying, as these are also fundamental for intellectual excellence. However, these should not take the place of study. It’s important that study is neither neglected nor overshadowed by any of these other activities, such as magazines, balls, cell phones, and the overrated grades.\nStudents focus solely on grades because, with them, they obtain a “certificate” that they supposedly “understood” a subject and no longer need to study it. Their purpose in studying is to achieve good grades, not full understanding. I touched on this a bit in my most recent article on the burnout society, where this culture of valuing quantitative results is preached by performance subjects. Click here to read\n5. Educating vs. Teaching: The Role of the Teacher “There are many people, unaware of educational matters, who are surprised to see Latin advocated in secondary education, hardly knowing that teaching is not acting, and educating is not teaching. Teaching is giving the student independence of thought, enabling them to progress on their own: the teacher is a guide. Educating is instilling in the student the spirit of analysis, observation, and reasoning, enabling them to go beyond the mere letter of the text, the mere content of a book, encouraging and inspiring them. The educational work of the teacher lies in turning today’s student into tomorrow’s citizen.”\nI don’t think I need to say anything about this quote; it is excellent on its own and addresses the teacher’s role and the definition of educating.\n6. The Purpose of Study: Beyond Superficial Culture “Being cultured is not knowing various languages. Knowledge of English or French does not prove an individual’s culture. There are many sailors, peddlers, and gypsies for whom half a dozen languages are familiar, yet they possess no culture.\nLatin is not studied to be spoken. It is studied to sharpen the intellect, to become more observant, to improve the power of mental concentration, to compel attention, to develop the spirit of analysis, to accustom oneself to calm and deliberation—qualities indispensable to the scientist. That is why the student studies this language.”\nMany wish to study and become intellectuals solely to gain fame and prestige. That is not what study should be for, as the author states in the quote about Latin, which also applies to study in general and what learning should serve. Don’t study to be seen as someone who studies; study to elevate your soul and wisdom to levels never seen before.\n7. The Shallowness of the Current Generation and the Lack of Thinking Habits “7 — Many wonder about the reason for the shallowness, frivolity, and intellectual barrenness of today’s youth. It’s because, having learned to read through the analytical method, so practical and easy, the student believes that a discipline that doesn’t involve practice and ease of learning is of no use, only boredom and a waste of time. Accustomed to assimilating everything easily in primary school, the student stumbles in secondary school with the obligation to think, and they find it strange, they falter, and they rebel. The child who was first in the class in primary school drops to a lower rank in secondary school; a loss of intelligence, a difference in age? No: a lack of the habit of thinking. The student who was fifth or tenth in primary school rises to the top ranks in secondary school; a gain in intelligence? Also no: slower, steadier thinking surpasses colleagues with a livelier intellect, lively only for objective and evident things.\nReasoning is, starting from known, different ideas, arriving at a third, unknown one, and Latin, when studied with method, calm, and deliberation, is the greatest factor in sharpening the student’s reasoning power, making their conclusions clearer and firmer.”\nThe reason for the shallowness of today’s youth. A spot-on diagnosis, where students think that ease of learning equates to quality of learning. On the contrary, reasoning demands effort, time, and thought.\n8. Political Ignorance about Education and Culture “8 — What is certain, absolutely certain, is that some people who represent us in Congress do not know what education or culture is. A recent incident proves it.”\nOn the importance of electing good political representatives, or else we can forget hopes for better education.\n9. The Transformative Effect of Latin (and Study) “The question is not what the boys will do with Latin, but what Latin will do for the boys: The question is not what your boy will do with Latin, but what Latin will do for your boy, said Senator Arnold with the calm, innate good sense of his people.”\nIt’s not what students will do with study, but what study will do for the students.\n10. Avoiding Sterile Erudition “‘For us,’ said the eminent educator Father Augusto Magne, ‘what matters in Latin is its literature, its spirit-forming virtue. Diverting the study of Latin to specialization in trivial matters of reconstructed pronunciation is to distort that discipline and strip it of its formative power, falling into pompous, pretentious, and sterile erudition.’”\nFinally, we must not divert study to “specialization in trivial matters of pronunciation” or, in other words, superficial things. Do not allow the discipline to be distorted and erudition to become pompous, pretentious, and sterile.\nSapere aude.\nBibliography Feynman, R. P. (1985). Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (R. Leighton, Ed.). Editora da Universidade de Brasília. GATTO, John Taylor. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. Translated by Leonardo Araujo. Campinas, SP: Kírion, 2019. 136 p. ISBN 978-85-94090-30-0. ALMEIDA, Napoleão Mendes de. Latin Grammar: A Complete and Unique Course. 29th ed., 4th printing. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2004. 💬 Enjoyed the article? Leave a comment and share your opinion!\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/posts/reflections-on-the-preface-of-napoleao-mendes-de-almeida-latin-reasoning-and-the-crisis-in-education/","summary":"\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few days ago, I started exploring Latin a bit, and for that, I’m using \u003cem\u003eLatin Grammar by Napoleão Mendes de Almeida\u003c/em\u003e. Upon reading the preface of the work, I was captivated by the author’s opinions and justifications for studying Latin, and I decided to compare them to the study of other subjects and education in general, as we share similar views.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI wrote this text in a slightly different style than I’m accustomed to, as my goal here was to complement what I read and share this valuable knowledge with readers.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reflections on Napoleão Mendes de Almeida's Preface: Latin, Reasoning, and the Crisis in Education"},{"content":" When was the last time you felt exhausted? It was probably recently, and it likely wasn’t just a one-time occurrence in the past few weeks. If you stop to observe, we’re all like this. This doesn’t seem like a healthy kind of tiredness, the kind that a weekend of rest can fix, but rather an “infinite tiredness.” You try to rest, but you can’t.\nFortunately, the South Korean philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han attempted to unravel the origins of this chronic fatigue in his work The Burnout Society. I’ll use it as the basis for this article, but I’ll also try to add some concepts and insights I gained while reading his book.