305. Master one book
My father, who became quite wealthy before he reached 30 years of age, once walked into my room when I was a teenager and saw all the books I was reading.
He gently offered this piece of advice, which I never forgot: "The man who masters one book is more dangerous than the man who reads a hundred books."
Strangely enough, Bruce Lee said something similar: "I am more afraid of the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times than the man who learned 10,000 kicks."
The two pieces of advice above points to an important distinction that, I think, could help people to figure out how to succeed in today's so-called Knowledge Economy.
Most people tend to agree that "knowledge is power," yet few people appreciate the fact that "mind is ultimate power."
If you patiently and diligently train your mind every day, you CAN defeat society. You CAN shape your destiny. You CAN, if you so choose, become extremely wealthy.
I know for a fact that my father masters his mind. He must have learned when he was very young.
So Peter, what do you mean by "defeat society"?
Society, or all the mass institutions such as government, corporations, schools, the news media, etc. seek to destrategize you every time they get an opportunity to do so. They "destrategize" you by trying to distract you from YOUR personal goals.
They want you to keep doing EXACTLY what you've been doing before, so that they keep succeeding. For instance, the government wants you to stay at your job so they can keep receiving tax revenues. Corporations (capitalists) want you to stay at your job so they can use your labour and keep growing their revenues and capital base. The news media want you to stay exactly in that comfortable sofa of yours, because they need their ratings to go up so they can get more advertisers (and also keep the advertisers they have) -- this is why the anchor newsperson always ends every newscast with "Thanks for watching." He might just as well have added "so I can keep my job."
Of course, most people are totally unaware of this power struggle where the mass institutions continually try to influence the minds of the masses. The reason they do that is to try to control and manage public response.
The only way a person can win, in a mental battle, against all these institutions is if he/she continually builds his intellectual capabilities in order to examine what other people are saying and thinking, and to see their relevance to his/her personal goals.
For example, given my personal goals, the TV news anchor is completly useless to me. I'm sure he's a very nice guy, good family man, very responsible and possibly even charming. I would love to go for a beer with him. But it doesn't change the fact that every day, as a news anchor, he is quite useless to me.
That's because he works for a mass institution, and mass institutions don't care about individuals or their goals and aspirations. Mass institutions just want you to KEEP DOING WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING.
(to be continued)
He gently offered this piece of advice, which I never forgot: "The man who masters one book is more dangerous than the man who reads a hundred books."
Strangely enough, Bruce Lee said something similar: "I am more afraid of the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times than the man who learned 10,000 kicks."
The two pieces of advice above points to an important distinction that, I think, could help people to figure out how to succeed in today's so-called Knowledge Economy.
Most people tend to agree that "knowledge is power," yet few people appreciate the fact that "mind is ultimate power."
If you patiently and diligently train your mind every day, you CAN defeat society. You CAN shape your destiny. You CAN, if you so choose, become extremely wealthy.
I know for a fact that my father masters his mind. He must have learned when he was very young.
So Peter, what do you mean by "defeat society"?
Society, or all the mass institutions such as government, corporations, schools, the news media, etc. seek to destrategize you every time they get an opportunity to do so. They "destrategize" you by trying to distract you from YOUR personal goals.
They want you to keep doing EXACTLY what you've been doing before, so that they keep succeeding. For instance, the government wants you to stay at your job so they can keep receiving tax revenues. Corporations (capitalists) want you to stay at your job so they can use your labour and keep growing their revenues and capital base. The news media want you to stay exactly in that comfortable sofa of yours, because they need their ratings to go up so they can get more advertisers (and also keep the advertisers they have) -- this is why the anchor newsperson always ends every newscast with "Thanks for watching." He might just as well have added "so I can keep my job."
Of course, most people are totally unaware of this power struggle where the mass institutions continually try to influence the minds of the masses. The reason they do that is to try to control and manage public response.
The only way a person can win, in a mental battle, against all these institutions is if he/she continually builds his intellectual capabilities in order to examine what other people are saying and thinking, and to see their relevance to his/her personal goals.
For example, given my personal goals, the TV news anchor is completly useless to me. I'm sure he's a very nice guy, good family man, very responsible and possibly even charming. I would love to go for a beer with him. But it doesn't change the fact that every day, as a news anchor, he is quite useless to me.
That's because he works for a mass institution, and mass institutions don't care about individuals or their goals and aspirations. Mass institutions just want you to KEEP DOING WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING.
(to be continued)
posted by Super Peter at 10:20 AM
<< Home