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RyanHoliday.net - Meditations on strategy and life
Blog

What I’m Reading

His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S. by Geraldo Rivera (actually a very intelligent book)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (again. might be my favorite book and i think perhaps, the greatest work of fiction)

‘Tis: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (does anyone know if McCourts of New York is worth seeing?)

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler (design with intent is a fascinating topic. Architectures of Control is one of my favorite blogs)

The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges (metafiction like this is very creative. also, it’s about weird animals)

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (rereading with a clean copy)

What Could Make Someone Want to Leave New York and Move to Buffalo? — New York Magazine (great piece)

LA’s Hidden Homeless — LA Times

Seth Robert’s thoroughly dismantles a NY Time’s reporter who has no idea what he’s talking about

My buddy made this site, and I want to know where you get a blanket like that

August 31, 2008by Ryan Holiday
Blog

List of unusual animal anecdotes

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I’ve been working on that for the last month or so with the help of my wonderful intern. And I think there might just be an awesome book there. Almost every single one of those sources in the article comes from books in my library or articles I tracked down.

I’m not sure it’s even possible to comprehend the spectacle that is 260 fighting lions, or a dying elephant flinging legionaries into the air like rag dolls and watching their shields fall in perfect symmetry. Or, what it would feel like to repel into Harlem apartment and find yourself face to face with a 400 pound Bengal tiger and an alligator the size of a 4th grader. My little puppy regularly shocks me with her cuteness and creativity, so I can only begin to imagine a private white elephants, baby tigers and okapis. We talk about violent breeds of dogs, but just a century and a half ago, kings had lions as house pets. The Romans, despite their violence, seem to have understood this much better than us. There is something there that is very surreal, deeply biological and awe-inspiring that has never quite been captured in text aside from rare glimpses and passages.

If it’s something that interests you, it’s there for you to edit or add to. It still has a long way to go but hopefully it sticks around. And if you get a chance, read Pliny’s Natural History – it’s stunning.

August 28, 2008by Ryan Holiday
Blog

Idealism

TheExecutive has this thing about not meeting your idols. If that doesn’t make sense to you yet, it’s just something to think about.

It’s really easy to let people embody the ideas you believe in and I think it might be because it sets you up with escape clause you can always invoke. It’s much harder to accept that the responsibility, and even the belief, exists entirely within yourself.

It’s easy to let another person’s passion for an idea embody the strength of it itself and become hopelessly disillusioned if the two ever get muddled. It’s even easier to let the attention of others be the barometer of how you feel about yourself, forgetting that you’re staying the same, only the notice fluctuates.

The only thing that will never let you down are ideas and yourself. Just something to keep in mind.

August 24, 2008by Ryan Holiday
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“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Murakami

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