He who puts himself in the public eye and achieves some measure of success can be certain of the following: there will undoubtedly be a bad day, a day when, for whatever reason, he shows weakness, fails, or simply provokes a negative reaction. On that day, detractors will emerge from every corner, in far greater numbers than he imagines. The chorus will give the impression of unanimity; whatever they say will sound like common sense. His image, therefore, will suffer a blow, and for a moment no one will remember what he has done or who he is. It will, of course, be a thoroughly unpleasant experience; but publicity means having to go through it, and those who endure it without losing their balance emerge stronger.
Tag: behavior
Just as One Cannot Escape Envy…
Just as one cannot escape envy or unwanted enmities, one cannot avoid instant and fatal antipathies. It is truly intolerable: the futility of these experiences is glaringly obvious; an ordinary man would do anything, would give up almost everything to avoid them. But he has no such option. The prince of this world has his own plans, and he forces him to live them out constantly, no matter how much he hates them or how hard he tries to evade them. He will wake up happy, on one of those days when life seems to flow smoothly, under control, and pleasantly, and then everything will turn sour with that unnecessary encounter. The devil laughs…
No Matter How Well-Versed an Investor…
No matter how well-versed an investor is in financial literature, he will only truly understand what a crisis is when he experiences it—when, with all his resources fully allocated to financial assets, a crisis breaks out. Before that, no matter how much he knows, it amounts to very little. Afterward, he can finally say he has been baptized as an investor. And so it is on countless other occasions. Sometimes, the nature of an experience can only be grasped when the blood boils and the heart races: it is only by suffering it that one can grasp its power.
The Man Loves Coffee. For Years…
The man loves coffee. For years, for his entire life, he has drunk it every morning and enjoyed it. He loves the warm sensation on his tongue, the flavor that lingers in his mouth, and the obvious mental boost he relies on to work. He considers himself a connoisseur of the drink, just as he believes in the real benefits it brings to his daily life. In short: coffee makes him happy. Then comes the day when he tastes a superior-quality coffee that leaves his palate in ecstasy. When he returns to the old coffee he used to drink, he clearly realizes it is rubbish. He investigates the matter and discovers that it is indeed rubbish, in which real coffee, though made from lower-quality beans, is mixed with a wide variety of impurities, including some too unspeakable to name, and the whole lot is over-roasted to mask its defects. From that day forward, the same coffee, the drink he once cherished so much and which had brought him pleasure his whole life, will never satisfy him again. And philosophy, as it always does, poses the question: is knowledge worth it?