\nThe Great Shift - From Discipline to Performance In his work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault introduces the concept of the “disciplinary society.” According to him, this society is a new way of organizing the social body and exercising power that became dominant in Western Europe roughly between the 17th and 18th centuries, consolidating in the 19th century. It represents a fundamental shift from previous forms of power, such as the sovereign power of the monarch, which was primarily expressed through spectacular physical punishment (torture and public executions, for example).\nIn contrast, disciplinary power is subtler, more pervasive, and productive. Its goal is not so much to punish the body but to train it, shape it, optimize it, and make it docile and useful. It operates through a set of techniques and institutions aimed at controlling individuals in detail, in space and time.\n\u0026ldquo;It is not that the disciplinary mode of power replaced all others; rather, it infiltrated them, sometimes disqualifying them or converging with them [\u0026hellip;] The formation of the disciplinary society refers to a number of broad historical processes within which it is inscribed: economic, juridical-political, scientific.\u0026rdquo; (Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1987, p. 177-178)\nThe performance society (Leistungsgesellschaft) is the dominant social form today (late 20th and early 21st centuries), which succeeded the disciplinary society. If the disciplinary society was characterized by negativity (prohibitions, duties, the “you cannot”), the performance society is marked by an excess of positivity (the “yes, we can!”, initiative, motivation, the project).\nThe subject of this society is no longer Foucault’s “subject of obedience,” shaped by external institutions, but the彼此\nSystem: the “subject of performance” (Leistungssubjekt). They perceive themselves as free, autonomous, and responsible for their own success. They are not coerced by an external force to work or behave in a certain way; they self-motivate, self-optimize, and self-exploit, believing they are realizing their potential. The pressure no longer comes from outside (the boss, the teacher) but from within (the need to perform, to be better, to achieve more). There’s no gun pointed at us forcing us to do anything—only the one we project onto ourselves.\n\u0026ldquo;Foucault’s disciplinary society, made up of hospitals, asylums, prisons, barracks, and factories, is no longer today’s society. It has long been replaced by another society, namely a society of fitness studios, office buildings, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. The 21st-century society is no longer a disciplinary society but a performance society.\u0026rdquo; (Han, B.-C. The Burnout Society. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2015, p. 25)\nThe Subject of Performance You’re probably starting to identify as a “subject of performance,” but hold on, there’s much more to come…\nExistentialism This excess of positivity isn’t entirely new for the subject of performance; we can compare it to the radical freedom of existentialism, particularly that of Jean-Paul Sartre. For existentialists like Sartre, freedom is the fundamental condition of being human. We have no predefined essence or nature determined by God or biology (“existence precedes essence”). We are radically free to choose who we will be through our actions.\nBut this excessive freedom comes at a price: anguish. It’s not light or easy; it’s a heavy burden. We are “condemned to be free”. This means we are completely responsible for our choices and for creating our own destiny in an indifferent world. There’s no divine grace coming to save us; only we can save ourselves, only if we do enough.\nOne might think that Sartre’s radical freedom is the same as that offered by the performance society: “you can do anything.” However, there’s a crucial difference. Sartre’s freedom, though anguishing, is a call to authentically create oneself in a world without divine guarantees—hence the anguish of total responsibility. In contrast, the “freedom” of the performance society, the “you can do anything,” doesn’t generate the anguish of choosing who to be but rather the pressure and exhaustion of having to perform incessantly. The responsibility here isn’t about creating meaning but about optimizing performance. Both leave us “without divine grace,” alone, but while Sartre confronts us with the void of choice, Han shows us crushed by the fullness of the infinite possibility of doing more.\nThis pressure for performance, this internalized responsibility for success (or failure), is reflected daily in our culture.\nReflection in Today’s World Perhaps this is one of the thousands of challenges the subject of performance faces daily. As subjects of performance, we can do whatever we want; we have no limits. We see science and technology achieving increasingly incredible feats that we once thought impossible, influencers and billionaires getting richer, geniuses becoming smarter, and so on. We get the impression that if they succeeded, we can too. That it’s all a matter of wanting and doing. We’re not at their level only because of our own fault, because we didn’t work hard enough, didn’t study enough, or, in short: didn’t try hard enough.\nFrom this point, we acquire the “class” of both Master and Slave simultaneously. We judge our own abilities, habits, achievements, and so forth.\n\u0026ldquo;The excess of work and performance escalates into self-exploitation. This is more efficient than exploitation by others because it goes hand in hand with the feeling of freedom. The exploiter is simultaneously the exploited. [\u0026hellip;] The performance society is a society of self-exploitation.\u0026rdquo; (Ibid., p. 28)\nWe see ourselves as entirely individual (individual sovereignty), able to pursue whatever we want, whenever we want. We lose the notion that others are extremely important to us. Our friendships become merely utilitarian; we compete for attention as the currency of our self-esteem. We stop seeing others as friends and companions and instead view them as adversaries in an endless marathon. We start friendships based on “what can you offer me?” We completely lose our emotional sensitivity, becoming productive machines.\nSocial Media Here, social media plays a fundamental role in fueling these comparisons. When we look at our Instagram feed, we practically only see attempts to achieve perfection. Everyone has the perfect body, the perfect spouse, the perfect child, the perfect job. You’re the only one still facing problems at home and work.\nIt’s impossible not to compare ourselves to these “fake” people. And once again, we’re not like them only because we don’t do enough. We close our eyes to everything else and focus only on the results, believing it all depends solely on us.\nPeople are defined by their achievements, and we compare ourselves to them. We can’t show our weaknesses at any cost; that’s something only “losers” do, something we are not. This is why communities and genuine communion, where people share the same ideas and struggles, are lacking. Without them, serious psychological issues arise, such as depression, anxiety, burnout, and more.\nIf you want to dive deeper into this topic, I recommend the documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix.\nNietzsche and the Tyranny of Reason In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche fiercely attacks the idols (revered values and ideas) of Western philosophy and morality. One of his targets is the overvaluation of reason, consciousness, and logic, which he associates primarily with Socrates and Plato.