At a certain point, having less becomes more. But is it? In a world of limitless choice, making decisions is time-consuming and exhausting. Some of us think the more options, the better. “The greatest – and most robust – contribution to knowledge consists in removing what we think is wrong – subtractive epistemology,” Taleb writes.Ĭonsider the amount of choice we have today. Via Negativa is a concept that argues in favor of the latter. But we don’t remember the decisions we didn’t make. When we examine where we are with our lives, we often acknowledge the decisions we made. Post-traumatic growth bears close resemblance to the idea of character built through experience. A championship group uses that defeat to fuel its motivation for next time. It’s when harmful events in someone’s life spur improvement.įor example, think of a basketball team that loses a critical game at the buzzer. Well, post-traumatic growth is the opposite. Most of you reading are familiar with the idea of post-traumatic stress. “This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing – and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness,” Taleb writes. But embracing randomness is better than fighting it. We tend to emphasize the negative impact of randomness and disregard the positive. Your fit friend, unlike the glass vase, is antifragile. The stress from a workout might make his body sore, but it doesn’t kill him either. Now think of a friend who exercises daily. Drop it from ten feet, and it shatters into a hundred pieces. What does it mean to be antifragile? Let’s start with something that’s not. But the challenge was well worth the effort. Taleb’s writing style is verbose and sometimes took a few rereads to comprehend. This was one of the most challenging books I read. ![]() That is one of many concepts Nassim Taleb outlines in Antifragile. ![]() Randomness, in that context, doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? But what if the opposite is also true? What if you could experience something that transforms your life for the better? The idea that a single event could wreak havoc on it isn’t a fun feeling. ![]() For many of us, the random nature of life is unsettling.
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