THE CHAOS THEORY

“The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness” by Karen Armstrong

This is a true story about the period of time before Karen Armstrong becomes the world renowned theologist.

In this engaging autobiography, Ms. Armstrong shares her struggles during her youth; from abandoning education to becoming a nun, living in a convent for 7 years, learning how to live with nothing under a strict disciplinary rule; before she started to struggle, rebel, fainted regularly, often wept uncontrollably, and eventually quit the monastery simply because she didn’t find God.

It is so refreshing to see Ms. Armstrong from this angle, from the human side. And in this book she really shows all of the vulnerable parts of her life.

This includes what happened after coming back to the real world as an ex nun in late 1960s, when the world felt like it was burning with Vietnam war and Cuban missiles crisis, among other Cold War proxy wars. An era also defined by sex, drugs, and alcohol, as well as hippie world peace counter-movement. Her time as a student at Oxford University was particularly interesting, where she attended rebellious protests, standing up for women’s education right, even fighting for rights that she herself didn’t actually practice.

All of this were happening while at the same time she was losing her hermit religious world and trying to find her place in this loud new world, struggling with her inability to express affection and warmth after 7 years of nun training, becoming a godmother, becoming a “failed heterosexual”, even being diagnosed with epilepsy and struggled because of it most of her young adult life.

But then things started to click, one serendipitous event at a time. Starting from being fired out of compassion from her teaching job because she’s too brilliant to do a relatively menial job, then finding the perfect cocktail of medicine for her disease, and eventually being dragged into doing a documentary about religion from the skeptic point of view (with her being an ex nun who quits the convent as the biggest credential), which ironically ended up leading her to the pathway to be a deeply spiritual theologian.

This transformation looks completed in the very last chapter of the book, where she lay out her research approach, her daily habit during writing period, and many other methodologies, all of which produce what I see as the clearest description of how Karen Armstrong sees religion (and I’ve been reading her various books for 2 decades). And it is so eye opening that I give this book 5-stars rating thanks to this chapter 8 alone.

So what is her view on religion, after all the events in her life that have shaped her views, after obtaining new insights from years of research to make the documentary, and the many more hours of deep dive into various religions?

“God, of course, did not exist”, Ms. Armstrong remarks, “but I would show that each generation of believers was driven to invent him anew. God was thus simply a projection of human need; “he” mirrored the fears and yearnings of society at each stage of its development. Jews, Christians, and Muslims had all produced the same kind of God because they had similar desires and insecurities, but increasingly, in the clear light of rational modernity, people were learning how to do without this divine prop.”

She then elaborates, “In the course of my studies, I have discovered that the religious quest is not about discovering “the truth” or “the meaning of life” but about living as intensely as possible here and now. The idea is not to latch on to some superhuman personality or to “get to heaven” but to discover how to be fully human—hence the images of the perfect or enlightened man, or the deified human being. Archetypal figures such as Muhammad, the Buddha, and Jesus become icons of fulfilled humanity. God or Nirvana is not an optional extra, tacked on to our human nature. Men and women have a potential for the divine, and are not complete unless they realize it within themselves.”

Indeed, according to Ms. Armstrong God (in a human reflection kind of way) doesn’t exist and religion is about how to be fully human and to live in the now. But she is not the typical non-believer. Because instead of dismissing religion and God, she’s searching for more understanding through various different means and deeply immersed herself in them: by reading the holy texts, researching many more insights from previous theologians, following the rituals, implementing the habits, visiting their holy places, and blending in with the practitioners. Perhaps if you really want to put a label on her, it would be more accurate to see her as a pantheist rather than an atheist. But it took quite a journey before she arrived here.

As Ms. Armstrong explains more about her spiritual journey, “back in 1989, when I started to research A History of God, I didn’t know any of this. For me, religion was still essentially about belief. Because I did not accept the orthodox doctrines, I considered myself an agnostic—even an atheist. But by unwittingly putting into practice two of the essential principles of religion, I had already, without realizing it, embarked on a spiritual quest. First, I had set off by myself on my own path. Second, I had at last been able to acknowledge my own pain and feel it fully. I was gradually, imperceptibly being transformed.”

Indeed, the acknowledgement of pain and the spiritual quest to find the remedy. As Ms. Armstrong further explains, “All the world faiths put suffering at the top of their agenda, because it is an inescapable fact of human life, and unless you see things as they really are, you cannot live correctly. But even more important, if we deny our own pain, it is all too easy to dismiss the suffering of others. Every single one of the major traditions—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as the monotheisms—teaches a spirituality of empathy, by means of which you relate your own suffering to that of others. Hyam had quoted Hillel’s Golden Rule, which tells you to look into your own heart, find out what distresses you, and then refrain from inflicting similar pain on other people. That, Hillel had insisted, was the Torah, and everything else was commentary. This, I was to discover, was the essence of the religious life.”

And this is how Ms. Armstrong eventually found her own pathway to God. As she remarks, “For years I had longed to get to God, ascend to a higher plane of being, but I had never considered at sufficient length what it was that you had to climb from. All the traditions tell us, one way or another, that we have to leave behind our inbuilt selfishness, with its greedy fears and cravings. We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao.”

She then continues, “What I now realize, from my study of the different religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis. Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work.”

What did Ms. Armstrong trying to say here? “To my very great surprise, I was discovering that some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God.”

Indeed, “God” as in the human reflection kind of way does not exist. But God as in the creator and the ruler of the universe, does exist, but so much bigger than what us humans can comprehend and can describe. Some call it God, the ancient Greeks call it Logos, the ancient Chinese call it Tao, others call it the universe. As Ms. Armstrong elaborates, “Many of them preferred to say that God was Nothing, because this was not the kind of reality that we normally encountered. It was even misleading to call God the Supreme Being, because that simply suggested a being like us, but bigger and better, with likes and dislikes similar to our own.”

This statement is of course weighted with the abundance of research findings. As Ms. Armstrong remarks, “For centuries, Jews, Christians, and Muslims had devised audacious new theologies to bring this point home to the faithful. The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, was crafted in part to show that you could not think about God as a simple personality. The reality that we call God is transcendent—that is, it goes beyond any human orthodoxy—and yet God is also the ground of all being and can be experienced almost as a presence in the depths of the psyche.”

This is indeed not easy to digest, but it helps to answer some of my own struggles and doubts and wonder about religion. And what better way to get one step closer to the truth by looking back into history: “Cantwell Smith was one of the first theologians to make all this clear to me, in such books as Faith and Belief and Belief in History. I remember the extraordinary sense of relief I felt when I read in his somewhat dry, scholarly prose that our ideas of God were man-made; that they could be nothing else; that it was a modern Western fallacy, dating only from the eighteenth century, to equate faith with accepting certain intellectual propositions about God. Faith was really the cultivation of a conviction that life had some ultimate meaning and value, despite the tragic evidence to the contrary—an attitude also evoked by great art.”

So unlike what religion has taught us, life has no ultimate meaning and value? Then what to do instead, in order to really connect with God? “You must first live in a certain way, and then you would encounter within a sacred presence that which monotheists call God, but which others have called the Tao, Brahman, or Nirvana.”

Indeed, same practice – like immersing yourself into the deep reading, practice, and habit of religious discipline – but with different intentions, understanding, and goal. God does exist but not in the way we know it today, and religion is still a medium of transcendence but not in the way we used to be taught.

Here’s Ms. Armstrong again, where she told a story from the Upanishads that perfectly encapsulates God’s presence: “I had often quoted the famous story from the Upanishads in which the sage Uddalaka makes his son Svetaketu aware of the omnipresence of the divine by telling him to dissolve a lump of salt in a beaker of water. In the morning, the lump has disappeared, but though the salt is now invisible, it pervades the entire beaker and can be tasted in every sip. “My dear child,” Uddalaka concludes, “it is true that you cannot see Brahman here, but it is equally true that it is here. This first essence—the whole universe has as its Self. That is the Real. That is the Self. That you are, Svetaketu.” Our task is to learn to see that sacred dimension in everything around us—including our fellow men and women.”

So funnily enough, while she quits the convent because she didn’t find God in the most traditional religious life, she eventually found God in her own way: through immersing herself in what she does best, researching about religion, practicing their good principles, implementing the habits, and becoming one of the greatest (if not the greatest) theologian that has ever lived.

“Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes” by Tamim Ansary

This is a thorough history of what the author, Tamim Ansary, called the Middle World. It is an area in the middle between Europe in the west, China in the east, and Africa in the south-west; a place that we all now familiar with the colonialist term of the Middle East.

The book is an impressively detailed but yet concise account of the long history of this place, complete with the geopolitics, social, economic, and of course religious factors. And it starts right at the very beginning with the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia, with its plenty of kingdoms defeating each others, to the rise of the mighty empires in Persia, the collapse of Rome and the rise of the eastern part that became the Byzantine empire, which eventually sequenced to the main subject of this book: the rise of Islam and the subsequent Islamic empires that would dominate the next couple of centuries.

This is not your typical books on Islam, however, as it is written not from the religious angle but strictly from the vantage point of its political history. We’re talking about the power dynamics, the social economic struggles, the way they organized their reign, and many more, even telling the tales of political backstabbing between them. Oh the many backstabbings. That’s right, just like every other empire from the 7th century to the 20th century, the stories are filled with so many violence, murder, betrayal, deceptions, and of course war. And they are being told in a unfiltered manner that give us the complete human picture.

