Hey everyone,
I often feel words arenât enough to describe a situation/phenomenon/how I feel or the inability to convey whatâs on my mind in a conversation.
Turns out languages have their own limitations, not everything has a word or a phrase to describe it. Taleb, experienced something similar when he realized no word readily captures the opposite meaning of fragile. Robust is often used as its antonym, yet robust only describes that which does not become fragile.
ANTIFRAGILE
âthings (that) benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets betterâ
â Nassim Taleb
The classic example of something antifragile is Hydra, the Greek mythological creature that has numerous heads. When one is cut off, two grow back in their place.
The Triad â Things come in Triples
Talebâs way of looking at the world is unique. One framework that he shared in his book is - just about anything that matters can be mapped or classified into three categories:
Antifragility is relative to a given domain. Taleb explains this with the example of a grandma pitted against a professional boxer.
If we consider physical strength as the domain to compare a grandma vs a boxer, the most obvious domain to compare the two:
Grandma is fragile on this spectrum.
BUT,
If we consider the domain of emotional strength, things stack differently:
The ups and downs experienced by the widowed Grandma may have made her emotionally antifragile relative to the typical adult and, especially, relative to an emotionally fragile boxer.
The newly crowned Heavyweight Champion of the World who has been dumped by his girlfriend could head into a downward spiral of substance abuse and despair.
Whereas Grandma could be loving yet unwavering emotional pillar during dire situations.
Grandma is physically fragile but emotionally antifragile. The boxer, the opposite.
Same people. Different domains. Different ends on the Triad spectrum.
Cultivate three practices to be Antifragile
Taleb mentions three practices for people to inculcate in their day to day lives to be antifragile:
1. Cap your downside
The first step to becoming antifragile is to develop a ânothing to loseâ mentality. Each morning close your eyes and go through the mental exercise of losing your belongings, your savings, and your job or business. Â
Once you feel you could emotionally endure that loss, open your eyes, and experience the day with 100% upside. When an expected setback occurs, you know it could be worse, so you enthusiastically deal with the challenge before you.Â
I thought this was extremely dark but itâs not just Taleb who suggests developing a ânothing to loseâ mentality, lots of philosophers back in the day constantly meditated on their deaths.
âWhen I was a trader, a profession rife with a high dose of randomness, with continuous psychological harm that drills deep into oneâs soul, I would go through the mental exercise of assuming every morning that the worst possible thing had actually happenedâthe rest of the day would be a bonusâŚWhen you emotionally position yourself to eliminate the sting of harm, the volatility of the world no longer affects you negatively.â
â Nassim Taleb
2. Seek Eustress
âEustress occurs when the gap between what one has and what one wants is slightly pushed, but not overwhelmed. The goal is not too far out of reach but is still slightly more than one can handle. This fosters challenge and motivation since the goal is in sight.
The function of the challenge is to motivate a person toward improvement and a goal. Challenge is an opportunity-related emotion that allows people to achieve unmet goals. Eustress is indicated by hope and active engagement.Â
Eustress has a significantly positive correlation with life satisfaction and hope. It is typically assumed that experiencing chronic stress, either in the form of distress or eustress, is negative. However, eustress can instead fuel physiological thriving by positively influencing the underlying biological processes implicated in physical recovery and immunityâ
The more you seek eustress, the more you see the upside of stress. When an unexpected event occurs and you experience stress, you will not run from it â you will lean into it.
Fasting
Deadlifts
Cold showers
are all examples of eustress with a high upside!
3. Overcompensate
Taleb presents a very interesting critique against comfort. It is overcompensation, some stress, difficulties that really give the best of ourselves. Stress and not comfort is the key to creativity.
Overcompensation is the essence of antifragility.
Apply the principle of âovercompensationâ to all areas of life by consistently overlearning. When you make a mistake or suffer an unexpected setback, respond in a way that all but guarantees you will come back smarter, faster, and better. The more you overcompensate by overlearning, the less you fear uncertainty because you know that whatever happens you will either succeed or improve.
He shares the example of Airplane pilots that have everything automated tend to make more mistakes and have more accidents than those that have some challenges to respond to.
Further, Taleb says the best way to teach something is not to make it very easy to digest, funny to hear, and with a clear and friendly voice. To learn we need to push the attention of the student further, to make things sound complicated, to talk in whispers, to make the attention of the students really work. The student will tend to overcompensate his/her attention.
âMy characterization of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesnât introspect, doesnât exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on.â
â Nassim Taleb
These are some of the many things that I took away from Antifragile - Book 1. The book is technical and Iâm taking my time to digest these ideas. Some of these ideas may seem trivial but Taleb shares some amazing stories to drill some of these points home. At this point in time, Iâm leaning towards sticking with Taleb for a few more weeks and then see how we take it from there.
Until, next week
â Vaibhav
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