The Black Swan of Aesop's Fables

In The Black Swan, statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb breaks down the impact of the highly improbable to explain the random events that underlie our lives, from best-selling novels to natural disasters. His stoicism offers some fantastic lessons, in particular when using one of Aesop’s famous fables to stress the importance of being in control of your life:

“A famished fox, seeing some bunches of grapes hanging from a vine which had grown in a tree, wanted to take some, but could not reach them. So he went away saying to himself: ‘Those are unripe’. Similarly, certain people, not being able to run their affairs well because of their inefficiency, blame the circumstances.” (The Complete Fables by Aesop, pp. 27)

This fable gave rise to the common English phrase ‘sour grapes’, now understood as one making a false pre-tense to form a rationalisation. Taleb assigns this as a defence mechanism however, and argues the case that rejecting the grapes in the first instance, without even attempting to reach them, is the aggressive form of thinking that will serve one best. As he puts it: “It is more difficult to be a loser in a game you set up yourself” (Taleb, pp. 297).

One is only exposed to the improbable if they first let it control them. Put the odds in your favour by fighting off the resistance and you will become that efficient person who need never place the blame on external circumstances ever again.

Down and Out in Paris and London

It’s hard to believe that the acclaimed George Orwell was once a tramp, but before Eric Blair adopted that pre-eminent pen name he was ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’. His debut novel vividly recounts his time spent living among the destitute, going days on end without a meal, pawning all his clothes just to cover rent, and working seventeen hour days in the sweaty, dirt ridden kitchens of fancy French restaurants. Through this experience however, Orwell provides us with some astonishing insights into what was once a societal taboo, whilst consecutively both finding his voice as a writer and developing his mind into one of the 21st century’s greatest thinkers:

 “In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except ‘Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it’? Money has become the grand test of virtue.....A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.”

This excerpt is as true today as when it was published in 1933. People have fallen into the mind-set of ‘work to consume’, failing to take a step back to think about whether they are actually dedicating their time to something of real value. Wealth has become the primary means of determining an individual’s success in life, happiness and virtue being hidden by the figures on one’s bank balance. Orwell didn't go through these torturous years as a struggling writer in the hope of becoming rich. If that was the case I have no doubt he would have failed. Orwell did it because he has a passion burning inside of him that wouldn't die out; something that unfortunately most people alive today have no comprehension of.

Bukowski's Enlightening Observation

On the face of it, Charles Bukowski’s Women is simply a conglomeration of the author’s myriad encounters with sex hungry groupies; umbrella'd by an even more preponderant amount of alcohol. However, one must only scrape slightly below this surface façade to find true value in this author's flowing prose. Many negative remarks can be said about Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski - from his misogynistic depiction of women to his lackadaisical approach to life - but no one could argue that he is not 100% congruently grounded in his beliefs. This is a man who fell for many a woman, but never for the temptress 'Fame' herself. The following paragraph is taken from one of his many sojourns to the boxing ring, observing as:

“The crowd screamed and roared and swilled beer. They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes – they’d be back in captivity the next day but now they were out – they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery or poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basement” (pp. 101).

Having survived for so long at the bottom of the food chain before finally escaping his Post Office days, Bukowski manages here to portray a vivid picture of how mainstream society operates and behaves through a mere side-noted observation. Were an alternative life-form to land on our planet today, having never before observed human nature, how would they interpret the sight of millions of people cramming into trains and cars every morning to then sit in office blocks until daylight crept beyond the horizon? 'Captivity' indeed! The sharp reminder at the end of this paragraph however is that nothing is sempiternal...