What I’ve been reading in February 2024
History, discipline, games, and what it takes to innovate.
Still playing with the naming and format of these posts. This time, each book comes with a three-sentence comment, two quotes, one reason to read it, and one book to pair it with.
Also, February is not a mistake in the title. I am simply embarrassingly late with this post. These are the February books indeed.
As always, let me know how I could improve the format.
Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse
A book about mindset and worldview. Being able to see life as an infinite game, a game where the only aim is to keep playing, makes every experience into an opportunity for growth and exploration. This is the kind of book guaranteed to give new insights on every reread.
Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.
An infinite player does not begin working for the purpose of filling up a period of time with work, but for the purpose of filling work with time. Work is not an infinite player’s way of passing time, but of engendering possibility. Work is not a way of arriving at a desired present and securing it against an unpredictable future, but of moving toward a future which itself has a future.
Read it to reframe how you approach work and relationships.
Pair it with The Beginning of Infinity to see the infinite game mindset applied to the growth of knowledge.
The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant
Will and Ariel Durant are among the most celebrated and prolific historians of the twentieth century. After spending decades writing their The Story of Civilizations series, they compiled “a survey of human experience” based on their probing through the centuries. These short but thought provoking essays peer deep into humanity and the mistakes that we keep repeating.
If progress is real despite our whining, it is not because we are born any healthier, better, or wiser than infants were in the past, but because we are born to a richer heritage, born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge and art raises as the ground and support of our being. The heritage rises, and man rises in proportion as he receives it. History is, above all else, the creation and recording of that heritage; progress is its increasing abundance, preservation, transmission, and use.
History repeats itself, but only in outline and in the large. […] History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness, and man is equipped to respond in stereotyped ways to frequently occurring situations and stimuli like hunger, danger, and sex. But in a developed and complex civilization individuals are more differentiated and unique than in a primitive society, and many situations contain novel circumstances requiring modifications of instinctive response; custom recedes, reasoning spreads; the results are less predictable. There is no certainty that the future will repeat the past. Every year is an adventure.
Read it to gain a lens to apply to current events.
Pair it with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius for a concrete example of how human nature has not changed in the past millennia.
Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink
Decorated navy SEAL Jocko Willink makes the case for discipline as an instrument for self-improvement and freedom. The only issue: it’s printed white on black. The paperback pages had so much ink on them that my fingertips became black.
That is what I want you to be afraid of: Waking up in six days or six weeks or six years or SIXTY YEARS and being no closer to your goal … You have made NO PROGRESS. That is the horror. That is the nightmare. That is what you really need to be afraid of: Being stagnant.
But my glory, it doesn’t happen in front of a crowd. It doesn’t happen in a stadium or on a stage. There are no medals handed out. It happens in the darkness of the early morning. In solitude. Where I try. And I try. And I try again. With everything I have, to be the best that I can possibly be. Better than I was yesterday. Better than people thought I could be.
Read it to get motivated to get off your ass.
Pair it with Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday (see What I’ve been reading in January 2024) for inspiring stories of discipline in action.
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner
A history of Bell Labs, AT&T’s legendary research and development division, told through the contributions of its most impactful managers and luminaries. This is a chronicle of technological development as well as a reflection of what it takes to innovate. As with many other biographies and historical books, I came away from it inspired and energized, but also with a touch of melancholy for a time and place the like of which we might never see again.
The men could see there were enormous, but surmountable, engineering challenges […] But there were also profound challenges of science. “The crux of the problem,” [Frank Baldwin] Jewett wrote […], “was a satisfactory telephone repeater or amplifier. Did we know how to develop such a repeater? No. Why not? Science hadn’t yet shown us the way. Did we have any reason to think that she would? Yes. In time? Possibly. What must we do to make “possibly” into “probably” in two years?”
A drive for understanding separated the great scientists and engineers of the twentieth century from their predecessors. And it separated their inventions and business successes, too. [Mervin] Kelly could see that they were only going to get ahead by understanding what they were doing.
Read it to learn about the story beyond the technologies that power our daily lives.
Pair it with How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley if you want to better understand some of the processes that made Bell Labs so successful.
Fiction
I re-read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, for the first time in English. What can I say… there’s a reason it’s a classic. It has all the ingredients from the best adventures: travels to far away places, mystery, plot twists, betrayals, and a young protagonist who finds an inner strength he didn’t know was there.
Kids
My son has been devouring the Diary of a Minecraft Zombie and Diary of a Minecraft Creeper books from his school library. It’s bizarre because he doesn’t play Minecraft, or any other video games. The books have the right level of nonsense to keep him engaged and clearly don’t require extensive Minecraft knowledge to be enjoyed.
My daughter and I continued reading The Baby Sitter Little Sister graphic novels on repeat, with some old school Disney fairy tales in between.
Originally published on giolodi.com.