I am pretty sure I read the book a long time ago. Forgettable. Or maybe I was not open to learning from it then and I might get something from it now. Who knows.
All I know now is that I’m not interested in books by living authors. Or at least they must prove themselves worthy by channeling ideas that are Lindy (sometimes inadvertently or with astonishing and perhaps unintended subtlety, e.g., Jocko Willink, who explicitly disavows the Stoics yet channels their philosophy).
Spotify just threw a track at me: The Four Agreements, mixed by Matthew Dekay and Martin Roth. Actually the YouTube edit is better than the one Spotify gave me.
Interesting idea (but low-budget interesting) from the excerpt: I am dreaming all of the time.
(It is also interesting how he morphs the meaning of words, like “dream” and “attention”. Powerful writing, persuasive unless you’re paying attention. Propaganda is built that way. But that’s not what caught my eye at first.)
Interesting idea (and this one is provocative and worthy of thought, compared to what else I heard): energy is transferred from human to human through language.
What first caught my attention, though, is the idea of how we are imprinted with beliefs in every conceivable way. Even the language we use (we are born with it) is thrust upon us and it’s construction dictates how we think.
Do not accept this idea as final.
We’re not helpless. We aren’t rubber ducks destined to drifting downstream, bouncing off rocks, stuck in the weeds, or drifting helplessly as the river flows.
Go back to the anti-victim mentality: “So what are you going to do?” Do something. Especially if you have been battered by fate.
From that seed grows Freedom.
Plant the seed.
Refusing to accept fate and planting the seed of Freedom? That’s Lindy.