As likely as a black swan!

“As likely as a black swan!”  This was an old European proverb, and of course pre-dates the discovery of real life black swans in Australia.  Nassim Nicholas Taleb  is an author who claims that we spend much too much time trying to predict things which are essentially unpredictable,  thus creating a false illusion of control and safety, until something like 9/11 or the 2006 tsunami happens and takes us all unawares.  The key to his thesis is that our false sense of security makes it easier for us to be blind-sided by these ‘black swan’ events.

Effectively he counsels expect the unexpected (“No one expects the Inquisition!”)  So what he is saying is if you go through life feeling safe because all these newspapers and experts tell you it is “All under control”, you are much more at risk than if you recognise that sh*t happens.  Similarly, the doom and gloom merchants are equally likely to be wrong, so the fearful pictures they offer are equally likely to be wrong.

He advocates never reading papers or paying attention to the news as these spoil your ‘night sight’ (in the same way sentries should never look into the fire.)  

He also contends that one reason why American industry is so successful, is that they are far more capable of tolerating errors and bouncing back from them.  Many of the greatest successes of the twentieth century come from errors and accidents, such as post-its notes,and viagra.  If we have to be right, to be expert all the time, then we close ourselves off these possibilities for both good and ill.

So give up the illusion of being ‘in control’ open yourself up to your ‘black swans’ and see what the Universe delivers to you….

“The best things in life are unexpected – because there were no expectations.”   Eli Khamarov
“There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes”   Richard Buckminster Fuller

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 20:47 and is filed under General, Personal Change, Values & Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.