This will be the first installment in a periodic series of essays, each highlighting 5 powerful books to model one’s life on. They are books that, if read diligently and taken to heart, will help build a strong character and invigorate both the mind and spirit to endure the many adversities we face in this world. They will help you gain perspective on your own life as well as enable you to think more critically, and thus wisely, about many of the complex issues arising across our broad and ever-changing social landscape. Some of them may reinforce your current points of view, while others may challenge your worldview and force you to think more deeply about a particular subject and recalibrate your mindset. Either way, I hope that you will pick at least a few of them up and utilize their contents to make yourself a more free-thinking, courageous, and virtuous individual.
1. A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Selected from the World’s Sacred Texts, by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy spent 15 of his last years working on this beautiful text, and it was the last of his works to be published before he died, in 1910. The book is a compilation of maxims for every day of the year taken from some of the greatest thinkers in history across philosophy, religion, and literature. Tolstoy felt the ‘inner force, calmness, and happiness’ that came from communicating daily with these phenomenal minds, and thus sought to create a book in which he could ‘tell a person… about the Good Way of Life.’ Read widely throughout pre-revolutionary Russia, the book was banned for almost 80 years by the Soviet regime for its spiritual and religious context. I have gifted this book to both family and friends throughout the years, and I read it daily to clarify my mind and reorient my focus away from the ephemeral and toward the timeless. You should as well.
2. The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness, by Epictetus (translated by Sharon Lebell)
Epictetus was born a slave around 55 C.E. in Phrygia, on the eastern borders of the Roman Empire. After showing an adept intellectual ability at a very young age, his master (an administrative secretary to the emperor Nero) sent him to Rome to study under the famous Stoic teacher, Gaius Musonius Rufus. Epictetus excelled in his studies, and it was because of this that he was eventually granted his freedom. He taught in Rome until 94 C.E., when the emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city. Epictetus spent the rest of his life in exile in Nicopolis, on the Northwestern shore of Greece, where he established a philosophical school and spent his days lecturing on the best way to live. Unlike a substantial portion of modern philosophy—which tends to be detached from day-to-day living and, most of the time, obscures rather than clarifies—Epictetus believed that true philosophical teachings should help ordinary people withstand the ups and downs of life with grace and equanimity. This book is not only a great introduction to Stoic principles, but also a masterful and concise guidebook on how to order your life in a way that cultivates virtue, promotes clear-thinking, and fosters true happiness.
3. On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher, political economist, civil servant, and politician who lived from 1806 to 1873. This book is the culmination of his life’s work, and one of the greatest defenses of individual rights ever written. Based on Mill’s utilitarian values rather than abstract concepts like natural rights (as opposed to John Locke), Mill puts forth an eloquent and forceful argument outlining the reasons why a free society centered around the individual is best positioned toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. In recent times—and especially the last few years—many of the foundational tenets of this treatise, including freedom of thought and expression, have come under attack by many of our societal elites, corporate and governmental, around the world. If you are someone that doesn’t see the harm in these repressive acts—or worse, applauds them because they are done on behalf of your particular ideological beliefs or personal “safety”—I highly recommend this book as a refresher in classical liberalism and the values that brought (most of) humanity out of the Dark Ages.
4. Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl
Austrian born psychologist Viktor E. Frankl spent the years 1942 through 1945 laboring in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. In this time, he lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife to the vile brutality of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Within months of liberation, Frankl, trying to make sense of his experience, wrote the manuscript in just 9 days. The resulting memoir is one of the most profound works of non-fiction of the 20th century, if not all time. In it, he asserts that, contrary to the theories of Sigmund Freud, the primary human drive is not pleasure but in fact the discovery and pursuit of meaning through adversity. He spent the rest of his life promoting his logotherapy, publishing over 30 books and serving as a visiting professor at Harvard and Stanford, among other universities. In our current age of social media and cultural malaise, it’s very easy to play the victim, resent others, and prioritize the wrong things. This book will readjust your perspective very quickly. I’ve read it twice now and plan on doing so again soon.
5. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a former options trader turned statistician, risk analyst, philosopher, and essayist. He gained notoriety in the 2000s by warning against (and betting on) the 2008 financial crises. He is one of my absolute favorite contemporary thinkers, and Antifragile, part of the author’s Incerto series, is the book the world needs right now. In short, antifragile (a term he coined) describes the exact opposite of fragile—meaning things (usually complex systems) that not only withstand shocks but actually thrive when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, stressors, risk, and uncertainty. The book is an astonishing tour de force across history, politics, economics, philosophy, medicine, and biology, and much of the way I think today is owed to its contents. His irreverent writing style pulls no punches as he takes aim at the conventional wisdom of modern bureaucratic society. And whether you agree with him or not, the book is certain to make you rethink the way you organize your own life as well as reconsider how much trust you put in the so-called “expert” class.