Ten-Second Thoughts

Embracing Ignorance

The Findings — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:33:44 GMT

One of the best choices I made in my life, many decades ago now, was to embrace ignorance. I had reached an impasse in one particular area, but at the same time had more than enough opportunity to fake my way through. Instead, somehow, I gathered enough courage to admit my ignorance, even though I knew admitting it would lessen my image in other’s minds. I chose ignorance anyway… I grasped the acknowledgment that I was ignorant… and it made a world of difference.

Much later I found that this choice of mine was already known, and even found an old Jewish proverb saying the same thing: Teach your tongue to say “I do not know,” and you shall progress.

In the choice between accepting the fact of your ignorance and concern with the opinion of others, always choose truth. Suffer for it if you must (and sometimes you will), but choose truth. By doing so you will change the direction of your life, and very much for the better. I am fully certain that if I had not made that choice long ago, I would have very much less worthwhile to say now.

“Yeah, But Is It True?”

The Findings — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 19:27:02 GMT

This little line, believe it or not, is one of the most important you’ll ever use.

Humans automatically compare new thoughts to those they’re presently holding. They especially recognize conflicts between any new idea and past commitments. That’s why it’s so hard for people to change their minds: they realize – immediately and without really trying to – that the new idea throws them into conflict.

Then, of course, humans do what they’re so terribly good at: They assemble alternative interpretations which will not throw them into conflict. And so the new thought, no matter that it may be right and important, is replaced by something less troubling and slides from view.

Needless to say, this process – this instant and instinctive process – has greatly held us back. The little line we opened with, however, is its antidote. And so we must train ourselves in its use. Specifically, we must do two things:

Notice when the compare-and-sidestep routine is operating in us.
Turn our minds to “Yeah, but is it true?” and answer it courageously.

If we could all build this one habit into ourselves (and it isn’t that hard), humanity would improve, massively and quickly.

The Moral Value of Victimhood

The Findings — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:50:19 GMT

Every adult on this planet has been mistreated in one way or another… has been victimized in one way or another. That’s deeply unfortunate, of course, but we should not add injury to injury by assigning moral value to these events. Victimhood, however, does exactly that.

Being mistreated was unfair, and we didn’t deserve it, but it has become popular to turn that into something of a positive on a moral balance sheet: I was unfairly debited and so I have a credit pending. This turns mistreatment into a positive moral balance, and once people see this as attractive (by whatever terminology), something else follows:

If you don’t acknowledge my victimhood, you are negating my value.

Soon after, it becomes insufficient to say, “Oh, I’m very sorry about that,” then to move on. Rather, victimhood must be repeatedly acknowledged to maintain the person’s value.

“The victim,” however, is not who we are; it’s not who any of us really are. We are producers and creators; we are anti-entropists; we are beings of independent moral value.

The moral value of victimhood is an easy path to take; in fact thousands of voices are calling us to it daily; but it’s a path that leads toward dusk, not toward dawn.

You are more.

Blinded By Certainty

The Findings — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:54:09 GMT

People crave certainty because it makes them feel safe. That’s understandable in its way, but also quite foolish, because that level of certainty doesn’t really exist in this world.

Still, lots of people have let the craving for certainty go so far as to blind them to all outside of their bubble. Socialism, for example, is the deadliest philosophy in the history of the human race and fails every time it’s tried. But it does offer certainty, complete with tight groups enforcing their super-certain beliefs. And so millions continue to be seduced by it. By staying inside their group people enjoy reinforced certainty… so long as the illusion lasts, anyway.

There are other types of certainty bubbles, of course, but all of them will soon enough blind you and harden you to all that dares disagree.

So, perfect certainty is a degrading illusion. With some effort you can achieve clarity of principles, but not full certainty; any group offering that will lead you downwards, even as they confirm and coddle you.

And, by the way, certainty destroys curiosity.

(A big hat tip to my friend Dr. Joel Wade, whose work you should check out. And you can find my coverage of perfect rulesets here.)

The Pursuit Of Misery

The Findings — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:00:55 GMT

Most of us are conscious that pursuing happiness was the original American ideal; some of us also noticed that it was a core ideal of the Renaissance and the early Enlightenment. But if we look around these days, we find a hail of voices compelling us to fixate on misery… to convince of us that things are terrible and getting worse.

This is being done by agents both political and economic, and primarily for the same reason: If you want humans to respond to you quickly and easily, getting them to fixate on misery and threat will do it for you, and modern technologies make that easy.

So, it’s up to us to turn away from the bad news. Stop voting for the people trying to scare you into their arms, stop buying products that will, you are promised, stop the feelings of inferiority that their advertisements also implanted in you.

Walk away from the voices which use misery as a tool. Rather, look for the good and pursue it. Find voices trying to show you how good things can be. Be the first one in your circles to do this if you must, but walk toward happiness and stop cataloging all the miseries of the world. Posterity will thank you.

Our Inability To Accept An Enemy

The Findings — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 22:23:09 GMT

Shortly after 9/11, an insightful writer named Lee Harris wrote this:

The very concept of the enemy has been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for yet.

I didn’t like that idea then and I don’t love it even now; nonetheless, Mr. Harris was right and remains right: Enemies do exist in this world and we need to accept that fact. As my friend Ric Cattell used to say:

Violent people need to be confronted with a show of violence.

However much we wish things weren’t this way (and I do), they aren’t; reality doesn’t change to suit our feelings. Although most of us in the West see few enemies in our daily lives, there are people who want to destroy us for minimal and/or imagined reasons; a significant percentage of humanity is quite willing to plunder, so long as they are provided with justifications for it, however thin.