For example, the book told the story of how chaotic it really was after the Prophet’s (PBUH) death; with all the elections, the power struggles, even the forming of several separatist groups. In fact, 3 of the first 4 Caliphs – Omar, Othman, and Ali (Peace be upon them) – were all murdered in the end; not to mention the murder of Ali’s son, Hussain, by Yazid I that sparked the Shi’i movement.

But what makes this book stands out from the rest is Ansary’s ability to demonstrates the complex, multi-dimentional, angles of the characters, rather than just a single angle to fit a narrative. For example Abu Bakr, he was a highly regarded wise leader who actually struggled economically and borderline living in poverty. Or Omar who is tall and strong, famous for his epic temper but can become wise when needed. Or the wealthy and handsome Othman that looks almost perfect, but has a dark side that ended up sabotaging himself. Or the honest and pious Ali that was the hope for so many people, but with a weak personality that left him unable to handle a burning empire filled with traitors. Or the description of Muawiya who was arguably a treacherous person, but simultaneously a champion of arts and sciences that provided the critical foundations for the unleash of the Golden Age of Islam during the Abbasid rule.

Indeed, the real life is messy, nothing is one-dimensional, and characters can simultaenously be the hero and the villain in any given story. This approach is very much the template in every single story of the book: from the era of the Righteous Four, to Muawiya, the Sassanid rule, Umayyad, Abbasid, all the way to the Mughal Empire in India, Safavid Empire in Persia, to eventually the Ottoman Empire where the Turks would dominate the region. And then we have the modern Middle East with, among many others, the rise of Wahhabism through British-engineered Arab Revolt, the deeply troubled creation of Zionism, the transition from Persia into Iran (and who Reza Shah Pahlavi really was), the power dynamics in Egypt between secular nationalists and religious fundamentalists, the spillover to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the rise of secular modernism most strongly demonstrated in Kemal Ataturk’s modern Turkey.

And alongside the dynamic power struggles in the Muslim World, Ansary provides us with the context of the bigger world history. For example, the Abbasid Golden Age of Islam occurred before Europe’s Renaissance, while the slow collapse of the Ottoman (even before World War 1) happened during the rise of the European empires from Spanish, to Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, to British Empire, as well as the Hapsburg and Austro-Hungary.

The interconnected parralel history are so wonderfully fascinating and eye opening, showing us a clearer context over where the Muslim World stands in the face of world history. And perhaps more importantly, it also gives a more complete big picture view over the dynamics between the West and the Muslim world, a vital piece of information puzzle to understand the world today.

In the sea of abundant information, please be careful with misleading information coming from half truths. Half truths are worse than no truths, because at least with no truths we can easily detect and debunk them.

But with half truths? Iran’s retaliation can be seen as the instigator in this war if we never read about the first attack by Israel. Without context, Iran’s attack on Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar will show Iran as the agressor while in the whole truth Iran already warned weeks before if US and Israel attack them they will retaliate by attacking 1. US military bases in the Gulf countries 2. US assets in the region (like sites in Dubai) 3. And overall US military presence, which is why Iran bombed civilian sites such as a hotel in Bahrain (filled with US military personnel). It may look chaotic, but it is not random.

At this point, inserting Sunni vs Shia element in the Iran vs Gulf narrative will make perfect sense, but it’s a half truth. Because yes there is still a tension between Sunni and Shia even after more than 1400 years, but the rift between Shia and Sunni has nothing to do with US-backed Gulf siding with Israel vs Iran that stands in the way of the Greater Israel plan. So the religious infighting element is so very tiny in this war context.

It is also so easy to jump into conclusion that the drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery is conducted by Iran due to their constant bombing onto the Gulf, but apparently it wasn’t (as claimed by Iran’s deputy foreign minister to CNN). Why should we believe the denial? Because Iran has so far take claims on everything they bomb without hiding it, and they would not have any issue admitting it if they did it. After all they do close down Hormuz strait (20% of global oil traffic) with a bigger impact on oil market than the attack on Aramco’s refinery. It is by not easily believing on the half truth narrative that Iran did the strike on Aramco (the first time) that we would be 1 step closer to the whole truth: if it’s not Iran, then who actually did it? And why?

Half truths can also mislead us in the progress of the geopolitic mapping. Like the posts by many X and IG accounts about a report by the FT that “Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar are discussing withdrawing from contracts with the U.S. and canceling future investment commitments in the U.S.” First, I checked to FT directly and they don’t have any reporting of this (it’s such a massive, empire-shifting, news that if true they would have to report it). The only credible media or journalists (at X) that report it is [the often dodgy] Binance news, without any second source that can solidify the truthfulness. Secondly even if it’s true, notice that it’s still being discussed and not finalized. And so many social media accounts are misleadingly portraying it as if it’s a done deal that would practically end the Petrodollar Recycling engine that powers the American Empire.

And then we have Reza fucking Pahlavi. Half truths will describe him as the “exiled crown prince”, showing that his monarchy father was deposed in 1979 by Muslim extremists. That is correct. But those who said only this part of the story usually want to create a narrative that the current regime is a vicious and illegal regime. And the whole truth? In an action dubbed as the Operation Ajax the US and UK staged a coup in 1953 to topple a democratically-elected Iranian president Mohammad Mosaddegh after he decided to nationalise their oil. Afterwards they installed Shah Reza Pahlevi as their puppet dictator, they stole Iranian oil, bring in Rockefeller to handle the finance of the entire regime from top to bottom, and control the country with Pahlavi’s gruesome rule filled with violence. For Iranians who really understand their history, the last thing they need is the return of the son of a brutal dictator.

Now, this is an oversimplification (hey people write many books about this) but the only group that was brave enough to challenge the US-backed puppet was the extremists, who then staged a counter-revolution in 1979 to grab back their country. That’s why the US so resent this Iranian regime, because they dare to fight back the empire, with the West constantly trying to portray the Ayatollah’s regime as violators of human rights, especially on opression of women while in whole truth women are liberated (now they don’t even have to wear the hijab) with them making up around 70% of science and engineering graduates.

On a ligher side of half truths, Prof Jiang is probably the hottest commentator in this war, after he successfully predicted the rise of Donald Trump and the attack on Iran. I like him. But just because he was right few times, doesn’t mean that going forward he will be correct 100% everytime. Because, despite of his brilliant posts that make a lot of sense, he also a human that once said the strait of Hormuz (width of 33-97 KM) is swimmable, in order to make a point about how narrow the strait is. Hence, a bit of healthy skepticism is still needed in reading any information from any source.

The truth is never easy to learn, but the whole truth is easier to understand rather than a series of inter-connected half truths. The whole truth is always clear and logically make sense. If a reporting doesn’t make sense or feel too good to be true, then it might hide some crucial information that is designed to prevent you to know the whole truth.

And by contrast, don’t quickly dismiss any bizarre or unusual claims that don’t make sense, as long as they can give you the “receipt” or the evidence of the claims. Because, as they say, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The key to all of this is in the receipts.

“The Tao Made Easy: Timeless Wisdom to Navigate a Changing World” by Alan Cohen

In around 4th century BC, a Chinese man called Lao Tse (meaning “old master”) was appointed by the king of the Zhou Dynasty to the prestige position of keeper of the imperial archives. It was a turbulent time, with wars, divisive politics, and moral decay which eventually took their toll on Lao Tse and left him yearning for simplicity, harmony, and integrity. And so, at an old age, he eventually packed up and set to leave the city to live a more natural, and saner, life in the countryside.

As he was about to walk pass the western gate of the kingdom, a guard recognized him and pleaded to him to record his wisdom before he leave for good. And thus, Lao Tse then set brush to parchment and started to write down the 81 stanzas of Tao Te Ching (meaning “The Book of the Way of Virtue”). It was said that it only consist of 5000 written characters, but it covers all the sources of human suffering and their cure.

Tao Te Ching later becomes the most translated, interpreted, and printed book in history second only after the Bible. To date (or at least until the publication of this book by Alan Cohen) there are 1216 books related to Tao Te Ching currently in print, including, as Cohen remarks, “the revered translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English; Dr. Wayne Dyer’s popular Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life; and the immortal surfer version, Dude De Ching.” (yeah, I should really check out Dude De Ching after this).

So what could Cohen possibly add to this pool of Dude De Chings? He decided to select the most significant themes of Tao Te Ching, provide more explanation about them, and apply them to the modern 21st century context. And I must say, for a person who once attempted to read one of the [poor] translations of Tao Te Ching (by James Legge), this one is like a breath of fresh air.

It is written in a laid back (and sometimes funny) manner, making it enjoyable to read especially considering the heavy nature of the subject, but without losing its clear and concise way to teach us about the core messages.

For example, just look at the way Cohen describes what the Tao is: “While it appears that the universe is a foolish, even cruel play of random events, there is an intelligence operating behind the scenes, a fabric of life that integrates all creation. This power is invisible to the eye, yet more real than anything the senses can touch. It is a mystery to the intellect but knowable to the heart. It is life itself. Lao Tse called this power “the Tao,” or “the Great Way.””

Indeed, some call it God, others describe it as the universe. And Cohen? He elaborates this message by talking about The Force, like, in the Star Wars kind of way. Talking bout 21st century context, eh?

But this book is not all about modern interpretation of Tao Te Ching. When needed to make a point, Cohen also provide wisdom from the original stories, such as Lao Tse’s lesson after a student asks him about the validity of an astrologer: “All sciences are valid depending on how they are used. If they empower you to live more fully, they help. If they make you feel like a puppet on a string that someone else is pulling, they hurt. A knife can be used to heal through surgery or it can kill. It’s all what you do with it.”

