Epictetus, Willful blindness, Empathy vs. Sympathy and much more

7 min readFeb 20, 2022

Ruggets #11

💡

📪 Hello again, your Sunday read is here.

As always, I will make sure that there is not a second wasted here. Before we continue, I am adding and deleting some parts of my post structure, so if you ever want to share your thoughts and/or suggestions for me please leave a comment, shoot me an email, or a DM on LinkedIn.

🐦2 Tweet Thread:

First one is a grand vision on what future of education looks like.

“Subjects will cross-pollinate. Academia is fragmented. Departments are sorted into distinct subjects with very little overlap. But the Internet is multi-disciplinary by nature. Unconstrained by the divisions of academia, teachers will create their own disciplines of study.”
“Students will become producers. The pure sit-back-and-listen style of modern education needs to go. Students will learn by building and creating things. Every student now has a smartphone in their pocket with an HD camera and the ability to reach anybody on planet earth.

Second one is about willful blindness, or you might say a combination of confirmation bias and availability bias.

“Willful blindness is a cognitive bias that explains ‘the deliberate avoidance of knowledge of the facts.’”
Questions are your weapons to fight against your own biases, here are additional questions for you to think about while trying to solve a problem. These questions come from the book “The Book of Beautiful Questions”
How can I see this with fresh eyes?
What might I be assuming?
Am I rushing to judgment?
What am I missing?
What matters most?

📘 1 Book:

Coaching Habit

Below are the 5 most important takeaways from the book.

1 — The importance of questions

In the introduction part author states that, the road to big discoveries goes through good questions. So whenever you feel like you have discovered something, actually you have found a new way to look at the problem and ask more creative questions.

What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question.

2 — Avoid from either/or choices

Researchers found that decisions made from binary choices had a failure rate greater than 50 percent. Having at least one more option lowered the failure rate down to about 30 percent

Below are the 5 most important takeaways from the book.

3 — Do not ask questions with Why, always use What.

Stick to questions starting with “What” and avoid questions starting with “Why.” You are not trying to put blame on someone, you are here to help.

4 — Make a Vow

Promise some dear ones that you are going to achieve something. You and your brain are much more resilient once you give your word to your loved ones.

One of the laws of change: As soon as you try something new, you’ll get resistance.

5 — Seven questions to keep in mind

Here is a mindmap summary of the book, only available for the subscribers.

Every year Jason Kottke shares what strange things he learned in that year. This year’s learnings are as much fun as the previous ones.

Second article comes from the modern Stoic master, Ryan Holiday. He collects 100 rules for a life. If you need some rules or philosophy to get your shit together, this might help.

Deliberately think about death. Every day, multiple times a day.
Do the verb, rather than being the noun.
The present is enough.
Don’t try to beat other people, try to be the only one doing what you’re doing (“Competition is for losers”)
Before starting any project, have a “draw-down period.”

📝 2 Articles:

Every year Jason Kottke shares what strange things he learned in that year. This year’s learnings are as much fun as the previous ones.

“The last time ships got stuck in the Suez Canal [in 1967], they were there for eight years and developed a separate society with its own Olympic Games”
“In the past 45 years, the top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90%.”
“It takes about 200 hours of investment in the space of a few months to move a stranger into being a good friend.”

Second article comes from the modern Stoic master, Ryan Holiday. He collects 100 rules for a life. If you need some rules or philosophy to get your shit together, this might help.

Deliberately think about death. Every day, multiple times a day.
Do the verb, rather than being the noun.
The present is enough.
Don’t try to beat other people, try to be the only one doing what you’re doing (“Competition is for losers”)
Before starting any project, have a “draw-down period.”

📺 1 Video:

This week’s video is a little short but long enough.

Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection.
Sympathy : to suffer with someone
Caring without personal experience of their issues.
Empathy : to be in someone’s suffering
Four qualities of empathy :
Perspective-taking
Staying out of judgement
Recognizing emotion of other people
Communicating that emotion
Never start your empathetic response with “at least” If your friend is telling you I am alone, do not say “at least you are beautiful. That is not relevant to the topic.
If you are hearing something really bad, just try to say “I do not know how bad it must hurt, I am glad you told me.”
Responses do not make us better, connection makes.

📽️ 1 SERIES / FILM or DOCUMENTARY:

No, I hate musicals. That was the first sentence I mumbled when I found this movie. It is indeed very difficult to put together a musical. It is almost impossible to achieve the fine quality without boring the audience and without interrupting the story. One evening when we couldn’t find an alternative to do, we decided on Tick Tick Boom as a result of long research. I’ve had an incredible amount of respect for the lead actor, Andrew Garfield, ever since Hacksaw Ridge, and it just got even bigger with this movie. I leave the poster and imdb link below without giving any spoilers. Available on Netflix.

You just keep throwing them against the wall, and hoping against hope that eventually, something sticks.

I would say put this song on repeat already. You will put it after the movie is over anyway.

Cages or wings

Which do you prefer?

Ask the birds

Fear or love, baby

Don’t say the answer

Actions speak louder than words.

Louder than Words, JONATHON LARSON

📜 2 Quotes:

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.
— ERNESTINE ULMER
At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what
we have done.
— THOMAS À KEMPIS

✨ 1 Poem:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

All the World's a Stage  — William Shakespeare

📼 1 Playlist:

Actually, this playlist would be based on the songs played from the record/turntable. This is where its name comes from. While I was searching for record songs and adding them to my playlist, Spotify’s algorithm did not let go of me and started suggesting great things.

I don’t know if it happens to you too, every time I watch a movie, my desire to return/escape to the past rises. 1960–1970 America, early 1900’s Paris, maybe somewhere else. As if I did not belong where I am, as if I would be happy wherever I am not.

Heh, this playlist is just for that desire. If you want to escape from the moment, join the playlist. But remember, the present is not fulfilling, because life is not fulfilling. Ahoy master Woody.

The song of the week:

Have you ever said that if I could sing, I would sing exactly like this man? That man is Chet Baker for me. He is not in a hurry, he does not shout, he has something to say and you have to listen to him. He uses all the notes and instruments that will soften your soul. He processes the sounds one by one in your ear. It creates harmony, harmony for your chaotic inner world, troubled outer world. No, what happened to my soul you think while listening? I am not in a love pain ? Do not try to fight back, it is Chet’s effect, you are perfectly put in sweet pain without realizing and you enjoy the pain. RIP master.

Until next time,

Forward, always.

Ratip.

Originally published at https://ruggets.substack.com on February 20, 2022.