\nFor Nietzsche, this primacy of reason over instincts, vital impulses, the body, and emotions is not a sign of progress but of decadence. Yet, our current society sees it as progress. How many times have we, or seen others, denied the body, ignored the signals it sends us, in favor of something more “productive”?\nThis, in itself, already implies a logical flaw, as our body requires balance, especially between Reason and Emotion. As long as one is overvalued, we won’t act appropriately, since, for example, this tyranny of reason can lead to resentment against life, to nihilism. But if the subject of performance prioritizes performance above all, shouldn’t they know that as long as they remain a “rational machine,” they won’t achieve fulfillment? What we see is the opposite: we don’t give due value to emotion, to the body.\n\u0026ldquo;Having to fight instincts—that is the formula for decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.\u0026rdquo; (Nietzsche, F. Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006, § “The Problem of Socrates,” 11.)\nWe start to see productivity as the meaning of life, valuing quantity of work over quality (another logical flaw). As Nietzsche points out, this denial of instincts and the body in favor of reason focused solely on production manifests starkly in how modern humans deal (or rather, fail to deal) with fundamental human needs. We’ve lost the capacity for genuine rest and even contemplative boredom.\nIf you’re interested in this topic, I have another article written specifically about this book by Nietzsche, where I draw an existentialist parallel between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Click here to read.\nThe Performance Society in Education Finally, we’ll analyze the impacts on schools and universities before moving to possible solutions. First, I’d like to share some quotes from two scientists and geniuses I greatly admire, Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman:\n\u0026ldquo;The school failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, especially sports. Because of this, I wasn’t worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave. It was a Catholic school in Munich. I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being stifled by my teachers; grades were their only measure. How can a teacher understand youth with such a system? From the age of twelve, I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers.\u0026rdquo; — Albert Einstein\n“The power of education in general is hardly effective, except in those happy occasions when it is almost superfluous.” — Edward Gibbon, quoted by Feynman in Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher (1995)\nI believe it’s already clear that the current goal of education is largely to deliver diplomas and ensure students achieve good grades. The love for knowledge is no longer encouraged but discouraged, as most students see studying as a punishment rather than a pleasure. Is this our goal?\nThe pressure for grades, rankings, extracurricular activities “for the resume,” and the internalization of the idea that value lies in measurable results turn students into subjects of performance.\nA global study by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment revealed that 56% of Brazilian students surveyed are among the most stressed during their studies. When it comes to test anxiety, Brazilian students rank second out of 180 countries, according to Ferraz Júnior in an article in Jornal da USP.\nBut it’s not too late; there are still solutions for the “subject of performance.”\nPossible Solutions As expected, there are no quick and easy solutions. This culture has permeated many spheres of our society, meaning that even if you fix one, another will still hinder you. So, when we can’t easily change the external environment, we turn to internal changes, such as proper rest.\nNo Rest for the Wicked I mentioned at the start of the article that when you try to rest, you often can’t. The reason for this is that you don’t know how to rest properly. A study by the World Sleep Society indicates that sleep problems constitute a global epidemic threatening the health and quality of life of up to 45% of the world’s population.\nIn his book Why We Sleep, neuroscientist Matthew Walker states: “The decimation of sleep in industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our well-being, even the safety and education of our children. It’s a silent epidemic of sleep loss.”\nI won’t delve into the exact causes of why we sleep so poorly; let’s focus only on how to sleep better. Fortunately, Walker provides some tips for improving sleep in an appendix titled “Twelve Tips for Healthy Sleep.” Here they are:\nRegularity: Go to bed and wake up at the same times every day, including weekends. He emphasizes the importance of this for regulating the biological clock. Temperature: Keep the room cool, as a slight drop in body temperature helps initiate sleep. Darkness: Ensure the room is as dark as possible. Avoid Alcohol and Caffeine: Especially close to bedtime. He explains how alcohol fragments sleep and caffeine blocks drowsiness signals. Don’t Stay in Bed Awake: If you can’t sleep after about 20 minutes, get up and do something relaxing elsewhere until you feel sleepy again, to avoid associating the bed with frustration. Relaxing Routine: Create a calming pre-sleep ritual (reading a physical book, taking a warm bath, meditating), avoiding bright screens. Physical Exercise: Exercise regularly, but avoid intense activities close to bedtime. Sunlight: Expose yourself to natural light in the morning to help regulate the circadian cycle. Additionally, engaging in regular physical activity and avoiding prolonged use of phones, TVs, etc., can aid rest.\nAn interesting point is that Nietzsche tells us that after the “death” of God, we began to worship health: “we praise health—‘we found happiness,’ say the last men and blink” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 5th section, vol. 1, p. 14). Just look at the crowded gyms and the booming wellness industry, yet we still fail at basic health aspects like sleep.\nI believe that while the rise of psychology has made us look inward more, we haven’t reflected enough on ourselves and other things; we lack quietude, boredom, and contemplation.\nThe Forgotten Importance of Boredom It may seem strange at first, but boredom and contemplation are essential in our daily lives. The problem is that we’re always trying to escape them; we can’t stand being alone with ourselves anymore. Neuroscience has explored what happens in the brain during periods of “doing nothing,” boredom, or mental wandering (mind-wandering). Often, this is linked to the activation of the Default Mode Network (DMN).\nWhen our mind isn’t focused on a specific external task, the DMN becomes more active. This network is associated with self-reflection, thinking about the future, retrieving memories, and, crucially, combining ideas in new ways, which can foster creativity. Boredom can be a trigger for activating this network. Suggested reading: Bored and Brilliant: How Time Spent Doing Nothing Changes Everything - Manoush Zomorodi.\nNeuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang argues that mental downtime is not idleness. It’s during these periods of apparent rest and internal reflection that the brain consolidates learning, builds personal meaning, and develops a sense of self. Constant external stimulation hinders these crucial processes.\nThis isn’t exclusive to modern science. For example, Nietzsche wrote: “Only thoughts that come to us while walking are valuable.” Beyond the German philosopher, Eastern philosophies and Buddhist traditions have much to teach us on this topic.