Lao Tse then continues, “You should look within for your answers. Your life is not determined by the stars. It is determined by your state of mind and the choices you make. Regardless of how the stars are configured, you are in charge of your journey. Make healthy choices, and even if adversity comes, the Tao will show you how to use it for your benefit.”

But then when you think it’s about to get serious, Cohen then proceeded to talk about his male puppy trying to hump his older female dog. As Cohen told the story, “All of our dog expert friends told us that our nine-month-old male puppy was too young to mate with our older female. But he didn’t get that memo. One night while my beloved Dee and I were sitting in our living room, we heard a sharp yelp from the kitchen. We rushed in to find the little guy stuck to the older woman. They remained interlocked for 45 minutes with a baffled look on their faces: “Now what do we do?””

What could possibly be the moral story from this hilarious encounter? “The best things that happen are unplanned”, the great master would say. Because, get this, that little geezer impregnated the older dog and Cohen and his wife suddenly have little joyous puppies!

And this is actually what the entire teaching of Tao Te Ching boils down to: Let nature take its course. Cohen then elaborates by categorizing the relationship between cultures and nature into three 1. Man under nature 2. Man over nature 3. Man in nature:

1. Man under nature believe the world is ruled by gods, demigods, or any spirits superior to humanity. As Cohen remarks, these beings “chart our destiny, so we lower beings must bow down to them, appease them, make sacrifices, and, whatever you do, don’t piss them off.” Such cultures believe that favorable conditions are given from higher powers, and calamities are forms of punishments from our misdeeds. Cultures like ancient Greek, Roman, and Mayan civilizations are examples of this approach.
2. Man over nature regards nature as an obstacle to be tamed or controlled, our enemy to overrun or to subjugate for our purpose. Our technologically bullying culture is a prime example of this, where “we tear down forests, dam rivers, preserve food with chemicals, manipulate genes, and spew toxins in the air with no awareness that when we hurt our planet, we hurt ourselves.”
3. Man in nature is actually the only way we were born to live, how we should live. Many cultures that are close to the Earth understand that our purpose in life is to align with nature, thank its Creator, accept its blessings, and give back to it. Native American, First Nation, Aboriginal, Māori, and Hawaiian cultures are some of the examples for this.

This book is ultimately about teaching us to live life according to the third option, man in nature. And it’s such an impactful one.

I must admit, not all section of the book are brilliant. Like in each chapter Cohen somehow inserted a fictional depiction of his own interactions with the old master, in an imaginary way as if Cohen is Lao Tse’s student. Which is super weird. But I treat these episodes like I would treat a drunken uncle that is starting to talk about government conspiracy theories, sure it’s wacko but there are some truths in it somewhere. Besides, had these stories been true, it would actually be insightful.

And one last note, it is particularly astonishing for me that a lot of the messages from Lao Tse are similar like Stoicism. Such as “what’s in the way is the way” is similar with Stoicism’s the obstacle is the way. Or “let nature take its course” is similar like let things happen naturally. Or Stoicism’s core message of focus on what you can control, can also be seen in Tao’s “sometimes you can change the environment. Always you can change your mind” and its examples in chapter “How to fix the world.”

Moreover, Tao Te Ching, according to Cohen, is also similar like the content of the Gospel of Thomas. And in this book Cohen also tells the story of Siddhartha Gautama to illustrate a Tao lesson. So, I guess that quotation from the Rig Veda is spot on, “all truth is one, the sage call it by many names.”

Here are some of the most memorable quotes from the book:

