Guide
Whoever can't kill me will only make me stronger.
- Nietzsche
Our lives are inevitably full of stress, chaos, uncertainty, especially in the current world. But just as human bones get stronger under pressure, there are always people who grow up in such inevitable fluctuations, benefit from the pressure of setbacks, survive and prosper in chaos.
Taleb coined the term "antifragility" specifically for such people and wrote Antifragility – Benefiting from Uncertainty. He paints an illuminating account of what kind of people thrive and benefit from uncertain, fluctuating, and even "black swan" events? And what are the ways to improve a person's ability to "fight vulnerability"?
We have compiled Taleb's "Anti-Fragility", extracted some of the content from the book, and shared it with you. At the end of the article, there are sharing activities, and participating in the message will have the opportunity to get a copy of "Anti-Fragility"
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▲ Text excerpt from "Anti-Fragility"
01
Noise, pressure,
Can it improve anti-fragility?
What exactly does "antifragility" mean? "Antifragility" is actually the opposite of "fragility", vulnerability is because of fluctuations and uncertainty and losses, and anti-fragility allows itself to avoid these losses, and even to grow and profit.
For example, everyone has their own psychological comfort zone, and stress and change will break through the psychological boundaries of the comfort zone we have built ourselves, making you feel unrestrained and anxious.
The larger and more flexible the boundaries of a person's comfort zone, the more they have the ability to be anti-fragile, which is also a process of continuous growth.
Under what circumstances will the "anti-fragility" force be better exerted and enhanced?
❍ Good horses race with bad horses, eventually running slower and slower, while racing against better opponents will become more and more courageous and win the championship in one fell swoop. Stressors, anti-toxic excitatory effects, and a lack of challenges can all lead to inadequate stress responses, which reduces the level of optimal performance.
❍ When I was still working as a trader on an exchange (that is, a crazy person standing in a crowded market in a continuous auction, shouting and screaming), I realized that the volume size was the opposite of the order of transactions: like the mafia boss, the most taciturn trader was the most powerful.
❍ Overreacting mechanisms or similar mechanisms allow us to concentrate better where there is a little background noise, as if the behavior of combating this noise can help us concentrate.
Like many writers, I like to sit in cafes and write, as they say, to avoid distractions.
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❍ We not only hate pressure, but we do not understand it, knowing that the complete elimination of fluctuations and changes will only endanger life, life, science and wisdom.
❍ Whenever I think of 1/10 of the population over the high school age in the United States who are taking some kind of antidepressant, such as Prozac, I feel extremely angry and frustrated.
Indeed, when you experience mood swings, you also have to find reasons why you don't take certain medications. Sure, in severe pathological situations, you do need to take medication, but my emotions, my sadness, my sudden anxiety, are actually the second – and even the first – source of wisdom.
02
acute stressors,
More anti-fragile
Non-linear relationships of cause and effect: Our lives are filled with a lot of interdependence and non-linear relationships, which makes it difficult to predict, just as your income doubles, and your happiness does not necessarily double.
So to improve their ability to face uncertain and unpredictable events, that is, anti-fragility, just said that pressure will enhance antifragility, then which is the right "pressure"?
❍ The emergence of antifragility is conditional. The stimulation frequency of stressors is very important: humans will perform better under acute stimulation than under chronic stimulation, especially after acute stimulation, which will make these stressors a transmission channel for information.
For example, seeing a vampire enter my room can have a strong emotional impact on me, and then, of course, I need a long enough period of relaxation (accompanied by chamomile tea and baroque music) to regain control of my emotions, which will be good for my health.
Of course, the premise is that I have survived a tough and even heroic battle, defeated a snake or a vampire, and can take a photo next to the attacker I killed with my own hands.
❍ Such stressors are certainly more beneficial than a mild but continuous stressor, which is mostly something that makes you feel depressed in your life, including mortgage loans, tax issues, guilt for defaulting on your tax returns, exam stress, trivial matters, email responses, filling out forms, commuting to and from work every day, and so on. In other words, it's the pressure of civilization.
In fact, neurobiologists have shown that the first type of stressor is necessary, while the second type of stressor is harmful to a person's health.
03
What a profession
More antifragility
Income stability vs income fluctuations, which profession will be more capable of anti-fragility?
Skilled workers, such as taxi drivers, carpenters, plumbers, tailors and dentists, have a fluctuating income, but their occupations are resilient to "black swan" events, events that can completely cut off their source of income.
Their risks are obvious. This is not the same as corporate employees, who generally do not tolerate volatility, so they will only be surprised if they receive a call from the HR department informing them that they have been fired. Employee risk is implicit.