\nFirst, the practice of mindfulness (full attention) teaches us to observe mental states—including boredom, restlessness, or calm—without judgment and without the immediate need to “escape” them, recognizing boredom as a passing experience rather than a problem to be solved. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks extensively about the importance of quietude for listening to ourselves and the world: “In silence, we can hear ourselves. But often, we fear silence, filling our lives with noise and activity to avoid facing what’s inside us.”\nMany Buddhist traditions emphasize the importance of contemplation (analytical or simply quiet) as a means to develop prajna (wisdom, discernment) about the nature of reality, impermanence, and the workings of the mind. This requires deliberately setting aside time for quietude and internal inquiry, in contrast to constant action. Alan Watts, a philosopher I greatly admire, says:\n\u0026ldquo;A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, they lose touch with reality and live in a world of illusion.\u0026rdquo;\nThe performance society values constant mental activity. Watts argued that this incessant thinking disconnects us from the direct experience of life. Contemplation and even “boredom” (seen as an absence of goal-directed thought) can be antidotes, allowing a return to the present reality.\nConclusion I began by discussing the universal feeling of tiredness, introduced Han as the diagnostician of this condition, explored the shift from the disciplinary society to the performance society, delved into the characteristics of the subject of performance, and discussed the crucial importance of rest and boredom. Now, it’s time for the conclusion, right?\nTiredness is not (just) an individual failure but a profound symptom of the “Performance Society.” Given this scenario, the question remains: what to do?\nEscaping the logic of performance entirely may seem impossible, but perhaps the key lies in reflection and self-analysis, as illustrated by a story about the Buddha. “The Buddha asked a king’s wife who was dearest to her, and though the king expected himself as the answer, she said: myself.” This wasn’t said in a narcissistic sense but rather that she cares for herself. Perhaps this is one of the things we lack most these days.\nThis genuine self-analysis and self-care, as suggested in the Buddha’s story, are the opposite of the cruel logic the performance society can impose on us. After all, without it, we may fall into the following logic: since we are defective tools, what do we do with defective tools that can’t be repaired? We throw them away.\nThroughout history, many philosophers faced extreme torment, such as imprisonment, torture, and execution. If you read their writings, they say almost the same thing: “They can do whatever they want with my body, but they’ll never reach my mind.” They saw the mind as their last refuge. But if Han is right, this is no longer the case for us. The performance culture already controls our bodies and, above all, our minds, depriving us of deep relaxation.\nBibliography FOUCAULT, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Raquel Ramalhete. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1987. (Original title: Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, 1975). HAN, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Translated by Enio Paulo Giachini. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2015. (Original title: Müdigkeitsgesellschaft, 2010). NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Translated, notes, and afterword by Paulo César de Souza. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006. § “The Problem of Socrates,” 11. HERMANNS, William. Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man. Boston: Branden Publishing Company, 1983. FEYNMAN, Richard P. Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. FERRAZ JUNIOR. Mental health of Brazilian students is compromised. Jornal da USP, São Paulo, 04 Oct. 2017. Available at: https://jornal.usp.br/atualidades/saude-mental-dos-estudantes-brasileiros-esta-comprometida/. Accessed on: 20 Apr. 2025. WORLD SLEEP SOCIETY. [Consult informational materials or press releases available on the official website, e.g., related to World Sleep Day]. Available at: https://worldsleepsociety.org/. Accessed on: 19 Apr. 2025. WALKER, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. Translated by Cássio de Arantes Leite. Rio de Janeiro: Intrínseca, 2018. (Original title: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, 2017). NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW). Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1967ff. Division V, Volume 1, Page 14. IMMORDINO-YANG, Mary Helen; CHRISTODOULOU, Joanna A.; PURI, Varsha. Rest Is Not Idleness: Implications of the Brain’s Default Mode for Human Development and Education. Perspectives on Psychological Science, v. 7, n. 4, p. 352-364, Jul. 2012. DOI: 10.1177/1745691612447308. (Note: This is an academic article, but the central idea is highly relevant.) NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. Translated, notes, and afterword by Paulo César de Souza. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006. § “Maxims and Arrows,” 34. NHAT HANH, Thich. Silence: The Power of Quiet in a Noisy World. Translated by Mirtes Frange de Oliveira Pinheiro. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2015. DALAI LAMA; CUTLER, Howard C. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. Translated by Beth Vieira, Aulyde Soares Rodrigues. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2000. WATTS, Alan W. The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. Translated by Waldéa Barcellos. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1973. 💬 Enjoyed the article? Leave a comment and share your opinion!\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/posts/why-are-we-always-tired-hans-diagnosis/","summary":"\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen was the last time you felt exhausted? It was probably recently, and it likely wasn’t just a one-time occurrence in the past few weeks. If you stop to observe, we’re all like this. This doesn’t seem like a healthy kind of tiredness, the kind that a weekend of rest can fix, but rather an “infinite tiredness.” You try to rest, but you can’t.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFortunately, the South Korean philosopher and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han attempted to unravel the origins of this chronic fatigue in his work \u003cem\u003eThe Burnout Society\u003c/em\u003e. I’ll use it as the basis for this article, but I’ll also try to add some concepts and insights I gained while reading his book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Why Are We Always Tired: Han's Diagnosis"},{"content":" Is reason truly superior to emotion? Should we always prioritize reason? Many philosophers and writers have debated these questions, but today we will focus specifically on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), through their works Twilight of the Idols (Nietzsche) and Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky). Before diving into the works themselves, I feel obliged to provide a brief introduction to each author.\nFriedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) In essence, Nietzsche challenged traditional morality, declared the “death of God,” and advocated for the creation of new values through the will to power. The goal here is not to provide a biography of him, so I will focus only on why we should study him and what he meant by his famous phrase “God is dead.”