1. You don’t have to tell the Force how to help you. You just have to let it find you and work for you and through you.
2. Our dilemma is not that we do not have an invincible Source; our dilemma is that we do not realize It exists and we do not make use of It.
3. If you knew who walks beside you on the path that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.
4. Life does not go in circles. It is constantly cycling upward. Let cycles play themselves out and they will reveal their purpose to you.”
5. “The heart knows the answers to the questions the mind cannot satisfy,”
6. Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” If your idea is aligned with the Tao, it will have a life of its own and it will reach all the right people in the right way at the perfect time. You will watch in awe as the river carries your boat to the ocean. When nature takes its course, there is no stopping it.
7. The tribe realizes that correction is achieved not by punishment, but by remembering who we truly are.
8. Lao Tse would agree that our true self knows how to live. When we live according to our nature, we don’t need anyone else to prescribe our path for us.
9. We know all we need to know from the inside out. Rules are for people who have lost touch with their inner guidance. Laws are also misused by unscrupulous leaders to control others for self-serving purposes.
10. In our society, however, many of us have become disconnected from our innate wisdom. We don’t trust ourselves, so we depend on external authority to tell us how to live. It seems easier to obey than to think. We entrust our lives to government, religion, education, economics, medicine, culture, and family.
11. Those who stand on tiptoe are not steady. Those who stride cannot maintain the pace. Those who put on a show are not enlightened. Those who are self-righteous are not respected. Those who boast achieve nothing. Those who brag will not endure. According to followers of the Tao, “These are unnecessary food and baggage.” They do not bring happiness. Therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.
12. Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, And it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up kindness, renounce morality, And people will rediscover filial piety and love.
13. No act is always right or always wrong. If someone took a hatchet and broke into your house to steal something, it would be wrong. But if your house was on fire and a firefighter broke into your house with a hatchet to extinguish the fire, you would be grateful.
14. to let ourselves be guided by internal wisdom rather than external opinion. This is the mark of a mature soul.
15. Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
16. You can manufacture heaven or hell with your thoughts and live in that world as if it were real. But when you wake up from the dream your mind has fabricated, reality remains intact.
17. Tao Te Ching tells us that ultimate reality is benevolent. A Course in Miracles underscores, “Only the creations of light are real. Everything else is your own nightmare.” So if you are going to “create” a “reality,” be sure to create one that matches what has already been created. Then the Tao will be at your back like a firm wind that powers sailors home to port after a long day at sea.
18. When this small group came to a red light, they stood at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn green to cross the street. There was no traffic and their lives were in danger, but still they had to obey the rules and not be guilty of jaywalking! This is a clear example of denying one’s fundamental instinct in order to follow social rules. At that moment the regular rules were totally inappropriate. It was culturally illegal for them to cross against the red light, but spiritually legal for them to protect their lives.
19. Specific tasks do not create struggle. What makes a situation hard is the struggle attitude we bring to it. We resist a circumstance or believe it must be hard, and so it is. Not because struggle is required, but because our thoughts are powerful and we can create experiences by our belief. If you resisted nothing, you would never feel like you were working.
20. Just because so many people are in pain, or your life has been so painful, does not mean that is the way it has to be. It just means that we have historically chosen to fight our way upstream rather than flow with the current. What we call history is largely the record of fear-based human choices moving contrary to the Tao.
21. Hold foremost in your mind the result you would rather create. Fight for your valued goal instead of fighting against the situation you do not prefer.
22. If something comes up that you wish would go away, accept that it has come for a reason and consider how you can benefit from the experience. How is this situation stimulating you to grow in ways that you would not have grown had it not come forth? Is there an unseen opportunity here? Are you being guided to make a course correction that will ultimately improve your life? Every difficulty comes with a gift in its hands. It remains a problem until you accept the gift.
23. Life becomes difficult when you attempt to do things that don’t belong to you. It becomes easy when you do what belongs to you. In these last two sentences you just read the cheat sheet for the entire Tao Te Ching.
24. Painful events are not a punishment or our destiny. They are an alarm clock waking us to return to the kindly universe we have turned our backs on, and claim the well-being we deserve.
25. Only when we address the source of our problems do we heal their manifestations.
26. This story illustrates two key principles underlying sustained healing: (1) Real transformation occurs not simply by manipulating the symptoms, but by going to the core and addressing the fear, pain, and beliefs that are causing the symptoms; and (2) Healing occurs through release or forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that we condone abuse or cruelty. To the contrary, it means that we love ourselves enough to not accept negative behaviors directed at us. We further honor ourselves by deciding that letting go of the past will bring us greater benefit than holding onto it. When we can drop grievances and step fully into the present moment, we are free.
27. The goal of changing other people to make you happy is fruitless. Get over it. You may be able to nag or intimidate someone to change, but inwardly the other person will resent you and look for ways to rebel, sabotage, or leave. Forced change is not true change; a backlash always follows.
28. Sometimes you can change the environment. Always you can change your mind. If you can change your environment from a sense of positive vision, you will succeed. Remember to work toward what you want rather than against what you resist. All metaphysical teachings tell us that the world we see is a projection of the thoughts we are holding about it. To attempt to change the world without changing your mind is tantamount to making a run on the screen in a movie theater and trying to force the images to do something different. If you want to see a different movie, you must change the film in the projector. The film is your thoughts. The screen is the world. Insert a new film, and everything you see on the screen will be different.
29. Someone who is mean and manipulative is steeped in fear, the densest of energies. When you grow fearful, upset, angry, or resistant, you match the negative frequency of the person you dislike. You are locked into a painful cycle by energetic agreement. You have no hope of escaping their influence because you are operating at precisely the same frequency. When you choose a higher frequency, you rise above the denser energy.
30. Someone who is mean and manipulative is steeped in fear, the densest of energies. When you grow fearful, upset, angry, or resistant, you match the negative frequency of the person you dislike. You are locked into a painful cycle by energetic agreement. You have no hope of escaping their influence because you are operating at precisely the same frequency. When you choose a higher frequency, you rise above the denser energy.
31. If you want someone to change, model the energy and behavior you wish that person would exhibit. Then you will achieve two crucial goals: (1) You will establish yourself in the strongest position to influence the other person to act uprightly; and (2) You will find the inner satisfaction you sought by attempting to change the other person.
32. Be not deceived by ups and downs that occur in the short run, or appearances of disorder. No matter what evil or error seems to rule, truth eventually makes itself known, character is revealed, and virtue prevails.
33. The question, “What do you really need?” is the meditation of a lifetime. If you can distinguish between what you think you need and what you really need, you will realize that your true needs are far less than you have been taught, and you are always provided for.
34. The more you know, the less you need.
35. This brings us to a crucial point about how the Tao works. If a partner, job, or home belongs to you, it will be yours. If not, it will not come, and, believe me, you don’t want it. Something else that is truly yours will find you. We own things not by money or paperwork, but by right of consciousness. What is yours will know your face.
36. The system of Chinese medicine is based on the flow of chi, life force. As long as chi is flowing, you are healthy. When chi is blocked or for any reason does not reach a part of the body, illness ensues. To restore health, get chi moving again.
37. When you withhold money, kindness, or support from others, you are withholding wealth from yourself. It is a fundamental psychological principle that we expect others (and life) to do to us what we do to or for them. Generous people expect the universe to be generous with them, and it is. Stingy people expect the universe to withhold from them, and it does.
38. When Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you,” he was actually saying, “What you do unto others you are doing unto yourself.”
39. Life is simple unless we make it complicated. The ego thrives in complexity while the spirit thrives in simplicity.
40. The more complexity, the more issues. The more simplicity, the fewer difficulties. If you find yourself in a complicated situation, look for the simple way out.
41. Resist change and you suffer. Accept it and you are free.
42. When you are with people you love, imagine you may never see them again. Be fully present with them. Speak the words you wish for them to hear. Thank, honor, acknowledge, and celebrate them. They are in your life for a blessed season that bestows its unique gifts. Don’t miss a moment of loving. Leave nothing unsaid or undone.
43. Soul mates are not just romantic partners; they are all the people with whom you connect at a soul level. Some soul mates bring you immense delight, and others are extremely challenging. Some are both.
44. The secret to successful relationships is to let every relationship be what it wants to be.
45. If you try to end a relationship before it has fulfilled its purpose, it will just keep coming back. Many couples break up or get divorced, and other individuals distance themselves from families or friends. But somehow life draws them together.
46. Because we are spiritual beings at our core, it is the spirit of a relationship that brings us fulfillment. It matters less what the bodies are doing. You may live under the same roof with someone and sleep beside them, yet feel worlds apart. You may also have friends at a far distance with whom you feel deeply united. Relationships are about souls more than bodies.
47. If there is one thing in the world that we can depend on, it is change. Lao Tse calls us to not resist change, but to let it empower us. The more you fight change, the more it overwhelms you. The more you flow with it, the more it strengthens you.
48. If we fear to take that first step ahead, we might be tempted to glamorize the past or reactivate it to escape present discontent.
49. It is said, “Man’s [or woman’s] rejection is God’s protection.”
50. As much as we would like to hold on to sweet situations forever, we must let go when they have run their course.
51. Regret is time doubly wasted. If you made a mistake, you may believe that a moment or years were for naught. If you regret your mistake, you are wasting the current moment as well. If you learned from the mistake, the time and experience were worthwhile.
52. Be grateful, then, that you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, or fed up with what is not feeding you. Toleration of dysfunction only keeps it in force. Refuse to put up with what is not working, and you will find your way to your perfect place in the Great Design.
53. We have become so accustomed to dysfunction and toxicity that we fail to recognize when it has passed a critical threshold.
54. Bless your wake-up calls. They are the Tao benevolently reaching from reality into illusion to rescue you from further pain.
55. Any expression of mean-spiritedness or cruelty is a sign that you are in pain and you are attempting to relieve yourself of your discomfort by passing it along to others.
56. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you make a plan, follow through. If you schedule an appointment, show up on time. If you borrow money, pay it back. If you are not sure you can do something, don’t promise it.
57. Patience is one of the most valuable virtues we can cultivate in a lightning-speed world.
58. Impatience means that you do not trust the Tao to deliver what you need when you need it. Patience means that you have faith that the Tao is with you right where you stand.
59. Presence makes the crucial difference in human interactions. In a world in which many people have given their presence and power away to busyness and technology, fully being with another person is more important than ever.
60. Robert Brault suggested, “Do not call any work menial until you have watched a proud person do it.”
61. The Tao cannot be prescribed for you. It must emerge from within you. You will not master your life by pleasing others. You will master it by aligning with yourself.
62. The God that you have been taught is out there somewhere, is in here. External temples are reflections of the inner sanctuary. If they do their job properly, they will lead you home to yourself. If they lead you elsewhere, run like hell.
63. Humble people are confident because they recognize the Tao is the source of their good.
64. When we renounce our demands on the world, we gain the freedom and peace that we hoped constant control would bring us, but never does.
65. Be not deceived by those who appear to thrive by amassing power, fame, and worldly accolades. These are but cheap trinkets, glittering toys to distract and amuse the unawakened.
66. Lao Tse sees education and enlightenment from a different perspective. He would say that you are not here to learn something you do not know. You are here to remember what you already know. The spiritual path is not a learning curve. It is a refresher course. You were born knowing.
67. It’s extremely difficult to teach people who are not motivated to learn, by teachers who would rather be elsewhere.
68. If your life is not working, a little or a lot, tell the truth about how you feel about what you are doing, and what you would rather be doing. In that one honest statement you take a major step to reclaim the Tao.
69. Lao Tse came to the same realization. He cautioned against excesses and extremes, and advised us to live with equilibrium. The famous yin-yang symbol of Taoism captures this principle, illustrating the existence of opposites and our need to integrate them: light and dark, life and death, male and female, good and evil, joy and pain. To deny opposites sets us up for suffering. To recognize them and make them work on our behalf yields mastery.
70. Too much of anything, the master taught, is no good. Too little of anything is no good. We must each find our “sweet spot,” the just-right integration of contrasting elements that, when we step into it, makes us both happy and productive.
71. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle of life, but no one has the whole picture. An ancient parable tells about an elephant that wandered into a village of blind people. Not knowing what an elephant was, the villagers began to examine the huge animal with their hands. One man grabbed the elephant’s trunk and declared, “An elephant is like a snake.” Another wrapped his arms around the creature’s leg and announced, “An elephant is like a tree trunk.” Another touched the tail and told, “An elephant is like a rope.” All of the blind people were partially correct, but none of them were totally correct. They accurately identified the parts, but none of them identified the whole, which was far greater than any one person could embrace or, from their limited perspective, understand.
72. So it is with truth. All religions, philosophies, and lifestyles capture a piece of the Big Picture, but none capture all of it. Some arrogantly tout, “My way is the way and the only way.” But humility would recognize that there are many paths to the mountaintop. Religious wars, inquisitions, crusades, and missionary movements all spring from insecurity. “You must believe as I do. If not, you will go to hell, or I will kill you,” speaks of deep primal fear. If our world is ever to come to peace, we must grow beyond such immaturity.
73. To put the puzzle together, we must acknowledge the contribution of each philosophy as well as its deficits. Every belief system contains an element of truth and an element of illusion. Purists of each belief spotlight the value of that path, but they also magnify its shortcomings.
74. Life has already set it up by making indulgence in extremes self-policing. When we swing too far to one end of the pendulum, we are forced in the opposite direction. After experiencing both polarities, we extract the best of both worlds and find a middle way that works.
75. Religions were founded by prophets who had lofty visions and noble intentions to bring healing and upliftment to the world. But then people with selfish motives infiltrated religions and twisted the faith to their own foul purposes. While elements of religion remain pure, other elements fall to evil, represented by the dark dot in the light field.
76. On the other side of the spectrum, for every dark experience, something good comes of it. Sickness is an invitation for a course correction to improve the quality of your life. Painful relationships move you to honor yourself and claim better. Losing a job can motivate you to create a more meaningful, passion-filled career. Overbearing monarchs incite downtrodden people to establish democracies. The crucified and resurrected Christ taught that he—like all of us—is greater than the body. Like the white dot within the black space, the spiritual master finds light in the midst of the darkness.
77. Masters of the Tao keep their head in the clouds and their feet on the ground.
78. Paradox delivers the ultimate teaching of balance: two ideas that appear to be contradictory are simultaneously true. Herein lies your point of power. If you can accept the reality of two apparent opposites, you are at altitude on the mountain of mastery. The thinking mind goes haywire when it attempts to integrate polarities.
79. Seek perfection but allow for imperfection. Let what appears to not be working be a part of what is working. Let night and day make each other more poignant. Let evil give way to good. Allow what seems apart to come together. Life is not a question of balance. Balance is the answer to the questions of life.
80. True artists merge with the Tao and disappear into their work. The artist and the art become one. The small self becomes a vessel for the Grand Self and is indistinguishable from the Source.
81. To enter the Zone your mental and emotional state must match it. That configuration is never based on the dense frequencies of struggle, pain, sacrifice, resistance, or complaint. It is always based on the higher frequencies of joy, trust, flow, and positive vision. If you are angry, upset, or defiant, you can’t get there from here. You need to elevate your consciousness. You can’t get to something you love by doing something you hate. You can’t get to ease by way of struggle; to peace by way of conflict; to wholeness by way of sacrifice; or to self-affirmation by way of self-denial. You have to attain a state of being that is closer to the experience you desire.
82. Lao Tse would not call himself a Taoist. Noble and helpful as the religious tradition is, the old master could not live inside a case. Even while Lao Tse warned against efforts to organize truth, an “ism” has grown up around his teachings. If I had to join a religious movement, Taoism would be a worthy prospect. But I would not find Lao Tse at its meetings.
83. All beliefs are temporary and ultimately evolve to something different. There will come a time when everything you now believe will not be true for you. As much as you are sure you know how it is, one day you will change your mind about how it is. Never argue that your way is the only way or the right way. One day you will be proven wrong, even to yourself.
84. The need to be right is what makes things go wrong. If insecure religions, political parties, cultures, teachers, spouses, and parents would just quit trying to force others to adopt their beliefs, violence would abate, humanity would grow beyond its dogmatic immaturity, and society would evolve rapidly.
85. If you need to be right by making others wrong, you will not find a home in the Tao.
86. The only thing worse than discovering that you have been participating in a dysfunctional system is to stay in it.
87. Blind faith leaves people sightless. The Tao calls us to never swallow any belief system whole, but to be discerning about what is true and what is illusion laid over truth in truth’s name.
88. Give yourself space to be what you are. Give others space to be what they are. Then everything will make itself clear.
89. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days, during which he conquered temptation. Moses scaled Mount Sinai and later descended with the Word of God. Muhammad’s first revelation came when he was meditating in a cave on a mountain and was visited by the archangel Gabriel. Then all of these masters returned to the world and delivered the insights they gained. You need not be a religious prophet to benefit from a retreat. Nor do you need to wait until you can get away for a weekend or week. Do it daily. Set up some kind of meditation, prayer, or soul-renewing activity each day. Begin your day with connection to Source and then take space during your day whenever you can, even for a few moments, to energize your spirit. Then, before you go to bed, devote some time to cleanse your thoughts and emotions and prepare you for deep, healing sleep.
90. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, either find a way to re-create or reapproach your work, or leave. Do not settle for a boring or oppressive career. Take charge of your vocation and your happiness.
91. Jobs don’t make or break our happiness. Only our mind does. Point your mind in the right direction, and you can turn any job into an adventure.
92. Life is not happening to you. Life is responding to you.
93. Sometimes things have to fall apart before they can come together better. Every difficulty comes with guidance to move in a new direction. Redefine challenge as your friend, and it will prove itself to be so.
94. Spiritual teachers have been telling us for millennia that all minds are joined. Now science is demonstrating this profound capacity.
95. We can summarize the proper relationship between body and spirit with one simple word: priorities. Which comes first: Love or stuff? Connecting or dividing? Winning or joining? You don’t have to slice away or deny your bodily activities. Just keep them in order.

