Maxims for a happy life

Maxims and arrows Go Premium A hearty collection of the JC’s pithiest adages. Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Maxim Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

Maxims for a happy life.

Don’t be giddy

• This time isn’t different. The laws of physics, finance and economics still apply. Even with blockchain. Just as they did in the dot com boom and the global financial crisis.
• Be skeptical. The internet has vouchsafed the ability, to every man, woman and child, to publish whatever pops into their heads to the world. see? Look? I am doing it now. There is no bullshit filter anymore. Assume everything you hear and read is nonsense until you have good reason to believe that contrary. The more recent it is, the more likely it is to be bullshit, since natural selection hasn’t had a chance to weed out the weaklings: valuable statements tend to better survive scrutiny. Not always, of course. See: Disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.
• The Dead Poets’ Society Rule: There’s no machine for judging poetry.
• It’s okay to generalise, but beware of shorthand: Experts use heuristics to exploit knowledge they gave already acquired. Charlatans use heuristics instead of it. See: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
• Talk is cheap: Judge people by what they do, not what they say.

Contrarianism

• Be a contrarian. But be prepared to stand in the cold. It’s lonely being a contrarian. If you challenge a popular, bad idea that happens to be liberal that doesn’t make you a conservative, or vice versa. Just ask Helen Pluckrose or Kathleen Stock. Be prepared to walk a lonely path: be wary of the company of those who happen to be aligned against whoever you’re challenging.
• Don’t join in. From the pages of the contrarian handbook. It’s okay not to be joiner-inner. It's best not to be a joiner-inner. If you’re the guy from BlackRock who didn’t post an #iam message ... good for you. That took a ton more courage.
• Disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.
• Be suspicious of svengalis. Especially svengalis with their own svengalis. People who are at the top of their field are as likely there by luck has got judgement. By all means by the products, but why buy the philosophy of a guy who may well just have fluked it. See also: don’t listen to rock stars when they talk about economics. Would you listen to economists when they talk about rock music?

Harden up

• The glass is half full. Always. Whoever you are, wherever you are. If you have the time, resources and cognitive ability to read this diatribe, you’re one of the lucky ones. For Christ’s sake, buck up.
• Don’t be a victim. Own your predicament, don’t whine about it. If you can’t be the predator at least don’t be prey. See also: don’t talk your own book.
• If you’re a man, be masculine. Don’t apologise for who you are. Be a hero, do not wear a cape. Be like Zelensky. (Be a hero; substance. Wearing a cape: form.)
• Don’t be needy. Walk up escalators. Give up your seat. See: You’re one of the lucky ones.
• Don’t be easily shocked: it’s called “the shock of the new” for a reason. Shock value isn’t the same as stock value. The longer something’s been around, the more crap it has put up with, and the more likely it is to be worthwhile. See: disdain fashionable things. Especially ideas.
• It’s just a game: If you derive a significant part of your self-worth from the fortunes of a dozen well-paid men you’ve never met and over whom you have no influence, ask yourself this: is that all there is? is something missing in your life?
• It’s okay to generalise. It’s okay to stereotype. That’s how humans work. We apply heuristics. Just be aware that you’re doing it. Sometimes, generalisations are unfair. Some fail. All are provisional. It’s okay for others to stereotype you too. Deal with it: it’s not like you can stop them.

People are arseholes

• It’s not just “not all heroes wear capes”. Heroes don’t wear capes. Arseholes wear capes.
• Pray for peace. Prepare for survival. From the military school of life. Expect people to be jerks, and you won’t be so upset about it. People are jerks.

The good stuff

• Make gradual changes in direction, but lock them in. There is an optimal degree of variability. If you vary to much, you’ll change away the good stuff. A 5% change is less volatile, more sustainable, more controllable than a 50% change, and you can tack back if you change away from some good stuff. It is safer. It is wiser. See evolution.
• Be provisional. Iterate. be prepared to change your mind. In a complex environment make decisions based on what you know but be prepared to change them as what you know changes. Avoid making irreversible decisions. See: don’t judge.
• The out-sized risks and rewards are not at the top of the curve. They are down the tail.

