A little bit of Zen (79)

 

"What are days for? 

Days are where we live. 

They come, they wake us 

Time and time over. 

They are to be happy in."

Philip Larkin - 'Days'

A little bit of Zen (78)

 

"The superior man is distressed only by the limitations of his ability. He is not distressed by the fact that other men do not recognise the ability that he has."

Kong Qiu ('Confucius')

A little bit of Zen (77)

 

"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."

Socrates

A little bit of Zen (76)

 

"Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge."

Winston Churchill

"Simpliciy is not a simple thing."

Charlie Chaplin

A little bit of Zen (75)

 

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one."

François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

"Whenever you are most certain that you are right, you are most likely to be wrong. And least likely to persuade anyone else, either way."

GW

A little bit of Zen (74)

 

"An idea fully formed and put into action is more perfect than an idea that exists only as an idea."

The Buddha

I haven't been able to find a source for this quotation. And it sounds deeply fake to me. I think it is a wise and true concept; but I doubt if it can be reliably attributed to any Buddhist scripture.

An extra 'Little bit of Zen'

"The act of picking up and opening a book masks the counter-gesture that occurs at the same time: the involuntary act of not picking up and not opening every other book in the universe."

Pierre Bayard  -  'How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read'

I think this idea returned to my mind just now because I gave this book as a Christmas present to a crush of mine a few years ago (this is probably why I have such a limited love life...).  Bayard is a French literature professor (and philosopher and psychoanalyst?!) who achieved a modest popular success 15 or 20 years ago with this playful, elegantly witty little treatise on how reading maybe isn't all it's cracked up to be (I disagree with this central thesis; but he plainly wasn't entirely serious about his propositions to that effect).

One of most thought-provoking of the observations in his book is the disturbing reminder above that reading is inextricably linked with non-reading - that every positive choice we make inevitably contains within it a much larger number of (often regrettable) rejections and omissions. 

This is the essence of opportunity cost. And that, of course, is central to the game of Fantasy Premier League - as to all else. Every player we pick in our starting team leaves out three players on the bench; every player we choose to transfer in leaves hundreds more unselected. We have to try to simplify these decisions to make them seem less daunting, less intractable, less impossible. But I think most people tend to overdo this, to radically over-simplify their selection process - too readily dismissing alternative options that should at least be given a moment's serious consideration. We should not let the multiplicity of possible choices stun us into hopelessness and inertia, but rather try to see it as an impetus to choose more carefully.

A little bit of Zen (73)

 

"Something so comfortable, familiar and perfectly nostalgic - frankly, we have no desire to improve upon it at all.”

Joana Gaines

Ms Gaines (apparently an American TV presenter of modest celebrity) was ostensibly talking about Christmas. She inadvertently sums up how I'm sure many of us feel about FPL....  (NO MORE CHANGES next year, please!!)

Anyhow,  Happy Holidays to all!

A little bit of Zen (72)

 

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures."

 

Jessamyn West

“Friction reveals truths that lubricant obscures.”

GW

I am never one to back down from an argument...  'Productive dialogue' is always good, I feel; even if it leaves blood on the floor.

Oh, she said 'fiction'? That just makes the joke better.... Still TRUE, though.

[I know, I know: some of these weekly aphorisms are a lot less 'Zen' than others.]

A little bit of Zen (71)

 

"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries."

James A. Michener

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do."

John Holt

Curious, that two of my improbable heroes (Michener, often dismissed as a mass-producer of potboiler fiction, but actually a fine writer, despite being a successful one; and Holt, an entertaining and influential writer on the philosophy and practice of education) should have had such similar thoughts on the nature of moral character.

A little bit of Zen (70)

A biplane over Edinburgh, 1920

"Monotony is the awful reward of the careful."

A. G. Buckham

Mr Buckham is somewhat obscure to the Internet; at least, not eminent enough to have yet earned his own Wikipedia page. However, I very much hope it's the Alfred George Buckham I provided the link for above: a British naval aviator during World War I, and an impressive black-and-white photographer of planes and landscapes. That stunning aerial photograph high above the centre of Edinburgh in 1920 is one of his. There is a lot more worth checking out on the linked website devoted to him.