\nWhy Study Nietzsche? Nietzsche is a somewhat peculiar and controversial philosopher for expressing his views against religion and other popular beliefs and elements. However, regardless of one’s stance on his opinions and works, he is a classic, and no one becomes a classic by chance.\nFirst, his works and philosophy are fundamental to understanding contemporary philosophy; without him, you’d struggle to comprehend our modern world. Additionally, one of the works discussed in this article (Twilight of the Idols) is excellent for philosophy beginners, as he is a compelling writer, addresses highly relevant topics, and his books are relatively short. Finally, he is extremely relevant to our current cultural and global context.\n“God is dead, and we have killed him” This idea was written by Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but what does it really mean? It does not refer directly to the “person” of God but to the values and morality associated with religion.\nWhat the author seeks to convey is that in the past, particularly during the Middle Ages, humanity was deeply religious, with everything tied to the church and God—He was “alive” back then. Today, the idea of God is losing strength, whether due to scientific advancements or various other reasons.\nIt’s worth noting that Nietzsche does not say this in a celebratory tone, as, like it or not, religion and its values are not entirely bad and play a certain role in society. He also does not claim that by “replacing” God with science we are better off than before; according to him, both are problematic.\nFyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) Dostoevsky is renowned for exploring the complexity of the human soul, morality, and religion in works like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. You’ve likely heard of him, as his works are “trending” on some social media platforms.\nWhy Study Dostoevsky? I dare say that, with each passing day, Dostoevsky and his ideas become increasingly important and relevant to the contemporary world. His works explore themes such as existentialism and the human condition, morality and ethics, suffering and redemption, alienation and society, and more.\nHis writings have become crucial for understanding the dilemmas many of us face, such as identity crises, moral conflicts, and the search for meaning.\nAs if that weren’t enough, he is famous for anticipating psychoanalytic concepts and depth psychology due to the psychological depth of his characters and his narrative style, which employs inner monologues, stream of consciousness, non-linear structures, and narrative complexity.\n“Dostoevsky is the only psychologist from whom I have something to learn” Believe it or not, this phrase was written by Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols.\nAlthough they never met in person, Nietzsche paid considerable attention to Dostoevsky, recognizing in him a profound understanding of the human condition. However, this admiration came with significant philosophical criticisms and divergences.\nNietzsche viewed Christian morality, to which the Russian writer adhered, as an expression of “slave morality,” which he considered limiting and contrary to the flourishing of the strong, autonomous individual. We will explore his criticisms of religion further in the section on Twilight of the Idols, where you can draw your own conclusions.\nTwilight of the Idols The last book written by Nietzsche while still lucid, it aims to present the main ideas of his philosophy. It also goes by the title How to Philosophize with a Hammer, which should not be misunderstood. Early in the work, the author explains the intended meaning of “hammer,” likening it to a tuning fork (a metallic instrument used to identify whether something is hollow—or false, in his philosophy—or not), allowing one to discover whether the “idols” are real or false. An interesting fact about the use of the hammer is that Nietzsche notes the more “hollow” a god is, the more “faithful” followers it may have, regardless of how unreal it is.\nThe title is inspired by a work by his friend Wagner, where “Twilight” refers to an end, and “idols” (notably the same term used in the Old Testament of the Bible for false gods or entities, i.e., beyond the “true” Judeo-Christian God) refers to religious or metaphysical elements.\nChapter II: “The Problem of Socrates” Nietzsche criticizes Socrates and his dialectic for valuing reason above all else and practically abandoning the real value of human senses and instincts. I know this may seem strange at first, as we live in a culture heavily influenced by post-Socratic Greek philosophy, but trust me, it will all make sense in the end!\nBefore Socrates, the Greeks still valued beauty, the senses, and human instincts; they did not suppress feelings in favor of reason but recognized their importance and naturalness in humanity. They understood that humans were not rational, as later post-Socratic philosophers would claim.\nNietzsche says that Socrates was ugly, a “monster,” and that even foreigners remarked on this, though his friends, accustomed to his appearance, found such comments outrageous; even Socrates himself admitted it. Thus, as a form of revenge, or “ressentiment” as Nietzsche calls it, he created the dialectic, introducing the use of reason.\nThe author claims that the dialectic is the last line of defense, used only when no other options remain. For example, Nietzsche suggests that Socrates, aware of his physical limitations and the hostility he faced, used the dialectic to overcome these disadvantages and assert himself intellectually. Instead of relying on strength or traditional status, he turned to the power of logical argumentation to gain influence and respect.\nBut what’s wrong with prioritizing reason above all else? Isn’t that correct? Not exactly, Nietzsche tells us that reason is not everything in life. What Socrates, the Stoics, religious figures, and practically all post-Socratic philosophers preached is that we must suppress the “flesh,” that we should not give way to our instincts and emotions and instead seek rationality.\nBut there’s a problem: humans do not have such power of self-control. Thus, they “swallow” their desires, emotions, instincts, and senses until, eventually, they explode. And what results from this? Domestic violence, rapes, murders, road rage, and so on. All these suppressed senses will, sooner or later, resurface.\nHowever, Nietzsche is not saying we should do everything we want or feel like doing. Instead, we should not control our senses so much; we need a proper way to mitigate them, not simply suppress them. We must know the right place, time, and way to express them. The author uses art as an example to “discharge” accumulated emotions and desires. He also notes that those who absorb or “swallow” their senses and emotions are, in fact, physiologically ill (e.g., depressives).\nChapter IV: “How the ‘True World’ Finally Became a Fable” In this chapter, the author divides his argument into six numbered paragraphs, with parenthetical remarks at the end, comparing them to the process of a new day dawning.\nHe begins by criticizing the idea of the “World of Ideas,” primarily developed by Plato. But what exactly is this? The World of Ideas claims that the world we live in is false and that there exists another world where everything is true. According to Plato, everything is first created in the “World of Ideas,” and we only see the shadow of the truth, not the truth itself. Nietzsche argues that this is all a lie and that the idea of the “World of Ideas” is incompatible with a democratic world or with Nietzsche’s conception of truth.