The good stuff isn’t always obvious till later.

• Rome wasn’t built in a day - but it was built.
• Pass the ball

Don’t be that guy

• Do your talking on the pitch. And leave it there.
• Stay on your feet. Don’t dive. Ever. Even in the penalty box.
• Don’t be that guy.
• Let it go. In the immortal words of the East-Enders script-writing collective, “LEAVE IT, PHIL. HE’S NOT WORTH IT.”
• Don’t judge. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
• Don’t talk your own book.

You

• Seize the day. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it.
• Harden up. Sticks and stones.
• Be careful in what you wish for - on this score, if you want to get to the Olympics, take up curling.
• Wing it. It will be fine. You will figure it out. Over planning anything is the lawyers folly, and cut you off from serendipitous opportunity. You make a much better decision on the spot in right of circumstances than you can possibly do in abstract in advance.

What you’ve got. Be additive

• Do it properly. Build for the long term. The lesson of Worcester: if you make it easy, you will attract the mediocre and encourage them to be lazy. If you do it properly, it will stand for 1,000 years and still take the breath away.
• Don’t be selfish.
• Learn how to speak in public
• Learn how to write beautifully. If you have to communicate dry or technical material, all the more reason to write as elegantly as you can.
• Give it away. Give freely of what you have and know, to those who need it. Intellectual property is for those heroes in their capes.
• Use your resources. You can’t take it with you.
• Be useful.
• Coin metaphors. Be figurative.
• Be good company. You only have four score and seven on this planet, so for Christ’s sake try and enjoy them. Don’t talk about yourself all the time, and certainly don’t go on about your problems. Sub-maxim: Seek out good company. Don’t waste your time on whiners. Tell jokes. About yourself.
• Be on the first lift, not in the last bar. Sure: it’s ski chat. If you think skiing is for wankers, you’re being that guy.

Confidence

• Back yourself.
• There are other fish in the sea.
• Leave it on the pitch, not the table. (see do your talking on the pitch.)

Mental space

• Go off the grid — sometimes.
• Smell the roses. Take pleasure in beauty. Stop what you’re doing and drink it in. Enjoy what nature — and humans — let you have for free. Admire a wood in autumn.
• "Gee, I wish I spent more time in the office," said NO ONE IN HISTORY. Okay, okay — until coronavirus.
• Celebrate your mental resilience. Convey it. (See: harden up.) Do not broadcast mental fragility. Solve other people’s problems; don’t expect other people to solve yours. (See: be additive.)

Learn

• Be open-minded. Never stop learning.
• Find a different way home.
• Write the music you want to hear.

Your nose

• If he gets up your nose, it’s your problem.
• If he gets up your nose, he’s probably got a point. Even Nigel Farage.

Simplify

• Eschew contraptions: don't buy a machine to do something you can do perfectly well yourself. It will break. And closing curtains is good exercise.

Others

• Don’t be intimidated: they’re more scared than you are.
• First question: cui bono?
• Assume they’re talking their own book until you know otherwise. Value people who don’t.
• Insiders have an interest in making what they do seem hard.
• Challenge. Require an explanation. What a professional can’t explain, she doesn’t understand. If she can’t explain it, but she does it anyway, it’s probably bullshit. Most complicated things are bullshit.
• Leave something on the table. Don’t be too careful in your accounting. The unsettled account is a feature of an infinite game. Mutual indebtedness is a good thing. Be in others’ debt, and let them be in yours.

The team

• Disregard rank. Seniors must earn your respect. You must earn it from juniors.
• Your team. They get the credit. You take the responsibility. Deal with underperformance privately: that’s your job. Never sell out your team.

Disobey stupid rules

• Walk on the grass. Fuck ’em.

Complexity and order

• Simplify. The Devil is the detail.
• Perfection is the enemy of good enough.
• It’ll do.

• Don’t serve coffee in a glass