In Pursuit of Wisdom

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms  by  Nassim Nicholas Taleb  is a sharp, thought-provoking collection of short insights that really make you stop and think. Taleb touches on everything from uncertainty and randomness to human nature and how much we actually don't know. It’s a bit like  The Prophet  by  Kahlil Gibran  and  Sovietsky Koutukov  by  Masud Mahmood —packed with wisdom you want to keep coming back to. I finished the Audible version and liked it so much that I ordered the hardcover, because, like those two books, I plan to read it every once in a while. Taleb’s style is witty and to the point, but these aphorisms have layers that take time to fully appreciate. If you enjoy deep, bite-sized philosophical insights, this book is definitely worth adding to your shelf. Here are some quotes from the book that resonate well with me -  True humility is when you can surprise yourself more than others; the...

I, hereby, declare war against four horsemen of chronic diseases -   Cancer ,   Cardiovascular Diseases   (heart diseases),   Type 2 Diabetes   (I am already a pre-diabetic patient) and Neurological Degenerative Disease like   Alzheimer’s . This declaration stems from reading a new book that came out in March named   Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity   by Peter Attia, MD. I finished it a few weeks ago and found it very relevant as I have been working on the mission of solving root cause of chronic diseases in an AI-first health tech startup   Twin Health . In this book the author suggests  longevity = function (lifespan, healthspan)  and thus emphasizing that it's not good enough to live long (lifespan) but we also need to focus on living well (healthspan). One without the other, long lifespan with poor healthspan or short lifespan with rich healthspan, isn’t what most people want. The idea is to build a strategy to prevent ...