“The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma

This book begins in an epic way. Told from a third-person vantage point, this is a story about a hot-shot lawyer named Julian who drove himself to overwork and stress, whom eventually had a heart attack in the court room. Sure he had all the worldly luxury we can imagine, but with his workload he never really forge a sincere friendship nor marriage, making him feeling empty inside.

And the heart attack was apparently the last straw. After recovering, he never went back to practicing law, sold everything from his mansion, to his Rolex, and of course his Ferrari; let go of his playboy bachelor lifestyle; and then travelled to India.

Julian spent the first several months wandering around in India in search for a teacher, all to no avail. That is, until he met with an Indian lawyer that turned into a monk, and he told Julian to seek a certain sage in the Himalayas. He then walked for 7 days with little food and water, until he met a disciple of the sage, who eventually brought him to meet Yogi Raman. 5 stars of a story, so far.

That is, until about 15% of the book, when Julian is suddenly back home – looking radiant, calmer, more youthful, and happy – where he was found visiting John (the narrator of the story) at his office, to tell him about the trip.

John was Julian’s junior associate in his legal practicing days, who has been telling Julian’s story from the beginning. And now we’re going to find out why John is the narrator. You see, this book is about John’s transformation afterall, where he is glorifying Julian as a American guru fresh from pilgrimage and mentorship from Yogi Raman in the Himalayas, and now Julian will teach everything he knows to him.

This is where, for the remaining 85% of the book, Julian turned from a badass wanderer slash monk ( who sold his Ferrari) into a figure more similar like a spiritual salesman selling a multilevel marketing scheme. And for his part, John seems to be a person who are completely oblivious about spirituality and just willingly accept anything that Julian tells him, without any skepticism.

So what are the life changing secrets taught by a sage in the Himalayas? If we strip away the guru-language, the vague indirect messages from this “fictional fable”, and every other sage-related anecdotes to give this book some fake credibility, at the very essence there are 7 main lessons:

1. Master your mind
2. Follow your purpose
3. Practice Kaizen
4. Live with discipline
5. Respect your time
6. Selflessly serve others
7. Embrace the present

I mean, I get it. I understand why this book has such low ratings in Goodreads, with quite a lot of people giving 1 star seemingly almost in contemp. It looks like your typical self-help bullet points, but wrapped around a fictitious story. But this is not actually an issue if done right.

I can see how in writing this book Robin Sharma is trying to emulate what George Carlson did with “The Richest Man in Babylon”, delivering lessons from a fictional fable. But unlike the way Carlson wrote his excellent book, Sharma’s book is not consistent with its context. Like the usage of “Kaizen”; this is such a 1990s self-help Japanese buzzword about constant and never ending improvement, which surely no secluded sage from the Himalayas would know.

In addition, the book also uses way too many unecessary jargons to make certain normal action sounds more mystical than it is. Such as rebranding the 80/20 rule into “the ancient rule of twenty”; or teaching about “the Heart of the Rose” technique, with the “thorns” represent the challenges or hardship you face in your journey and the “flower” represent the glory or the beauty you can experience once you can discipline your mind and can overcome your challenges. You know what is it really about? Meditation.

Moreover, Julian also likes to quote the likes of Winston Churchill, Viktor Frankl, Emerson, or Benjamin Disraeli, even Chinese proverb, in deliverying his points. Which is excellent in the broader sense of self-help approach, but poorly forced within the specific context of a wisdom from India.

This got me thinking, why force it to make this book about Indian wisdom, while in truth there’s hardly any Vedic approach in it? Because if you read the likes of Baghavad Gita, the Upanishad, or at least the introduction of Eknath Easwaran’s Dhammapada, you will find a completely different sets of wisdom that will expose this book to be nothing but a self-help book. Heck, read “Inner Engineering” by an actual Yogi Sadhguru and you will see how he riddicules the feel-good but empty mantras of self-help approach.

Hence, I can’t help but thinking that maybe, just maybe, this book is specifically catered to the stereotypical non-religious [white] people who are seeking spirituality from Eastern wisdom, but not bothering to actually dive deep into the whole sets of sub-continent religions. You know, those people who ended up joining the cult of Osho in 1980s Oregon; or those meditation app subscribers; or those vegan hippie that you can find living in Canggu, Bali, today.

However, I also understand the positive hype around this book when it was first published in 1997, because despite all the poor narration the messages are actually good. Not only the big picture framework but also the little sub messages scattered all over the book, such as “Ten Rituals of Radiant Living” (however cringy the title may sound). Hence, the popularity of this book, with millions of copies sold worldwide since it was first published and with the book have since been translated into 51 languages, not to mention that it was indeed one of the early fews book for the self help genre.

So to be fair, this could be more about wrong timing rather than quality per se. Had I read this book earlier – and haven’t read the dozens more self help books throughout the decades – I can see how it could have a big effect on me back in my teenage years in the 1990s; placing this book among “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People”, or the Chicken Soup series, Andrew Matthews’ cartoon series, or the Tony Robbins books and cassettes.

“The 50th Law” by 50 Cent and Robert Greene

Robert Greene is my number one favourite author, and to date I’ve read every single book written by him. Except for one, this book. Initially I never had the desire to read a book co-written with Fifty Cent, not that I have anything against him but because as much as I like some of his songs I’m not really a hip hop kind of guy.

But then the Diddy case emerges, with a lot of the biggest names in showbusiness are mentioned. So like a lot of people I did a deep dive into the whole scandal, including watching all 4 episodes of the documentary funded by Fifty. Oh the sheer level of patience and calculated pettiness by him is just chef’s kiss. And I thought, this dude’s different, he’s very strategic in everything he does, very methodical, and I’m intrigued to read more about him. And I know exactly which book to read about all of it.

In making this book, Greene was given access to pretty much all of Fifty’s world throughout 2007. As Greene recalled, he “followed him on numerous high-powered business meetings, sitting quietly in a corner and observing him in action. One day I witnessed a raucous fistfight in his office between two of his employees, with Fifty having to personally break it up. I observed a fake crisis that he manufactured for the press for publicity purposes. I followed him as he mingled with other starts, friends from the hood, European royalty, and political figures. I visited his childhood home in Southside Queens, hung out with his friends from his hustling days, and got a sense of what it could be like to grow up in that world.”

And during this whole shadowing period, Greene noticed something: “the more I witnessed him in action on all these fronts, the more it struck me that Fifty was a walking, living example of the historical figures I had written about in my three books. He is a master player at power, a kind of hip-hop Napoleon Bonaparte.”