\nThe Christian heaven can also be understood as a “World of Ideas,” as to reach it, you must follow a series of dogmas and precepts in this “false and fleeting” world, and the same applies outside of religion.\nIn the first aphorism of the chapter, Nietzsche refers to the “World of Ideas” as something attainable by the wise, the devout, and the virtuous. In other words, to reach the “truth,” you must do and dedicate yourself to a series of things that, by being considered the only truth, are not democratic, as in a democracy, everyone would have equal rights and thus valid opinions and conceptions of truth.\nFor Nietzsche, truth is perspectival, meaning everyone has their own. Some call this relativism, but it’s not, as relativism requires a true and false dichotomy, and Nietzsche suggests things are not quite that way. Read what he says in the final aphorism of the chapter:\n“6. We have abolished the true world: what world remains? The apparent one, perhaps? No! With the true world, we have also abolished the apparent world!\n(Noon; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the long error; zenith of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA [Zarathustra begins])”\nWhat he means in this aphorism is that by abolishing the idea of the World of Ideas (the “true” world), we also abolish the apparent world (the supposedly false one). Thus, the conception of true and false, established by Plato, must be abolished for Nietzsche as it is a kind of illusion.\nFor example: if the Church or Christianity were to end, so too would the ideas of sin, hell, heaven, etc. In fact, for Nietzsche, these shouldn’t even be promised, but they are.\nNotes from Underground Introduction If Nietzsche criticizes the excess of rationality in Western philosophy, Dostoevsky, in turn, presents a character who illustrates the consequences of this excessive rationalism in everyday life.\nConsidered by many as a precursor to existentialism—a philosophy concerned with the anguish of existence, the human experience, and a constant sense of confusion—Notes from Underground is composed of two parts and is a book against rationalism. The first part (Underground) is densely philosophical, while the second part (Apropos of the Wet Snow) is more narrative, as if it were a practical application of the theory presented in the first part.\nThe protagonist, whose name is never revealed, is a former Russian civil servant living off a small inheritance, sufficient for survival but not luxurious. He narrates his memories at age 40, recalling episodes from his youth.\nPart 1 The underground man begins the work by saying he is wicked, unpleasant, and suffers from liver issues. He is deeply dissatisfied with his life, declares himself somewhat solitary, yet still writes about his memories. His life is recalled with bitterness, and at times he feels superior to his readers, who are nothing more than assumptions, as if they were his audience.\nOne of his main characteristics is his tendency to turn everything into a paradox. For example, he says he writes for no one but has an audience, claims to be superior to others but occasionally belittles himself.\nThe historical context of this work is 19th-century Russia, where a book titled What Is to Be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, which set standards for building a rational, equitable society where each person acts in their own interest while sharing with others, had been published. Upon reading it, Dostoevsky felt the author was naive, observing that, contrary to Chernyshevsky’s claim that “the struggle to maximize pleasure and minimize pain is what drives humans,” or as if the most irrational aspects of humanity could be caged and educated, he believed there is a dimension to humans that is not, above all, “a piano key.” Even if placed on a piano keyboard, humans would, in one way or another, rebel, whether in defense of their freedom or by self-mutilation to affirm they are alive beyond a “mathematical calculation.” This is precisely why the underground man self-affirms and is paradoxical. He tells us that human history is anything but reasonable, that it is a bloodbath, where he identifies a tendency for the outpouring or “ejaculation” of violence, of one’s own character, of individual will. Even if he might deny these claims in the future, what matters is that this will is his own and not dictated by an exact calculation.\nHe is sometimes referred to as an advocate of barbarism, irrationalism, and humanity’s most morbid tendencies, but that’s not our focus here. What he shows us is the difficulty in creating a society based on new principles of “equality, freedom, and fraternity” as envisioned by those revolutionary thinkers. He polemicizes this to say that any society created must include some kind of “escape valve” for humans to express themselves, or else, if there were strict regulation and a demand to sacrifice one’s personality for the collective, determined not by all of us but only by the rulers, it could lead to profound authoritarianism, as there would be a vast distance between the individual and the collective civilization seeks to build.\nPart 2 Titled Apropos of the Wet Snow, this part includes episodes from his youth, exemplifying what was written in the first part. As he recounts these stories, it becomes clear that he has been ruminating on them for 20 years and that he even tried to be a man of action in them, including efforts to join a group.\nHe divides people into “men of action” and “intelligent men” (the group he identifies with). The man of action does what needs to be done, is practical, functions well in society, but is also a perfect factory pawn. This is not his case, as he is the man who thinks, who analyzes everything around him, but his situation, especially financial, limits him and makes him not want to do anything. As a Russian, he also feels superior to other nationalities around him, part of the culture of that era.\nThe first story he tells is about how he got into trouble just to feel something. For example, one night, while leaving his house, wandering the streets to indulge in his debaucheries, he passes by a man who is thrown out of a window. He immediately thinks how wonderful it would be to be thrown out of a window and tries, unsuccessfully, to achieve this. Then he tells of a young man he disliked and begins to follow him, finding out where he lives, where he goes, etc. He often imagines the moment he will provoke and get beaten by him, but nothing actually happens.\nThe second story recounts how he invites himself to a friend’s house. Upon arriving, he notices other guests are there, planning a celebration for another friend who is not present. These friends all met in school, where they studied together, and the young man for whom the party is being planned is someone the underground man detests simply because he is very handsome, full of friends, pleasant, but had never done anything wrong to our character. He promptly invites himself to the party, contributing money he doesn’t even have, hoping others will recognize his “superiority,” when, in reality, his presence is insignificant. At some point, he’s there and wonders if this is companionship for him, then begins to regret it and feel superior again.\nIn the third story, while indulging in his debaucheries, he is attended by a young woman, Liza, to whom he speaks some harsh truths, “destroying” her.