not an act but a habit

just finished watching "jiro dreams of sushi" on netflix with dad and found it to be very inspiring and interesting. the film chronicles the life of a top tier sushi chef in Tokyo and his strive for excellence, which when brought to a level as his is infectious.
I am inspired by his constant dedication and focus in his work, how is genuine lobe of what he does channels into excellence in his life. through his constant and diligent hard work he has attained a degree of excellence that stands in contrast to the mediocrity of the world around him. his work is inspiring to me to achieve even a small degree of his excellence in my life and stands as a role model to me. definitely a movie to watch again when inspiration is needed in the future. as for now I am struck in awe and thought as to how I can achieve excellence in my life. am I missing opportunities for excellence in my life? where is excellence in my life? at what cost should I strive for excellence?
I am reminded of the quote by Aristotle that

"We are what we repeatedly do . . . excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

what habits do I have the bar me from achieving excellence?
this is something I will have to give some thought...

soticism

came across an interesting post on reddit discussing the characteristics of a stoic and thought them to be interesting enough to share them here.

mentioned are the criteria for what a stoic is, or more importantly the characteristics of a stoic

• the "Sufficiency Thesis": virtue is the only good

• the "Indifferents Thesis": externals do not affect human happiness

• the "Herculean Thesis": a life with hardship is preferable to an easy life

• the "Rationality Thesis": one should attempt to remove (not moderate) the "wrong sort of emotional activity"

• the "Oikeiotic Thesis": virtue entails realizing (both in the senses of understanding and becoming) ones place in the universe as a whole, and helping other to do the same

and further

• a cluster of doctrines traceable to the central elements of classical Stoicism

• eudaimonistic: happiness, flourishing, and excellence all entail each other

• intellectualistic: virtue and reason are identical 

• naturalistic: "facts about the natural world" are the "substance of practical deliberation"

• a "profound formal unity of the virtues"

• an emphasis on the "full particularity" of each individual, and each persons role on the "grand system of nature."

• an emphasis on self-mastery

Scientistic belief

Article: WebCite query result

facts and their interpretation are not the same thing. And since, subjectively, facts are invariably associated with an interpretation of some kind, it comes about that science as a rule presents us with two disparate factors: with positive findings, on the one hand, plus an underlying philosophy in terms of which the formulation and disclosure of these discoveries are framed. In its actuality science is never the kind of purely empirical enterprise it is generally reputed to be, which is to say that ontological as well as epistemological presuppositions do inevitably play an essential role.

Watch "Bertrand Russell - to our descendants" on YouTube

Time

Watch "Timebound" on YouTube

what they find really mythical in both myth and enlightenment is the thought that fundamental change is impossible. Such resistance to change characterizes both ancient myths of fate and modern devotion to the facts.

the mother of all thought experiments.

On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.
On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans’ bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.
If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, ‘Leftie,’ and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, ‘Leftie’ will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of ‘Leftie’s’ act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by ‘Leftie’ are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and ‘Leftie’ are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available; however, the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.
Assume that the brain’s choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.
What should the brain do?

– Michael F. Patton Jr., “Tissues in the Profession: Can Bad Men Make Good Brains Do Bad Things?”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, January 1988

here is a comic along the same lines

philosophy poster

taken from this kickstarter

Deep self compatibilism

Freedom comes from acting on the deep desire that we hold as individuals. We are not genuinely free when we are indifferent about conflicting desires. Introspection of what desires are truly important to us as individuals and acting on them will allow us to be as free as possible.

the universe in us

Motivation

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Agency

"Man it is free to what he will but he cannot will what he wills." Schopenhauer

Souls as harmony

"The soul, if she is a harmony, will never have any vice; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has no part in the inharmonical." - Socrates

Or in other words the essesnce of a soul is perfection. Anything less and it would lose the quality of being a soul.

The art of living well

It is the degree of completeness of living  in the experience of making and of perceiving that makes the difference between what is fine esthetic in art and what is not
-John Dewey

Wabi Sabi

nothing lasts,
nothing is finished,
and nothing is perfect.

Reincarnation

Beauty

here is another great video of Richard Feynman. I think the editing done in this video is spot on and with the commentary given by Richard make this an inspiring video that I like.
stay tuned as parts 2 and 3 will be posted!

The Greatest Speech Ever Made?

You may or may not recognize the actor giving this speech, for those of you who don't it is Charlie Chaplin in his most commercially successful film "The Great Dictator".
Watching this makes me realize how important it is for artists to be able to express their views and share their work. It is fortunate that we have this piece of film history as the U.S. was still formally at peace with Germany and this was the first major film to criticize Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Similarities between Chaplin and Hitler were noted as both

had superficially similar looks, most famously their toothbrush mustaches, and this similarity is often commented upon. Furthermore, the two men were born only four days apart in April 1889, and both grew up in relative poverty with alcoholic fathers and ailing mothers.

Chaplins son is quoted on his fathers similarities that

Their destinies were poles apart. One was to make millions weep, while the other was to set the whole world laughing. Dad could never think of Hitler without a shudder, half of horror, half of fascination. “Just think,” he would say uneasily, “he’s the madman, I’m the comic. But it could have been the other way around."

The message of a united, peaceful coexistence with the world we share with 7 billion others is a strong one. We are in this together. Yet there are those who claim otherwise, with justifications and rationalizations to wash their hands of the deeds committed are found in the volumes of history.

war and peace

Are human beings essentially good or bad? Has the past century witnessed moral progress or a moral collapse? Do we have grounds for being optimistic about the future?

Steven Pinker tries to answer these questions in his latest book (looks like a lengthy, but interesting read)
here is a video that breaks down his postition
it looks like he presents a compelling argument yet contrarian argument especially considering certain affairs of the world.
here is his full length talk

Stanley Kubrick on Existensialism

Stanley Kubrick on Existentialism 

"if life is so purposeless, do you feel that it is worth living?"

 KUBRICK: “Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their Idealism—and their assumption of Immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfilment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

taken from an interview, you can read a part of it here