This is not a cheap compliment from Greene’s part. Because Greene is the master of writing about various power plays in history, where he developed a theory that the source of greatness or success could almost always be traced to 1 single attribute or skill or unique quality that distinguished them from the rest. For Napoleon, according to Greene, it was his ability to absorb a huge amount of detail and organized them in his mind. And after shadowing Fifty and interviewing him about his past, Greene concluded that the 1 single source of his power is utter fearlessness.

As Greene reasoned, “This quality does not manifest itself in yelling or obvious intimidation tactics. Any time Fifty acts that way in public it is pure theater. Behind the scenes, he is cool and calculating. His lack of fear is displayed in his attitude and his actions. He has seen and lived through too many dangerous encounters on the streets to be remotely fazed by anything in the corporate world. If a deal is not to his liking, he will walk away and not care. If he needs to play a little rough and dirty with an adversary, he goes at it without a second thought. He feels supreme confidence in himself. Living in a world where most people are generally timid and conservative, he always has the advantage of being willing to do more, to take risks, and to be unconventional. Coming from an environment in which he never expected to live past the age of twenty-five, he feels like he has nothing to lose, and this brings him tremendous power.”

And this is what the 50th Law is about: Fearlessness. As Greene sums it up neatly: “In the end, this is a book about a particular philosophy of life that can be summed up as follows—your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.”

With this in mind, the book tells Fifty’s story from the technical side: Unlike any other biography, it focuses less on the anecdotal details of his life’s story but more on the blueprint of his moves, the method out of the madness, how he carry himself during each one of those events, etc. The book doesn’t tell Fifty’s story in a linear way either, where Greene would go back and forth between Fifty’s hustling days and rapping days in every other chapter, to illustrate his many different power plays.

Fifty, however, is not the only figure covered in this book. In fact he only comprised of what it feels like 40% of the total coverage, with the other examples for the fearlessness trait are taken from the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia, Miles Davis, JFK, Mao Zedong, Leonardo da Vinci, Ingmar Bergman, Charlie Parker, Niccolò Machiavelli, Richard Wright (the first best-selling African American author in US history), Catherine the Great, film director John Ford, Moses, Thomas Alva Edison, Louis XIV of France, Roman general Scipio Africanus, Jane Goodall, Fyodor Dostoevsky, French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Eleanor Roosevel, Malcolm X, Isaac Newton, boxer Jack Johnson, Demosthenes, Thur-good Marshall, Michelangelo, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earheart, Frank Lloyd Wright, Joan of Arc, Seneca, Ernest Hemingway, Oliver Sacks, Jean de Léry, and more.

Suffice to say, I am now a big fan of Fifty, not necessarily for the music but for the character. His life’s story is immensely crazy, from never knowing his father and the fact that his mother was killed when he was 8 only years old, to learning hardship and how to survive in the streets selling drugs from the age of 12 in one of the most dangerous neighbourhood in the country. Along the way he got into numerous troubles, including getting caught and go to prison, having beef with the biggest drug lord in the neighbourhood, and of course the infamous story about him getting shot 9 times and survived. His fearless aproach on life is also what later helped him successfully navigate the nasty world of music business.

To compare his harsh beginning with his life now as a rich and famous person in control over his own business empire, might seem like something close to a miracle. But if you read this book that shows all the power plays behind his rise to success, you will see that luck got nothing to do with it.

“Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” by Anthony Bourdain

You know when you talk to people who are passionate about their craft, and you can now see their subject of affection from a completely different light and you can feel their enthusiasm being contagious to you? This is what this book makes me feel, where suddenly I can see “chefdom”, as Anthony Bourdain describes it, from a new exciting angle.

This book is Bourdain’s intriguing autobiography from his previous life, the time before he became world famous for being an adventurer. It is narrated in a familiar way like the way he used to narrate his travel adventure shows: with raw honesty, sarcasm, skepticism, dark humor, somehow wisdom, and of course no bullshit. But instead of the slums and villages around the world, it is the brutal and unforgiving jungle of his home turf: the messy, chaotic, tough world of New York’s food scene.

As Bourdain describes it, “I want to tell you about the dark recesses of the restaurant underbelly – a subculture whose centuries-old militaristic hierarchy and ethos of ‘rum, buggery and the lash’ make for a mix of unwavering order and nerve-shattering chaos – because I find it all quite comfortable, like a nice warm bath. I can move around easily in this life. I speak the language. In the small, incestuous community of chefs and cooks in New York City, I know the people, and in my kitchen, I know how to behave (as opposed to in real life, where I’m on shakier ground).”

He tells it all, in a brutally honest way, from the time he was being a dishwasher in a pizza place straight after high school, to the best culinary school in the country, the long and difficult tale of climbing up the ladder in chefdom (or more precisely, moving around restaurants within the city), being fed up with all of it and stay away from being a chef, living in the wilderness for years, working at a restaurant owned by a mob, getting fired from a Mexican place, working at a Chinese food place for a while, working under “New York’s Prince of Restaurant Darkness”, and many more tales before finally becoming one of the top chefs in the city.

All the foul mouthed scenes in the heat of the kitchen, his serious (but hilarious) contempt towards vegetarians, his take on food freshness, him actually teaching us how to properly cook a meal, on owning a restaurant, a guy nicknamed “Bigfoot” who taught Bourdain everything about the industry, that time when he was burnt out and swore to never work in the restaurant industry again, his addiction to drugs, lessons from the many shitty restaurants that he worked for, all of them make some highly amusing tales. A stuff of legend.

Funny how looking back to his insanely turbulent life as a chef, can really prepare him for his next life as a travel adventure superstar. It’s like his whole life was preparing him to toughen up and wise up in order to be able to travel into the most difficult corners of the world.

I really enjoyed reading it due to its rawness and vulgarity, a kind of no-bullshit attitude that I increasingly grow to love. Like the Ernest Hemingway of the world, or Dave Chapelle, Mark Manson, or even Charles Bukowski. The chaos-ness of it all also reminds me of the beautiful disaster of the book “Please Kill Me”, the oral history of punk music. But instead of musicians, Bourdain makes chefs and their kitchen staffs look like the ones who are the rock stars. And rightly so.

“Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace” by Christopher Blattman

This is a highly realistic book about the ugly nature of war and peace.

The author, Christopher Blattman, is a professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He’s had the craziest range of first-hand research, from Uganda accounting bodies in war torn area, to Colombia interviewing real drug lords, to Northern Ireland investigating the religious divide, meeting the love of this life in Kenya, and to Liberia where he constructed a rehabilitation program for the worst of the worst fighters from the civil war.

The range of second-hand researches in this book are also intriguing: from the economics in Lesotho involving cows, to tribe war in Mongolia, unstable South Sudan, to hooliganism in England by a journalist who embedded himself with an actual hooligan, and many more hot spots around the globe; using several scientific findings, including a deep analysis of the psychology of war from letter exchanges between Freud and Einstein during World War 1.

And what can this book possibly teach us? Quite a lot, actually. And I’m going to dissect them and reorganize them into 3 categories: 1. What prevents war 2. What causes war 3. Negotiating peace.

What prevents war

This book attempts to enlighten us about one of the most misunderstood notions in history: that us humans are in a constant state of war. Indeed, as Blattman remarks, “For every war that ever was, a thousand others have been averted through discussion and concession.”

Being economically intertwined is one of the big reasons for averting war. Like the Hindus and the Muslims in Somnath, India, where “the enterprises of one side are wrapped up with that of their rival, these entrepreneurs, financiers, and industrialists have a stake in peace with the rival group.” The same with nations, with their multi-nations web of trades, which becomes a key part of maintaining the likes of Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britanica, and especially today’s Pax Americana.

Another element that prevents war is the separation of power between the executive, the legislative, and the judicative branches of a nation. Dividing these power and holding the decision-makers accountable can reduce all 5 risks of war (more on this later). Check and balances are indeed the solutions. As Blattman explains, “Elected prime ministers and presidents might be just as lustful for glory as tyrants, but they have a harder time taking their nations to war to satisfy that desire. The same is true for misperceptions. Leaders are human. In a personalized system of power, a nation is at the mercy of the bias (or lunacy) of a cabal. When power brokers are restrained and decision-making is institutionalized, however, a ruler’s mistakes are modulated by other actors.”

This is why, for example, a lot of countries in sub-Saharan Africa become some of the most violent in the world in the late 20th century. “Hasty decolonization left the continent with some of the most unaccountable regimes on the planet. Few rights and responsibilities were spread across different branches of government. Many presidents weren’t just military commander in chief, they were also comptroller of the treasury, appointer of every office, and even chancellor of the university. Authority was concentrated in the capital, and provinces could seldom tax or spend independently of the center. Power was often personalized as well.”

And if we read the history books, the majority of leadership in a kingdom or country for most of human history have also been like this: centralized, personalized to its leader, and unequal. Hence, their tendency for war bias. Because, as Blattman explains, “when power is centralized, governments cannot persuade internal challengers to give up their arms. This may be why countries with more constraints on the government are less likely to have long and repeated internal conflicts. This is also why so many ethnically and religiously diverse countries avoid majoritarian rule, and choose more consensus-based forms of government that are more decentralized and allow power sharing. This ethnic and geographic power sharing seems to be a stabilizing force.”

But gaining these level of checks and balances is not an easy task, something that a Nigerian political scientist Claude Ake sums up nicely: “Democracy cannot be given, it must be seized.” And among all the books written on constraints and democratization, we can see that checks and balances were achieved gradually and through struggle. Because we’re dealing with human nature with its greed for money and lust for power.