While rashness, over-hastiness, and silly gambling are never good things,.... neither are timorousness and excess of caution - in FPL, or more generally in Life.

A little bit of Zen (69)

"You should be self-confident enough to abandon your 'certainty' - and to explore and to allow contradictions."

Christoph Waltz

A couple of weeks ago, the great Austrian actor was the featured guest in Mythical Kitchen's 'Last Meal' series, chatting thoughtfully with erudite host, Josh Scherer, about a range of topics, while enjoying some of his favourite dishes and wines. It's a curious coincidence that I should stumble on this pithy warning against the vice of excessive 'certainty' so soon after coming across Derek Muller's video on the same topic, 

This is one of the best things I've seen on Youtube all year: Waltz is a wise and funny man, full of intriguing insights. He's nearly 70 now, but still exudes a boyish enthusiasm about everything, am effervescent joie de vivre. The line above comes at timestamp 29.17. There is a bit earlier in the conversattion, around about 13.35, where he touches on another idea that I often like to highlight on this blog - the importance of prioritizing process over result.

I highly recommend watching the whole thing. Waltz is a treasure; Scherer too.

A little bit of Zen (68)

 

“We have set our sights very high; so high, so high, in fact, that even failure would have in it an echo of glory."

Bill Nicholson

The legendary Spurs manager, who led the club to its greatest successes in the early 1960s, was a surprisingly idealistic, and indeed, at times, a poetic chap. 

We can all take inspiration from this thought.

A little bit of Zen (67)

'The Library of Babel' 

"Intelligence is not making no mistakes, but quickly seeing how to make them good." 

Bertolt Brecht

"In my next life I will try to commit more errors."

Jorge Luis Borges

Yes, we've had the Brecht line on here before (well spotted!); but I couldn't resist repeating it, as it goes so well with Borges' resolution.

A little bit of Zen (66)

 

"Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time."

A.E. Housman

Alas, the great majority of FPL managers often seem to be very unreflective, unwilling to really analyse - or reconsider - any of their decisions. Three minutes is all it might take to save themselves a world of pain....

A little bit of Zen (65)

 

"It's good to be able to perceive the nobility in failure. Otherwise, we might never have anything to celebrate."

GW

That's certainly long been the case for followers of the England football team! (Well, the men's team, at least. The women seem to have developed a disturbing habit of winning things. Will our chaps be able to take inspiration from their example? Or will it only serve to show us up even more?? Perhaps we'll find out next summer....)

It's usually how the FPL season pans out for most of us too....

A little bit of Zen (64)

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."

John Barrymore

"It is a pity that young women and prospective employers do not recognise this wisdom..."

GW

It is my birthday next week. The associated number is getting large. I am not thrilled about that.

A little bit of Zen (63)

 

"Accept that some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue."

Roger C. Anderson

I'd really rather not be either!  But FPL certainly does give you that feeling of being constantly shat upon from on high.

This rueful quip crops up quite often across the Internet, without any definite attribution. If the commonly ascribed name is correct (far from certain; it might rather be 'anonymous'), I think the most likely suspect is this chap, an early 20th century English explorer, collector, and lifelong naval history buff, whose greatest distinction appears to have been holding the editorship of the historical journal, Mariner's Mirror. (Perhaps he's not that likely a candidate. But he's the only person I can find of that name who was any kind of a writer.)

A little bit of Zen (62)

 

“Happiness is your current situation - minus expectations.”

Jimmy Carr

The wilfully provocative Anglo-Irish comedian often reveals a philosophical bent in his more serious moments. This is a sentiment worthy of Epictetus (who is, to be honest, a rather greater influence on my personal outlook than Zen Buddhism or Taoism).

A little bit of Zen (61)

 

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

Albert Einstein

I'm inclined to think that the great man's playful epigram here is founded on somewhat of a false distinction. The intuitive mind is perfectly rational: it's just supercharged - by not having the ego constantly stomping all over it.

This is why the notion of trusting your gut is not mere idle superstition; it's almost invariably far superior to pondersously over-thinking a problem.