Article: David Brooks on the Composure Class - The New Yorker

's-Gravenage, Nederland

It will come as no surprise that I am an ardent fan of David Brooks and just about anything he writes. I try to repeat what he writes as often as possible to sound smart, hoping that other people have not also read his column.

He has a smart-sounding-enablement article in the New Yorker this week. It is worth a read if you have twenty minutes to spare. An easy to read story (as only the New Yorker can deliver), it surveys a lot of cognitive science research that has been going on over our lifetimes. Though, keep your should-be-skeptical-of-liberal-narrative-journalism guard up, he does make a few leaps.

A few of my favorite lines:

• People generally overestimate how distinct their own lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them a series of miracles. The coincidences gave their relationship an aura of destiny.
• According to research by Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, and others, the daily activities most closely associated with happiness are social—having sex, socializing after work, and having dinner with friends.
• Human beings are overconfidence machines. People in the computer industry gave answers they thought had a ninety-five per cent chance of being right; in fact, eighty per cent of them were wrong. Ninety-nine per cent of the respondents overestimated their success.

Don't worry if you don't have time to read it. I'll be sure to tell you all about it the next time I see you and try to pass it off as my own.

Bookshelves Made of Glass

There is a great, fun article in the newspaper today that talks about dating and books. I recently had the comment that “I am surprised by the lack of books you have on your shelf.” To be sure, I don’t have any Pushkin’s or Dostoyevsky’s on my shelf. I have also had chills when I looked at online profiles and seen “Eat, Pray, Love” as the “best book ever!”

Years ago, I had someone close to me that worked at Barnes and Noble. She would constantly bring home books, not to mention, I would spend a lot of time in the store reading books. In one of my many moves, I packed up so many boxes of books, that it was ridiculous. Then my dutch Uncle Bob told me that he reduced his inventory to keep only books that really affected him. His advice: let the library keep all the rest for you. I decided to do the same. I tossed hundreds of books.

Instead, on my shelf you will find Sedaris’ (I enjoyed seeing my friend heave with laughter as we flew to Istanbul and some very serious women in veils looked on) and Sartre. Actually, I keep the Sartre’s to impress ladies..