Another big determinant that prevents war is a game theory involving risk-reward or cost-return as tools for measure. As Blattman remarks, “People will compete for riches, honor, command, or other power, just as Hobbes believed, but they’d prefer not to kill, subdue, or supplant the other. It’s too dangerous and expensive. That’s why stateless societies try to foster norms and create bodies that keep order. Not a state—that’s difficult to conjure out of nothing. But some of humanity’s other inventions have echoes of the state: tribe and clan structures, for example, with respected headmen and councils of elders, who coordinate with other clans to admonish or punish warlike groups in their network.”

Indeed, in the absense of a strong state presence, the danger and cost of war would force us to create structures to keep order out of chaos. In fact, even within a strong state these structures can still exist. And it doesn’t have to be only a tribal or political structure, it can also appear in other structures to shape behavior: religious edicts, rituals, taboos, culture of honor, moral code, and many other shared beliefs that can push people to maintain peace using societal system of praise and shame.

Another incentive to keep peace is when we’re unsure about the strength of our enemies, and thus unsure about the potential risk-reward or cost-return. As Blattman remarks, “When your true strength is ambiguous, your enemies are never sure how strong or resolved you are. Thus, in a lawless society, you have strategic incentives to cultivate a reputation for violence, even if you do not have the taste for it. A culture of honor is what we call it when this strategic response becomes a widely shared social norm.”

That’s right, crucially, in the absence of a strong state presence, a culture of honor is what can help to preserve a fragile peace. This is what often overlooked in history books, the structure that kept peace in tact. “The fact is, even the bitterest of enemies prefer to loathe one another in peace. That’s easy to forget. Our attention gets captured by the wars that do happen, like the ones in northern Uganda or North Lawndale. News reports and history books do the same—they focus on the handful of violent struggles that occur. Few write books about the countless conflicts avoided.”

I mean, sure, conflicts and wars are in abundance, that’s all we humans seem to do. But if we overlook the more abundant examples of when conflicts and wars were avoided, we’re at risk of getting the root-causes of war and the path to peace all wrong. As Blattman elaborates, “When people focus on the times peace failed, and trace back the circumstances and events to find the causes, they often find a familiar set: flawed leaders, historic injustices, dire poverty, angry young men, cheap weapons, and cataclysmic events. War seems to be the inevitable result. But this ignores the times conflict was avoided. If people also looked at the times rivals didn’t fight, they’d see a lot of the same preceding conditions. All these so-called causes of war are commonplace. Prolonged violence is not. Things that are present in both the failures and the successes are probably not the roots of war.”

So what are the root causes of war and peace? Blattman explains, “peace arises not from brotherly love and cooperation, but from the ever-present threat of violence. Each side’s bargaining power comes from its ability to threaten the enemy with harm. This power could come from guns, from defensive fortifications, from the money to hire soldiers, from new terror tactics, or from the ability to mobilize millions of people into the streets, munitions factories, or infantry—anything that helps one group triumph over their rival. But you garner concessions only if you can credibly threaten to burn the whole house down.”

Yes, it is about sizing up our enemies once again, and projecting strengths from our side. Because, as long as war looks costly, both sides would likely to strike a political deal. “This implies something you might find counterintuitive: often, the more destructive our weapons, the easier it should be to find peace.” A case in point, the US and allies never really bother North Korea with “democracy” or “human right” despite being a blatant violator for both, because North Korea explicitly shows that they have a nuclear weapon.

What causes war

But why do wars still happening? Blattman narrows down the risk of war into five categories: 1. Unchecked interests 2. Intangible incentives 3. Uncertainty 4. Commitment problem 5. Misperceptions. Let’s break it down.

The first is unchecked interests. The main incentive for peace is if the cost of war are great, from the actual dollar amount, to the potential death tolls, the destructions, the lost of territory, or the sanctions or social consequences. But war could still occur when the decision maker are not accountable to the others in their group. Like sending other tribes to fight the war for them, or someone else is paying for the weapons supplies or the cost of rebuilding, or sometimes these decision-makers expect to gain personally from these conflicts. As Blattman comments, “Unchecked rulers like these are one of the greatest drivers of conflict in history.” This is like the US and Europe funding and supplying Israel for the genocide in Gaza and attacking 5 countries, while protecting them in the UN through US vetoes, and have Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner leading the “rebuilding” of Gaza without involving any Palestinian. Israel can be so trigger happy because there’s no accountability whatsoever.

The second reason is intangible incentives. Sometimes violence occurs when there are intangible incentives to be gained, like revenge or status or dominance. In other times, violence is the only means to a justified end like God’s glory, combating injustice, or freedom. These things are priceless in their eyes, and it justifies any cost necessary. As Blattman remarks, “Unjust acts triggered a strong, lasting, predictable desire to act justly and punish the aggressor. The glow from righteous action would outweigh some of the costs and risks.” Nearly all leftist revolutions against right-wing dictators came from this desire for justice, or the terror attacks by Afghani and Iraqis against US soldiers during US occupation.

The third reason is uncertainty. It’s like calling a bluff in a game of poker: “You don’t know what cards your opponents hold, but you know they have an incentive to fool you. Obviously, your best response is not to fold every time. Likewise, in war, you don’t know your enemies’ strength or resolve, and they, too, may bluff. So sometimes you call. The fact that you don’t have the same information as your rivals means that attacking is occasionally the best strategy, even if fighting is detrimental.” Indeed, while most of the time when we’re unsure about the strength of our enemy it can preserve peace, other times a risk-taking enemy will do the opposite and test our real strength. US attack on Iran (on behalf of Israel) in June 2025 seems to be about this, where Iran’s retaliation showed a force mightier than expected, which prompted the US to ask for a truce. Or Russian invasion of Ukraine can be seen as a safeguard measure to prevent a potential NATO recruitment right at the borders with Russia (no matter how unjustified the invasion is).

Fourth reason is commitment problems. During a commitment of peace, when your rival grows powerful your best option is to concede with it. But what if you can see your opponent’s rise in advance? You can have the incentive to strike them now while they’re still an equal match and you’re still strong, breaking the peace commitment pre-emptively. “The fear of an encroaching, growing minority consumes many societies”, Blattman remarks, “We see it in the native concerned about immigrants with a different language or color of skin (in America or Sweden, for instance); in the exploding population of a minority with a different religion (in China, Israel, or Northern Ireland, for example).”

What happened in Rwanda is a horrific example for this: “Genocide is a tactic of the temporarily powerful. The logic should sound familiar by now: today’s majority can share a slice of the pie with the minority group for eternity, or they can pay a cost now and avoid having to bargain and share in the future. When the minority is expected to remain small and weak, it doesn’t make sense for the majority to pay the price of eliminating them. But if the minority is growing quickly in number, military might, or wealth, then the majority is faced with a diabolical decision akin to that of a Germany facing a rising Russia.” And thus, “Often, the majority feels imminently imperiled—a situation so dire that it overcomes internal opposition and fears of being held to account for this horrific crime. That’s one reason most mass killings happen in the middle of an active conflict. This was the case in Rwanda. The Hutu hard-liners in government were losing a war to an invading force of Tutsi soldiers. The civilian massacre was part of the Hutu extremists’ final failed gamble for victory.”

The fifth reason, misperceptions. This stems from overvaluing ourselves and downvaluing our enemies. As Blattman explains, “We are overconfident creatures. We also assume others think like us, value the same things we do, and see the world the same way. And we demonize our enemies and attribute to them the worst motives. We hold on to all sorts of mistaken beliefs, even in big groups, and when we do, it hijacks our ability to find a bargain we and our enemies can agree to. Competition and conflict make all these misjudgments worse.” The ever growing political polarizations anywhere in the world is a prime example for this. Or the baffling support of a mass murder.

Indeed, probably one of the most frequently asked questions about World War 2 is why do people support Hitler’s rise to power and the eventual conduct of the Holocaust? The answer is, the same with any other support for mass murder and genocide: propaganda. Demonizing or dehumanizing our enemy is a classic propaganda trick. Using religious texts to justifies the horrific act is another. And doctrinizing the population with a fear-mongering of a target group is a sure way to get approval behind your actions. As Blattman commented, “When marshaled by war-biased leaders, our fear and anger can be bent to their aims.”

It is only after seeing these 5 reasons that we can finally understand why today in 2026 the global geopolitical temperature is at its worrying level. Level that hasn’t been seen in decades.

Negotiating peace

So, where do we go from here? What do we do after war breaks out? Around 2,500 years ago, the Chinese military general Sun Tzu puts it aptly in his book The Art of War: “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” Indeed, war massacres soldiers, ravages civilians, starves cities, disrupt trades, plunders stores, demolishes industry, and bankrupts governments. In short, war is ruinous. Nobody in their right mind wants a prolonged war, and so we naturally resort to negotiation.

As Blattman remarks, “On the whole, however, we’re a remarkably cooperative species. If anything, the striking thing about human nature is our capacity to empathize, to work together in large groups, to negotiate, and to make the kinds of trade-offs that preserve peace. In no way are we unthinking war machines.” And the key to peace negotiation is how to strike a balance between incentives and bargaining.

