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Self I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them. --Baruch Spinoza Current Events My favorite rags for staying current: Nature, Science, and The Wall Street Journal. Fusion Science Richard Feynman Inspiring, clear, straight-forward, invigorating, heart-wrenching, entertaining. In addition to lecturing on physics, Feynman told stories from his life, stories which illustrate his particular blend of curiousity, wonder at the world, and delight at living. Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations. Daniel Gilbert In Stumbling on Happiness, Gilbert fuses a range of disciplines to better understand the design trade-offs in the brain which lead to our skill in self-delusion, why we do so poorly at predicting what will bring us happiness, and how it is that we don't notice our errors along the way. Natalie Angier In The Canon: A Whirligig tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science", Angier asks prominent scientists what has most astonished them, and what they wish the general public knew, and then takes us on a tour of physics, biology, geology, chemistry, astronomy, and others. Biology Richard Dawkins An evolutionary biologist, Dawkins expresses my own delight in contemplating and understanding how the world works. Unweaving the Rainbow River Out of Eden The Ancestor's Tale Climbing Mount Improbable The Blind Watchmaker The Extended Phenotype The Selfish Gene The living world can be seen as a network of interlocking fields of replicator power. Robert Sapolsky In Monkeyluv, Sapolsky fuses evolutionary biology, neurology, and primatology to produce his view of why humans behave the way they do. In The Trouble with Testosterone, he explores the implications of current brain research. And in Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, he describes our current understanding of stress, how it works, what it does for us, and how maladaptive it is for social animals. Monkeyluv The Trouble with Testosterone Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers Dean Hamer In The God Gene: How Faith is Hard-wired into Our Genes, Hamer offers an incomplete but tantalizing insight into how genetics contributes to human tendencies to think 'magically'. In his model, variations in VMAT2, a gene coding for a protein involved in the transport of monoamines, result in varying senses of satisfaction and well-being when engaged in 'self-transcendent' thinking, e.g. thinking about the larger picture. Brains which receive this boost in pleasure are more likely to do it: in some cases to engage in intuitive and creative thinking, in other cases spiritual and magical thinking. The God Gene: How Faith is Hard-wired into Our Genes Living with Our Genes: Why They Matter More Than You Think Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee The Blakeslees survey current neuroscience, focusing on the map model for how our brains figure out where in space we are, how inextricably linked are the experiences of pain and pleasure with our bodies, and how mirroring supports culture. The Body has a Mind of its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better Buddhist Psychology If the authors above go into detail about how the brain works, then the authors below provide a quick and dirty guide to how I experience the workings of my mind. Buddhist psychology helps me work with myself in practical ways. These books describe the authors' experiences in watching their own minds and how they respond to acquire more ease and clarity. Who Dies? by Stephen Levine A Heart as Wide as the World by Sharon Salzberg Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein After the Ectasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein Death and Dying Reading about the cycle of life helps remind me to be conscious in this moment, to express gratitude, to appreciate what is happening now. Chasing Daylight by Gene O'Kelly History What grabs me about history is the chance to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past. Bart Ehrman Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone... I experience this quote, found in many versions of the Christian Bible, as motivating, uplifting, electricifying -- I aspire to this kind of attitude toward other people and toward myself. My romantic side was disappointed to discover that this story first appears in a 12th century manuscript, one of many modifications made to scripture by scribes across the centuries since the original authors penned the first versions. Ehrman specializes in textual analysis of the New Testament. For me, he provides a window into how we reinterpret what we hear and see ... and how easily we deceive ourselves. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend The Lost Gospel of Judad Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings And Ehrman's detractors: Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus by Timothy Paul Jones Ann Finkbeiner Summer camp with the Jasons sounds like my idea of the perfect work environment. The Jasons are a collection of bright people who provide independent review of government projects -- Finkbeiner interviews a number of Jasons and then offers her view of what it might be like to collaborate with rationally driven colleagues. The Jasons: The Secret History of Science's Postwar Elite "... we believe that it's our government and that we think our government will always be better if the technical advice it gets is impartial, disinterested, accurate." --Paul Horowitz "... the government doesn't always want to hear from its outsider scientists, especially when an issue has, for political reasons, already been decided. But, if you're still making up your mind, you want the independent group." --William Perry Mechanics Addressing the mechanics of living in a First World country. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John Bogle The failure of investment America to exercise its ownership rights over corporate America has been the major factor in the pathological mutation that has reshaped owners' capitalism into managers' capitalism. That mutation, in turn, has been importantly responsible for the gross excesses in executive compensation ... ...fund managers who hold companies for the long term and allow intrinsic value to build over time have provided higher returns to their clients than managers who hold stocks for the short term and trade them whenever Mr. Market offers a tempting but momentary price. Why did investment America go so wrong? Because it focused on the momentary precision of stock prices rather than the eternal importance of intrinsic corporate value, however difficult to measure. Making the World a Better Place In 1993 Greg Mortenson wandered into a remote Pakistani village, getting lost on his way back from a failed attempt at scaling K2. Since then, he has been building schools for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, working against the cycle of poverty. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace by Greg Mortenson and David Relin Self-Perception These stories touch me. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury Miss Twiggley's Tree by Dorothea Fox The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman Snippets The young monk went to the old monk and asked: How did you acquire such good judgement? The old monk replied: Good experience. The young monk responded impatiently: But how did you acquire the good experience? The old monk answered: Bad judgement --Zen parable Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. --Marshall Rosenberg Do not attribute to cunning or guile that which can be as easily explained by fear and ignorance. --Derived from Mark Twain Rational science treats its credit notes as always redeemable on demand, while non-rational authoritarianism regards the demand for the redemption of its paper as a disloyal lack of faith. --Morris Cohen Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. --Charles Darwin The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded. --Gustave Flaubert Well, war is obsolete you know. Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back ... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you. --Derived from the Dalai Lama You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do. --Tom I saw this in the Wall Street Journal -- the author, Jonathan Clements, summarizes my understanding of the current literature on the subject: Nine Tips for Investing in Happiness.