I was teaching my dog to bark less, and I worried a bit that it might make him sit silently when I actually want him to bark, like if a stranger was coming through the window.
After a ton of training I realized he will never stop barking, he can realize that what he is doing is not right, but the urge to bark at every noise he hears will always be something we have to work on. We will never get it "right".
I think Ben Franklins strict rules are the same way. Obviously you can't run your entire life with military discipline, but you have to set the ideal fairly high because you are going to fall short over and over.
Fair critique, we should never lose the spirit of play, but Franklin’s guidance seems very much in line with a quote from Gustave Flaubert I often see echoed:
> Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work
Genuine question: if you could tell Ben Franklin this, would you? I'm not even disagreeing with you, nor do I think there is a correct answer, but your answer and the reasoning behind it would genuinely interest me.
while I like redhatting as much as anyone the interesting wrinkle to this criticism of franklin in particular is that this is much more like the way he actually lived than the principles he listed were. in fact, I dare say the only thing he missed on this list was making up for the non-existent sobriety of his youth.
"Franklin did not try to work on them all at once. Instead, he worked on only one each week "leaving all others to their ordinary chance." While he did not adhere completely to the enumerated virtues, and by his own admission he fell short of them many times, he believed the attempt made him a better man, contributing greatly to his success and happiness, which is why in his autobiography, he devoted more pages to this plan than to any other single point and wrote, "I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit."
> TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
"Not to elevation"? Let me direct you to the Finnish language. It contains two tightly related concepts: "nousuhumala" (ascending alcohol buzz) and the subsequent & corresponding "laskuhumala" (descending alcohol buzz).
If you recall the course of an evening of overindulgence, you may notice that these two concepts do describe the terrain.
AIUI these are from his autobiography, which he wrote during the last 20 years of his life. I wonder if he wrote this section before his decade in France? As I understand it, while there, he very intentionally led a life with little temperance, silence, frugality, moderation, and chastity.
One of my greatest pleasures has been orienting my life toward projects and away from pleasures. I now find myself doing a lot of what other people consider work, but self-directed and self-paced in a way that brings me incredible, deep satisfaction. No one, including me, forces me to do these things. I do them because I like doing them. Bodybuilding, maintaining my home, lawn and garden, cooking/brewing/fermenting, building software. I'm not an extraordinarily wealthy man but if I woke up tomorrow with "comfortably live the rest of your life based on interest alone" money I don't suspect my life would change all that much.
Once you're doing that sort of work, the meaning of this rule will become clear as will its meaninglessness.
Some of my most stressful times at work have been when I had the least stuff to do. It's nice for a few days, but when it stretches into weeks I start feeling queasy.
Obviously, being buried under an avalanche of thankless work is just as bad.
My ideal life would be some sprints of large effort (maybe pulling the occasional all-nighter once in a while), followed by rest / low work times.
A constant amount of work, all the same, blurs the days together. Too little, and you start feeling useless. Too much (consistently) and you're overwhelmed.
If these are in priority order, sure. If not, it's 0.9909% of the rules of living.
That Machiavelli quote is a poor take on love as part of life, I agree.
In defense of TFA though, it is titled rules of effective living, not necessarily happy living.
The rules on avoiding cruel people and who treat others badly are kind of like an anti-rule that works here though: if you're judicious and conscientious about that, I think you just end up with loving people around you, in every type of relationship: acquaintance, familial, friendship, intimate...
this feels like another person who sits by himself thinking about things that sound wise to him. he operates on the assumption that he is wise because wise sounding things sound wise to him, and also that those things are wise because they sound wise to him and he is wise. they're great for books, blogs and other one-way forms of communication where their entire job is just satisfying fridge logic so that the audience upvotes and moves along. not so much for dialogue and discussion that will eventually sort every point into buckets labelled "meaningless" or "self-evident". it's the tobacconist's yoga: a contortionate attempt to blow smoke up one's own ass unassisted.
We all know what you should do, be doing, and not do. Of course, we should do our job earnestly and enthusiastically, love our families to death, and protect the weak and help the poor. All in this ethereal world in which there are no trade-offs, good and evil are separated like the ocean and the mountain, and somebody, up there, is looking pensively at our actions.
But the wise person, after reading a few inspirational books and slogans for the masses, gets annoyed at the simplistic "just be kind" that means nothing when out of context, of tough decisions to make, of mornings when everybody and everything annoy them. And so they decide to go back to looking at actions, that words are fleeting, but examples are lasting.
I like how these kind of lists get us talking and thinking about our own experiences. What do you agree with, not agree with?
“Those who bill by the hour work not for you but for the hour.” Strikes me as cynical. Yes some people can run up the clock, but paying by the hour is also fundamentally the most fair work arrangement. You are asking for someone’s time, you pay for that time.
Flat rate work gets into their own issues. For example, suppose you want your home deep cleaned and someone charges you $x to do so. A great deal!
Except you find after the fact they missed a lot of stuff. Technically they followed through on the letter of what you agreed to but they did the bare minimum. There’s no pride in the work. If you had paid by the hour, you could’ve asked them to stay and focus on some areas that matter more to you.
Or conversely, there’s lots of horror stories here about devs accepting flat rate work and getting endlessly dragged thru change requests
>I like how these kind of lists get us talking and thinking about our own experiences. What do you agree with, not agree with?
I panned this list in a different comment but I like it a lot better from this perspective. It's not necessarily there to be right. Sometimes it's there to say things to which your immediate response is "That's bullshit" but in a way that forces you to articulate why, or (and this is even better) to admit that you can't. Like when I read Heinlein.