The challenge, however, is once the weapons are put down, the stronger side (such as the controlling government or the bigger country or an occupier) has the incentives to renege on the agreement or at least to settle old scores. The risk is particularly high when the rebels are disproportionately weak, even worse if the controlling regime is autocratic and unchecked. Hence, as Blattman said, “a constrained, legitimatized state is probably the most effective at producing peace.” Because peace is not the absence of conflict, but it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

But you can see the irony here, right? Most likely the main reason why the rebels put up an assymetric war to begin with is because of the unconstrained and unchecked nature of the controlling regime. And this is the ugly truth about peace deals, “A peaceful society does not have to be equal or just. Even repressive security forces can be an effective institution of violence control.” We never said anything about justice, only how to end a war. This is also why some wars prolong way longer than it should, due to the injustice nature of peace terms.

Conclusion: It’s all about compromise

But the good news is, everything has its price. And the effectiveness of a peace negotiation depends on how to reach a compromise. As Blattman remarks, “To find the real roots of fighting, we need to pay attention to the struggles that stay peaceful. By this I don’t mean happy and harmonious. Rivalries can be hostile and contentious. The groups may be polarized. They’re often heavily armed. They disparage and threaten one another, and they ostentatiously display their weapons. That is all normal. Bloodshed and destruction are not.”

“This shows something important”, Blattman further remarks, “we should expect peace to be resilient, even when power is unequally held, even when rivals detest one another, and even when they’re buffeted by shocks and shifts in power. In general, the side with the least material wealth, mobilizational power, and military strength should expect to get a lesser share of the pie, and to live with it. A final lesson is this: if a mismatch between spoils and power ever arises, it is better for both sides to deal than fight.”

Because, we very rarely can have the entire pie to ourselves, but we sure can share it.

Hence, the attempt to create a two-state solution in Palestine and Israel (no matter how unfair it is); or the Treaty of Tordesillas 1494 between 2 competing superpowers of the day, that gave Portugal “land rights” to the east (Africa, Asia, and Brazil) and Spain to the west (most of Americas); or the Berlin Conference 1885 between several European colonisers that breaks apart the continent of Africa into several fictitious countries; or the type of deals that I resent the most and can be seen in a lot of conflict resolutions: a peace treaty where the war will stop with the condition that the perpetrators will be immune from prosecution and can get away with their crimes.

Indeed, forget justice and equality, the world is never fair to begin with. And seeing it from the point of view of power struggles and incentives – as covered in this book – can provide us with how the real world really operates. Afterall, it’s never our intention to seek utopia, instead what we’re trying to do is to prevent a war or to stop it from prolonging much longer.

It is perhaps analogous to what former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld liked to say about the function of the UN: “The UN was not created to take humanity to heaven but to save it from hell.”

“The Effective Executive” by Peter F. Drucker

This book is a classic for a reason. It is filled with an abundance of wisdom from Drucker’s decades of experience in consulting some of the biggest names in the business world.

And although the examples are understandably slightly outdated (Jack Welch, Robert McNamara, Harry Truman, etc) the lessons are still very much relevant today.

And it comes down to these 10 main points, as perfectly summarized by Jim Collins in the 50th anniversary foreword (and I took the elaborations from all over the book):

1. Manage thyself: If you want the performance around you to go up, first you must improve your own performance.
2. Do what you’re made for: Focus on your distinctive competences, and then navigate your life and career in direct alignment.
3. Figure out how you work best (and let others do the same): Some people work better at night, some in the morning. Some absorb information better through reading, others by listening. Etc.
4. Manage your time and make it count: what gets measured gets managed. “But before springing into action, the executive needs to plan his course. He needs to think about desired results, probable restraints, future revisions, check-in points, and implications for how he’ll spend his time.”
5. Prepare better meetings that are more efficient and effective: “The key to running an effective meeting is to decide in advance what kind of meeting it will be.” Moreover, “Good executives don’t raise another matter for discussion. They sum up and adjourn. Good follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself.” And listen first, speak last.
6. Don’t make a hundred decisions if one will do: “But effective executives do not splinter themselves. They concentrate on one task if at all possible. If they are among those people—a sizable minority—who work best with a change of pace in their working day, they pick two tasks. I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time. Hence, after asking what needs to be done, the effective executive sets priorities and sticks to them.”
7. Find your one distinctive impact: “What made them all effective is that they followed the same eight practices: 1. They asked, “What needs to be done?” 2. They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?” 3. They developed action plans 4. They took responsibility for decisions 5. They took responsibility for communicating 6. They were focused on opportunities rather than problems 7. They ran productive meetings. 8. They thought and said “we” rather than “I.””
8. Sunk cost fallacy: Stop what you’re doing now that in hindsight you would not start again.
9. Run the company with a small team and stay lean as you grow, to ensure effectiveness and efficiency.
10. Be useful: Ask yourself “what can I contribute?”

The further elaboration from these 10 points are what makes this book one of the first books that come to mind when anyone ask about the best book on management.

It is refreshing to read that in 45 years of his work as a consultant for executives, he said that he has never met with a “natural”, or an executive that was born effective. And instead, they are all had to practice effectiveness until it becomes a habit.

As Drucker remarks, “Effective executives differ widely in their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs. All they have in common is that they get the right things done. Some are born effective. But the demand is much too great to be satisfied by extraordinary talent. Effectiveness is a discipline. And, like every discipline, effectiveness can be learned and must be earned.”

Indeed, effectiveness can be learned. And this book shows us how.

Hence, even if you’re not an executive you can still use all the knowledge from this book to make yourself a more effective person. Because, when other management books are focusing on managing other people, this book is about managing yourself for effectiveness. And I actually learned a lot from it.

“The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoevsky

In a world filled with crooks, thieves, murderers, and corrupt sinners, being a genuinely nice person can be seen as an idiot. That’s who Prince Myshkin is, the idiot.

After spending 4 years exiled in a sanatorium in Switzerland, from an illness (epilepsy) that caused him to lose memory and ability to reason, the prince returns to St. Petersburg bringing a legal document showing entitlement to a significant inheritance. And he was immediately confronted by the extreme contrasts of life at the Russian capital city. He smiles at strangers, willingly give away his last Ruble, and believes that honesty is the best act. And his childlike innocence and kindness were immediately ridiculed.

Yes, this is a story where a man with a truly kind soul is being tested against the psychological, social, and political cruelty of the Russian society. It is not only about how he respond to such world, but also how the dark world respond to him.

But the prince is not in any shape or form a perfect person. He has no sense of danger and no survivorship skill, he trusts untrustworthy people, get easily manipulated, quick to believe in the lies told by everyone, and never think about doing things that will benefit him (like pursuing more education – and instead proud of his lack of education). He is also genuinely an idiot, where he can sacrifice himself to be the scapegoat in someone else’s matter that has nothing to do with him, in order to calm down a situation and maintain harmony.

But perhaps his biggest tragedy is not his naivety. Instead, it’s his ability to actually see clearly and understand too much. He can see general Epanchin’s greed during his business deal, spot Nastasya Filipovna’s self loathing beneath her glamour exterior, understand the despair behind Rogozhin’s violent outbursts and forgive him when others judge. It is a tragedy because his clear understanding of any situation don’t really contribute much.

For example, the prince becomes the intermediary between disputing factions but his pacifist solutions only delay the inevitable violence. Or that time when he is trying to save Nastasya from her abusive patron only to trigger a love triangle that ends in murder. Or that one occasion where he caught a liar trying to scam him out of his money, but he ended up still giving the money anyway. Which led Dostoevsky to ponder, if Jesus Christ returns tomorrow we would probably not crucify him, but instead we would ridicule him for his good nature, call him an idiot, and lock him up in an asylum.

In writing this character Dostoevsky was aiming to create a “wholly virtuous man”, in which he projects the workings of the human mind and our complex and complicated nature. It is said to be the closest character Dostoevsky created that resembles his personality and circumstance, especially the parts where he’s living in Switzerland and having epileptic episodes.

Indeed, Dostoevsky was living in Switzerland during the time he wrote this 12th novel of his (in around 1867-1871), where he exiled himself and his wife to get away from his creditors. They were living in a dire poverty during this period and had to constantly borrow money or pawn their possessions, while more often than not he gambled his wife’s money away (an addiction that cripples a lot of his finances throughout the years and ruins most of his adult life). And by the time the novel was completed in January 1869, they had moved between 4 different cities in Switzerland and Italy, and had been evicted from their lodgings 5 times for failure to pay rent.

Prior to this Dostoevsky became famous after publishing his first novel Poor Folk (1845), then The Double (1846), The Landlady (1847), and White Nights (1848), before getting involved in the activities of the Petrashevsky Circle, a Russian literary discussion group that was banned due to their position of opposing the tsarist autocracy and Russian serfdom. This got him into trouble and he was eventually captured and sentenced to death by a firing squad in 22 December 1849. But the firing was overturned at the last minute and he was instead sent to Siberia for 4 years of hard labour and followed by 6 years of compulsory military service in exile. He would not write again for the next 10 years.

This near-death experience and the exile left a profound impression on Dostoevsky, and it shows in his next novels, including in The Idiot in the way the prince talks in depth about the subject of capital punishment. Dostoevsky’s suffering also reflected in the way he sees the world as a dark place filled with evil people, hence the incredible range of casts in this novel with twisted characters and psychological depths.

The novel does not have a happy ending, however, but instead it has a realistically appropriate one that concludes the story with a full circle. After being left at the altar by Nastasya, the prince eventually finds Nastasya murdered by Rogozhin but yet, somehow, stupidly, he spends the night comforting the killer. This last selfless act destroyed the prince, where he succumbs into a mental breakdown with his mind shattered by the world’s cruelty and doctors pronounce him incurable. And so the prince ended up back in the sanatorium in Switzerland, where he completely withdraw himself from society.