“If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either
a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death.”
N.Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were.
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
by John Donne
Again, and again thinking about these questions:
Why don’t we Listen?
Why don’t we think ahead?
“Your death will soon be on you: and you are not yet clear-minded, or untroubled, or free from the fear of external harm, or kindly to all people, or convinced that justice of action is the only wisdom.”
Marcus Aurelius
Schrodinger’s COVOD-19: If you don’t test it it’s not real, right?
The One who is paranoid can be wrong a million times and will survive.
Wrong just once, and One + the gang are out of the Whole story.
We have to be willing to look like we over-reacted.
Governments will fail to protect their people, no matter the type of regime. Civil society will rise up to save themselves, saving the regime in the process. The regime will try to take credit.
This too shall pass.
“Our inability to quantify or time the risk doesn’t mean we should ignore it… You have to build the ark before the rain comes.”
You can drown in the fear of the unknown, or learn to swim and understand that you are a Black Swan!
“Constantly observe all that comes about through change, and habituate yourself to the thought that the nature of the Whole loves nothing so much as to change one form of existence into another, similar but new. All that exists is in a sense the seed of its successor: but your concept of ‘seed’ is simply what is put into the earth or the womb – that is very unphilosophical thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius
Still, counting my blessings!