Thanks to income volatility, occupations such as skilled workers are a little anti-fragile: small changes encourage skilled workers to learn from their environment and remain competitive and resilient under constant pressure.
Remember, stress is information: skilled workers are constantly given the opportunity to adjust because of constant pressure. In addition, they have access to unexpected gifts and surprises, as well as the right to free choice – a sign of antifraginess.
❍ For self-employed persons, a small (non-fatal) error can send valuable information and lead them to a more appropriate approach; however, for employees employed by others, the mistakes made are permanently recorded and filed with the personnel department.
Nature favors small mistakes (without which genetic variation is impossible), but humans don't like mistakes, so when you rely on human judgment, you are at the mercy of psychological biases that hate antifragibility.
04
I love randomness
The ancients used the lottery to decide important things in parliament, is it a good way to draw lots? Why decide by lottery?
Ironically, volatility is often dismissed as chaos, but so-called chaotic systems that experience volatility can be stabilized by randomness.
❍ In fact, the ancients were already aware of this: the members of the Athenian parliament were determined by drawing lots, in order to protect the entire system from degradation.
❍ The ancients more or less perfected the method of random lottery in the face of adversity and incorporated it into divination.
The purpose of these lots is really to pick out a random solution, but not to make a decision on your own, and to bear the consequences of that decision for life. You do what God has instructed, so you don't have to figure out your true intentions.
❍ There is a method called "Virgil Gua", that is, to entrust one's fate to the epic poems of the poet Virgil, and the method is to randomly open Virgil's Aeneas and use the words read for the first time as a guide to action. You should use this approach to drive every tricky business decision.
❍ I repeat this point over and over again until my voice is exhausted: the ancients developed secretive and complex methods and techniques to explore randomness. For example, I've actually tried the random ordering method in restaurants. Because the menu is long and complex, I am often placed in what psychologists call the "tyranny of choice", so that every time I make a choice, I have a feeling of uneasiness, suggesting that I should actually order other dishes.
So I tried to blindly and systematically follow the fattest man on the table to order; if there was no such person, I would randomly choose from the menu, not look at the name of the dish at all, and calmly let the sun god help me choose.
❍ One of the secrets of life: without volatility, there is no stability.
05
Praise procrastination
Now "procrastination" is often heard, as if it has become a derogatory term, everything has to be done quickly and efficiently, procrastination has risen to the "symptom" of psychology, but the author is very fond of procrastination, see what he says?
The ancients always seemed to have more wisdom than our moderns, and much simpler wisdom: the Romans respected those who knew how to resist and delay intervention.
General Fabian Maximus has a nickname called "The Procrastinator". Although Hannibal had a clear military advantage, Fabian almost drove Hannibal crazy by avoiding and delaying the confrontation.
❍ There is a proverb in Latin: "If you want to be fast, you can't reach it." The Romans were not the only ancients who respected voluntarily renouncing action. The Chinese thinker Lao Tzu also created the doctrine of inaction (i.e., negative achievement).
Few people know that procrastination is our natural defensive instinct, our instinct to let things go their way and exercise their antifragility; it stems from some ecological or natural wisdom, and the results are not always bad.
❍ I can postpone the writing of an essay until my body tells me I'm ready. In this way, I may be using a very powerful natural filter.
I only write when I have the desire to write, and I only write about the topics I like to discuss, you know, the reader is not a fool.
So, I tend to procrastinate and wait for my inner ego to call, using this slowly evolving instinct to resist any intervention in my writing. However, some psychologists and behavioral economists seem to believe that procrastination is a disease that needs to be corrected and cured.
❍ The best way to mitigate interventions is to limit the availability of information and to obtain it in the most natural way possible. This is difficult to accept in the Internet age. It's hard for me to explain to people that the more data you get, the less informed you get.
epilogue
To improve our ability to combat fragility, we need to pay attention to:
1, do not be afraid of uncertainty, fluctuations and changes are conducive to life, life, science and wisdom.
2, human beings will perform better under acute stimulation than under chronic stimulation, try to keep themselves away from the state of chronic stress.
3, unstable work will bring continuous pressure and constantly get the opportunity to adjust. But there's also the chance to get some unexpected gifts and surprises, and the right to free choice — a sign of antifragility.
4, randomness, but can maintain long-term stability, some decisions may wish to try a lottery.
5, "want to be fast is not reached", procrastination let things happen naturally, procrastination is worthy of praise and should not always be attributed to "illness".
This article is excerpted from: Antifragility [US] Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: CITIC Press
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[This thought] topic
Do you have a habit of procrastination
How do you see procrastination?
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