When we can’t bear the enemy being real, we accommodate and encourage enemies, who see us as suckers ready to be reaped.

I’m not interested in getting irate and suspicious over this and I don’t intend to stop loving my enemies as best I can, but I do want to accept the fact that enemies are real.

For the sake of posterity, we cannot lay down and be run over, simply because it’s less emotionally challenging.

Sorry.

You Must Protect Your Soul From Collective Guilt

The Findings — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 18:41:57 GMT

Collective guilt is an all-too-common poison, and you must protect yourself from it. I’d prefer to write exclusively about good things, but in the case of collective guilt, I feel a need to be specific and even repetitive, simply because it keeps coming back. We can root it out in one place and time, only to see it return in another. There’s a reason fo…

Markets Are For Grownups

The Findings — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:14:58 GMT

An open market – as we have for carpentry, trucking, groceries and so on – has no executive function; it’s merely a system for making connections. Markets are brutal in this way, but to a very good end: The brutality of the market refines new methods of human thriving. Every durable market adaptation – a better distribution system, a better product and …

Compulsion Displaces Compassion

The Findings — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:28:10 GMT

Compassion involves kind things you want to do. Compulsion involves things you’re forced to do. Compassion makes you a better person; compulsion does not.

We’ve all lived through the reign of fiat-driven welfare states: huge governments justified by compassion and driven by money-printing. The big problem with this, aside from fiscal issues, is that it r…

“Improving Society” Is A Deflection From Improving One’s Self

The Findings — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:17:49 GMT

There are people who sincerely want to improve the world, and they are to be praised for this, even if the desire is only occasional. Unfortunately there are far more people who talk about improving the world because it sells well; this is not to be praised.

“Improving society” is very cheap, you understand; it costs no more than words. Even “volunteerin…

The 20th Century Is Over: Its Assumptions Should Be Discarded

The Findings — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:57:41 GMT

The 20^th century, particularly the late 20^th, continuing into the Covid time, featured a very monolithic set of assumptions about the world and how things worked: How we mated (or didn’t), how we viewed life, what constituted enjoyment, what we should become excited over, what conveyed status, and so on.

If you examine how people looked at such things in…

The People Trying To Put You Down Are Posers

The Findings — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 12:45:28 GMT

This is one of those lessons that takes time to learn, or at least it did for me. But either way, this is true: Those people who try to belittle, intimidate and scar you are posers; they are fakes in one or more ways.

The best people, of course, are not interested in demeaning or lowering anyone; they’d prefer to lift you up in some way. Sure, these peop…

It’s Your Choices That Make You Who You Are

The Findings — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:53:20 GMT

We’ve all heard people complain that their early life made them the way they are: Their parents did so and so, “society” is to blame for something, and so on. People also attribute how we are to genetics or inheritance. This is the old issue of nature versus nurture, with people arguing at great length over which has more impact.

There’s some truth to bo…

If You Want A Comfortable Life, Appreciate Your Neighbors

The Findings — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:27:48 GMT

No list of major life influences is complete without including “good neighbors.” We all go through life with our families and we all go through life with our neighbors. And so, if you want your life to be smooth and pleasant on a daily basis, your neighbors are very definitely crucial.

This appreciation for one’s neighbors has fallen over my lifetime, bu…

Only Self-Generated Choices Are Useful

The Findings — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:23:57 GMT

When you follow the decisions of others, you do almost nothing to improve yourself. The thing may go better or go worse, but internally you don’t change. When you make the choice yourself, however, you get multiple benefits, separately from the correctness or incorrectness of the choice.

First of all, just to make the choice you have to engage your inner…

We’ve Been Poisoned Against Ourselves... But It’s Fixable

The Findings — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:38:00 GMT

Humans are in essence wonderful, but we’ve been trained to hold negative opinions about ourselves. After all, if you believe yourself to be defective, you’re not likely to pursue greatness.

This is an old problem, of course, and shame (probably the worst of such poisons) has been applied to humans as far back as we can see. The poison I want to talk abou…

Primaries & Secondaries In The Real World

The Findings — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:35:54 GMT

I’ve previously noted that our world is an accumulation of billions of choices made by each of us. Or, stated differently: Everything you do changes the world.

Today I want to give you an analog of this statement, but one that’s wound together with the fact that effective and productive people see themselves as sources in the world: as primary beings wit…

The Human Mind’s Trap

The Findings — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 21:55:22 GMT

What I’m about to describe is something you’ll recognize, but I’d also like you to understand it.

Human minds are self-referential. We observe not only our bodily actions, but we observe and remember our mental actions. That’s an amazing thing, but it does run right into the trap I’m referring to today.

This trap involves two other in-born human characte…

There’s No Such Thing As Free News

The Findings — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:07:26 GMT

Information is food for your mind, and your mental activity – your cognition – is the essence of your survival and prosperity. Animals are born with all the tools necessary for their survival; we are not. In order to survive, we have to think well.

We must inspect what the news feeds are getting from us, because they’re all getting something; there’s no …

When You Read, Look For Things To Use

The Findings — Thu, 28 May 2026 18:22:28 GMT

Reading, no matter how beautiful the words may be, is incomplete without working good and new things into yourself. If what you do goes no deeper than the words, you’re wasting precious opportunities.

Books draw us in like no other medium; even music differs and usually comes up short. When you read long-form content (aka, a book), you’re taking ideas in…