\nAll this anguish, he tried to silence with reading. He says we all have an underground man within us; the challenge is controlling it. The problem is that his underground took over his life, and he settled into this state. “The girl is crafted as an heir to the Christian virtues Dostoevsky identified in simple people, in contrast to the moral nihilism he accuses the educated classes of embracing […] This trait makes her the only truly positive figure in the story, making it easy to see her as a kind of moral and spiritual antipode to the underground man.” (Villaça, 2021).\nBeware of Misinterpretations As presented in Davi Villaça’s article (2021), misinterpretations are often made when reading this book. The first is that “These are not just Dostoevsky’s words: they are the words of a third-person narrator who only appears at the end of the story,” particularly evident in the novel’s closing, where “The final words of the novel state that the narrator’s story continues beyond what is recorded.” Additionally, the narrator’s word is life itself in progress, in its incompleteness. It’s also important to distinguish between Dostoevsky and the Underground Man, the book’s narrator. “The warning that the narrator is not a direct and simple expression of the author can set us on the right path but does little to unravel the tangle of problems the character himself represents.” (Villaça, 2021).\nThe Parallel Itself + Conclusion You may not have noticed, but there are similarities between what Nietzsche says in Twilight of the Idols and what Dostoevsky depicts in Notes from Underground. Let’s try to understand what the authors were trying to tell us.\nThe Transvaluation of Values Just as Nietzsche warns, Dostoevsky illustrates the loss of certain values with the Underground Man. “And since this situation is tied precisely to a process of modernization and the loss of traditional values—exactly what Dostoevsky aimed to critique in the educated segment of society—we can say that the underground man’s narrative is a search for the roots of his own uprooting.” (Villaça, 2021), much like Nietzsche’s phrase “God is dead,” explained earlier in this article.\nThe Problem of Socrates and the Underground Man You may not recall, but Nietzsche made some criticisms of Socrates that we can also identify in the Underground Man. To start, he said Socrates had poor physical characteristics and sometimes used “reason” to feel superior to others, who likely envied him, though we don’t know for sure. Similarly, the Underground Man uses his “intelligence” to stand out from others, as if he were someone separate from society, someone special.\nHowever, they don’t only share similarities but also differences. Because the Underground Man is so contradictory and paradoxical, he feels superior to others, like Socrates, but does not value reason as much as the Greek philosopher did. “Reason, gentlemen, is a fine thing, no doubt, but reason is only reason and satisfies only the rational capacity of man, whereas the act of willing is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the entire human life, including reason and all its scratching. And though our life, in this manifestation, often turns out to be rather vile, it is still life and not just the extraction of a square root. For example, I naturally want to live to satisfy my entire capacity for life, not just my rational capacity, which is about one-twentieth of my capacity to live. What does reason know? Only what it has had time to learn (and some things, perhaps, it will never learn; though this is no consolation, why not express it?), whereas human nature acts in its entirety, with everything it contains, conscious and unconscious, and though it lies, it lives.” (Villaça, 2021).\nDostoevsky likely shared some of this view, as “For Dostoevsky, reason is just one of the functions of human life, and therefore it cannot present or understand the whole of life.” (Villaça, 2021).\nThe Suppression of Human Characteristics and Instincts Another point in Nietzsche’s critique is the suppression of human instincts, leading individuals to seek ways to relieve them. Similarly, Dostoevsky’s character shows this tendency. “In a categorical refutation of that writer’s assumptions and conclusions, the underground man exposes what he believes are some original and irreducible human traits: the inclination toward immorality, the desire to pursue a goal but not to achieve it, the attachment to notions of personality and freedom—in the name of which a man may, just to assert his individual will, renounce well-being, tranquility, and any other ‘advantages’ that a utopia like Chernyshevsky’s would offer him. Dostoevsky, evidently, agrees with his character’s critiques.” (Villaça, 2021).\nThe End of the Fable and the Ideal Society Finally, we can draw an analogy between the “True World,” i.e., Plato’s World of Ideas, which Nietzsche “refuted,” and the ideal society Dostoevsky fights against, as proposed by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Just as the World of Ideas is neither real nor possible, the ideal society based on “freedom, equality, and fraternity” would also be impossible, for the reasons already discussed in the Notes from Underground section of this article.\nConclusion What can we conclude from all this? That we should neither overvalue reason nor undervalue it. We must seek balance to avoid becoming a “Socrates” or letting our underground take over our lives. Additionally, we must always strive to preserve our freedom and not allow governments or rulers to treat us like “piano keys,” as, as we’ve seen, this could eventually lead to authoritarianism.\nIf we reject both extreme rationalism and unrestrained surrender to instincts, how can we find balance in contemporary society?\nNow, a meme to lighten the mood 😂\nReferences FELTRIN, Tatiana. Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky) 🇷🇺 | Tatiana Feltrin. YouTube, 2021. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wgry2nbxew. Accessed on: 30 Jan. 2025. DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Translated by Boris Schnaiderman. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2000. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. Translated by Paulo César de Souza. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006. VILLAÇA, Davi Lopes. Notes from Underground: Interpretive Problems. Revista Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, v. 12, n. 20, p. 1-42, Dec. 2021. VASSOLER, Flávio Ricardo. Vassoler’s Review: Notes from Underground | Dostoevsky | Part I. YouTube, 2023. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgnDyBEu4X0. Accessed on: 29 Jan. 2025. CHERNYSHEVSKY, Nikolai. What Is to Be Done? Translated by Angelo Segrillo. São Paulo: Prismas, 2015. 💬 Enjoyed the article? Leave a comment and share your opinion!\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/posts/a-parallel-between-nietzsche-and-dostoevsky/","summary":"\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIs reason truly superior to emotion? Should we always prioritize reason? Many philosophers and writers have debated these questions, but today we will focus specifically on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), through their works \u003cem\u003eTwilight of the Idols\u003c/em\u003e (Nietzsche) and \u003cem\u003eNotes from Underground\u003c/em\u003e (Dostoevsky). Before diving into the works themselves, I feel obliged to provide a brief introduction to each author.