One of the things I wanted to start doing was posting my thoughts and reactions to the books I’ve been reading. This isn’t a new thing, I’ve been recording the quotes and filling the margins for a while now. But I’ve been getting emails from people asking me how I manage to fit in reading so much. Well the first step is to give it a purpose–tell yourself that it serves a large cause or goal. For me it’s always been as preparation for life, or my job, or for school. But it’s gotten past that, so I decided to make this blog a justification for doing that.
Last week I read “Caesar” by Christian Meier. I strongly recommend you read it.
Here are my notes/quotes/thoughts.
Society gives you just enough agency to be hopeful. To trick you into thoughts of something more–and then it kicks you in the teeth. The chains are long enough to give you running star, so the jerk backwards hits all the harder. Which is why the true great of history rejected the institutions as a whole. Their hopes, and value systems were derived internally, and thus not dependent on the approval or accomplishment or status. They gave up short term validation for long term reckoning.
Caesar relied heavily on this axiom–and to an outside observer he seems almost dangerously stupid. But it’s not, those are the benefits of its illusions. Meier quotes Suetonius who argued that Caesar was almost timidly bold. The paradox implies the distinction between boldness and brashness (a concept Aristotle lays out in Ethics in his advocacy of moderation). Caesar planned heavily AND made huge bets.
Society stigmatizes boldness because it fears the results. It needs timidity to maintain order. It put prudence and faith in oneself on opposite sides of the spectrum when in reality, the synergy between the two is an imperative of greatness. It’s the fingerspitzengefuhl that Rommel perfected.
Never underestimate the leeway and freedom that society grants to mavericks and myths. We all know the brass ring is there for the taking, we’re just too afraid to reach for it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want SOMEONE to reach for it. Don’t be mistaken, they might resent you for it after you’ve got it–just look at Caesar for Christ sake–but they can never take away what happened.
The ultimate message we take from the passage is the seemingly contradictory nature of honest, diligent planning and bank-breaking bets. Only the superficial fail to see how one feeds off the other. James J. Cramer, the hedge fund runner, made his fortune off this strategy. He combined the crushing work ethic of a NASA scientist with the betting tactics of a gambling addict.
If you aren’t willing to push all the chips in the middle, all your research was for naught. That’s where Caesar excelled–ceaseless training and then the confidence to exercise it. And as crass as it sounds, he never lost track of his balls. Michael Lewis, in Liar’s Poker, called traders with that dichotomy “big swingin’ dicks.” This is where startups fail. They pursue too many paths at once, refusing to bet it all on their strongest card. Consider it the emotional equivalent of the sunk cost fallacy. Or they bet it all on one they never investigated enough to realize was doomed from the beginning.
My whole life I’ve been training for that moment. I spare no expense at the present–time or money–for that which will help me grow and learn and prepare. Nonetheless I’ve amassed a small (college) fortune that would me to walk away from school and roll the dice. Or in the future to put it all in that defining venture on which to stake a life. It would be a mistake to call this a ‘rainy day’ fund. On the contrary its for that bright sunny day where I leave the comfort of the status-quo and pursue my personal legend. And perhaps I’ll never have to use it, and that all my planning will pre-empt such a risk. This is, in and of itself, a kind of boldness–betting on at least reaching the crossroads of greatness–and I hope fortune favors it. Either way, prudence and faith are not enemies; combined they’re greater than the sum of their parts. Alone, one road or the other, they’re crippling.
..one man decided, without authority, to conquer the whole of Gaul, simply because he felt it ought be conquered… He never thought to convince his opponents. He thus defends himself not by justifying his actions, but be rehearsing them. In other words, he adopts an offensive stance. He must not be constrained by petty restrictions
…this he regarded as the proper way to act; to show no consideration, to aim for total success…”
This, I liked. Tucker prefers Genghis Khan–thinking that his motives were more pure. Caesar to some conquered for the sake of conquest. He was born to privilege and simply wanted more. I disagree. I think if you ignore their social positions from birth, you’ll find their motivations to be essentially the same. They were pushed away by the system when all they wanted was to get their due. Khan was shunned just as Caesar was. Caesar never asked for civil war, he was goaded to cross the Rubicon.
So those are just some of my thoughts on the book. I thought it was fantastic and probably the best thing I’ve read on Caesar. Pick it up, learn from him.
If this is helpful at all, let me know.