I bill by the hour, but in chunks (20, 40, etc). I do discovery, define scope and that I determine scope, then work on narrow scoped thing. (Hard part) document each ECR, set scope and communicate price. Likely to next billed-task. Kinda combines fixed&hourly; not perfect.
If point 2 is something so subjective as "deal plainly", point 0 should probably be "be honest with yourself". More to the point—why would anyone want to do otherwise? The hard part is satisfying your own evaluation.
> 4) There exists uncanny congruity between thought and experience.
Charitably, there must be a more effective way to articulate this sentiment.
I could go on, but that seems sufficient to address the overall tone of the writing.
EDIT: I apologize for being so critical. These are clearly well-thought-out points and I'm not trying to detract from that. I'm just not sure how to process someone else's internal understanding of themselves in a generally useful manner.
Yeah, I just realized there are two very different ways to parse the statement. I initially saw it as "Experiences shape thoughts in predictable ways." But the other way to interpret it is "Attitude shapes experiences in predictable ways."
Readit News
TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
---
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
After a ton of training I realized he will never stop barking, he can realize that what he is doing is not right, but the urge to bark at every noise he hears will always be something we have to work on. We will never get it "right".
I think Ben Franklins strict rules are the same way. Obviously you can't run your entire life with military discipline, but you have to set the ideal fairly high because you are going to fall short over and over.
> Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work
https://www.poetry.com/poem/141551/warning
(When I am an old woman, I will annotate other people's comments, With inapposite quibbling or info they already know ...)
[0] https://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/page38.htm
"Not to elevation"? Let me direct you to the Finnish language. It contains two tightly related concepts: "nousuhumala" (ascending alcohol buzz) and the subsequent & corresponding "laskuhumala" (descending alcohol buzz).
If you recall the course of an evening of overindulgence, you may notice that these two concepts do describe the terrain.
Dead Comment
I cannot overstate how absolutely hollow it must be that work is your #1 rule of living
The next saddest thing is that the only mention of love is a fucking Machiavelli quote
One of my greatest pleasures has been orienting my life toward projects and away from pleasures. I now find myself doing a lot of what other people consider work, but self-directed and self-paced in a way that brings me incredible, deep satisfaction. No one, including me, forces me to do these things. I do them because I like doing them. Bodybuilding, maintaining my home, lawn and garden, cooking/brewing/fermenting, building software. I'm not an extraordinarily wealthy man but if I woke up tomorrow with "comfortably live the rest of your life based on interest alone" money I don't suspect my life would change all that much.
Once you're doing that sort of work, the meaning of this rule will become clear as will its meaninglessness.
Obviously, being buried under an avalanche of thankless work is just as bad.
My ideal life would be some sprints of large effort (maybe pulling the occasional all-nighter once in a while), followed by rest / low work times.
A constant amount of work, all the same, blurs the days together. Too little, and you start feeling useless. Too much (consistently) and you're overwhelmed.
That Machiavelli quote is a poor take on love as part of life, I agree.
In defense of TFA though, it is titled rules of effective living, not necessarily happy living.
The rules on avoiding cruel people and who treat others badly are kind of like an anti-rule that works here though: if you're judicious and conscientious about that, I think you just end up with loving people around you, in every type of relationship: acquaintance, familial, friendship, intimate...
Deleted Comment
This is one of the worst rules I have ever read. Taken literally it can squander a life otherwise well lived.
I was treated disrespectfully at a restaurant recently.
I do not plan on returning there ever.
This bit me.
I work for a disrespectful person.
It is awful.
Dead Comment
But the wise person, after reading a few inspirational books and slogans for the masses, gets annoyed at the simplistic "just be kind" that means nothing when out of context, of tough decisions to make, of mornings when everybody and everything annoy them. And so they decide to go back to looking at actions, that words are fleeting, but examples are lasting.
“Those who bill by the hour work not for you but for the hour.” Strikes me as cynical. Yes some people can run up the clock, but paying by the hour is also fundamentally the most fair work arrangement. You are asking for someone’s time, you pay for that time.
Flat rate work gets into their own issues. For example, suppose you want your home deep cleaned and someone charges you $x to do so. A great deal!
Except you find after the fact they missed a lot of stuff. Technically they followed through on the letter of what you agreed to but they did the bare minimum. There’s no pride in the work. If you had paid by the hour, you could’ve asked them to stay and focus on some areas that matter more to you.
Or conversely, there’s lots of horror stories here about devs accepting flat rate work and getting endlessly dragged thru change requests
I panned this list in a different comment but I like it a lot better from this perspective. It's not necessarily there to be right. Sometimes it's there to say things to which your immediate response is "That's bullshit" but in a way that forces you to articulate why, or (and this is even better) to admit that you can't. Like when I read Heinlein.
> 4) There exists uncanny congruity between thought and experience.
Charitably, there must be a more effective way to articulate this sentiment.
I could go on, but that seems sufficient to address the overall tone of the writing.
EDIT: I apologize for being so critical. These are clearly well-thought-out points and I'm not trying to detract from that. I'm just not sure how to process someone else's internal understanding of themselves in a generally useful manner.
lying to yourself is sometimes a easy way out of cognitive dissonance
20) Get away from cruel people—at all costs.
58) “If we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” (Machiavelli)
This is simply a self-help back-of-the-book quotes compilation.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
far simpler rules have been laid out numerous times in the classics.
such as: the golden rule of ethics, ie, dont do unto others what you dont want done to you, and the serenity prayer etc.