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"friedrich-nietzsche-18441900\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFriedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn essence, Nietzsche challenged traditional morality, declared the “death of God,” and advocated for the creation of new values through the will to power. The goal here is not to provide a biography of him, so I will focus only on why we should study him and what he meant by his famous phrase “God is dead.”\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Parallel Between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky"},{"content":"For some time now, I’ve noticed a growing wave of digital influencers focused on the literary niche. Typically, the books they recommend are popular, easily digestible works that lack deep content—what some call “fast-food” literature. But is reading these books alone enough? Is reading any book truly better than reading none? To answer these questions, we turn to a field of study that is gaining relevance every day: neuroscience.\nGeneral Benefits of Reading Virtually any type of reading is sufficient to activate brain regions related to language, memory, and imagination. This process strengthens neural connections and promotes the mechanism that allows the brain to “self-modify,” known as neuroplasticity (Izquierdo, 2006).\nAdditionally, a 2018 study by Kourkouta \u0026amp; Vakalopoulou demonstrated that reading significantly reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Other benefits include vocabulary expansion (Huettig \u0026amp; Pickering, 2019) and improved sleep quality—especially when reading physical books, in contrast to the melatonin-suppressing blue light emitted by digital devices (Chang et al., 2015).\nThe Role of Entertainment Reading (\u0026ldquo;Fast-Food\u0026rdquo; Books) Popular fiction and entertainment books serve a specific neurological function: they activate the Default Mode Network (DMN). This network is often associated with the mental simulation of experiences and the enhancement of empathy. fMRI studies show that reading imaginative narratives increases activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a region linked to generating alternative scenarios and creativity (Mar et al., 2006).\nMoreover, reading lighter narratives tends to reduce activity in the amygdala—a structure fundamental to emotional regulation—promoting measurable mental relaxation (Erk et al., 2010).\nComplexity and Critical Thinking When we engage with complex texts, such as classic literature or philosophical works, the cognitive demand shifts. These readings require robust integration between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (responsible for analysis) and the inferior frontal gyrus (involved in semantic processing). This intense activity enhances critical thinking and reflective capacity (Kidd \u0026amp; Castano, 2013).\nPhilosophical texts, specifically, promote the formation of chunks in working memory, forcing the brain to reorganize complex information into meaningful blocks, a vital exercise for higher cognition (Baddeley \u0026amp; Hitch, 1974).\nNeurological Distinctions by Genre Neuroscience points to clear distinctions in how different types of text are processed:\nLiterary Fiction: Activates the superior temporal sulcus, crucial for social inferences and Theory of Mind (Mar et al., 2006). Non-Fiction: Strengthens the left angular gyrus, associated with the integration of factual information and technical learning (Gabriel et al., 2016). Digital/Rapid Reading: Tends to reduce activation of the ventral temporal cortex, essential for deep comprehension (Wolf, 2018). In contrast, the \u0026ldquo;slow reading\u0026rdquo; of classics increases cortical thickness in the occipito-temporal cortex, refining linguistic processing (Dehaene, 2009).\nCognitive Reserve and Longevity Avid readers develop a structural advantage: up to 15% more connections in the white matter, creating a “cognitive reserve” that protects the brain against aging (Shafto et al., 2014). Longitudinal studies, such as Wilson et al. (2013), show that elderly people who read weekly have a 32% lower risk of developing dementia.\nMore recently, a study published in Nature Mental Health (Bartrés-Faz et al., 2024) revealed that adults with high engagement in purposeful reading—such as philosophy—have a thicker prefrontal cortex, a strong indicator of brain health.\nConclusion The relationship between the content we consume and the neurological benefits is complex and multifaceted. Reading for entertainment brings emotional gains and relaxation via the anterior insula (Erk et al., 2010), while deep works stimulate critical thinking and ethics through the anterior cingulate cortex (Gabriel et al., 2016).\nThe answer, therefore, lies in balance. Combining fiction (for empathy) and dense non-fiction (for analysis) enhances the connectivity of the corpus callosum, integrating the hemispheres and resulting in a more versatile and resilient brain. Reading any book is valid, but varying the cognitive diet is what ensures complete intellectual health.\nReferences Baddeley, A. D., \u0026amp; Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 8, 47–89. Bartrés-Faz, D., et al. (2024). Psychological profiles and brain health in aging. Nature Mental Health, 2(1), 45–58. Chang, A. M., et al. (2015). Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep. PNAS, 112(4), 1232–1237. Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain: The science and evolution of a human invention. Viking. Erk, S., et al. (2010). Cognitive emotion regulation in major depression. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(47), 15726–15734. Gabriel, R., et al. (2016). The cognitive benefits of reading literature. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(8), 585–587. Huettig, F., \u0026amp; Pickering, M. J. (2019). Literacy advantages beyond reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(6), 464–475. Izquierdo, I. (2006). Memory. Artmed. Kidd, D. C., \u0026amp; Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342(6156), 377–380. Mar, R. A., et al. (2006). Bookworms versus nerds. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(5), 694–712. Shafto, M. A., et al. (2014). The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN). BMC Neurology, 14(1), 204. Wilson, R. S., et al. (2013). Life-span cognitive activity, neuropathologic burden, and cognitive aging. Neurology, 81(4), 314–321. Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, come home: The reading brain in a digital world. HarperCollins. 💬 Enjoyed the article? Leave a comment and share your opinion!\n","permalink":"https://fariablog.com/en/posts/reading-any-book-is-better-than-reading-none/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor some time now, I’ve noticed a growing wave of digital influencers focused on the literary niche. Typically, the books they recommend are popular, easily digestible works that lack deep content—what some call “fast-food” literature. But is reading these books alone enough? Is reading any book truly better than reading none? To answer these questions, we turn to a field of study that is gaining relevance every day: neuroscience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"general-benefits-of-reading\"\u003eGeneral Benefits of Reading\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVirtually any type of reading is sufficient to activate brain regions related to language, memory, and imagination. This process strengthens neural connections and promotes the mechanism that allows the brain to “self-modify,” known as neuroplasticity (Izquierdo, 2006).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Is Reading Any Book Better Than Reading None?"}]