The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene - Book Notes
Note: These are my own takeaways, focused on things that I found most enlightening to me.
If you imagine yourself as a child thinking to yourself, "I wish there were a set of books that would give me some answers to how to approach life," The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Green would be one of them.
It delves into human behavior, ourselves, leadership, ambition through stories, research and analysis. It makes you ponder questions such as "What is character and why is it important?" I want to present two big takeaways I got from this book.
Takeaway #1: You have a role
This world needs constant improvement and renewal. You are here not merely to gratify your impulses and consume what others have made but to make and contribute as well, to serve a higher purpose.
In this section, Greene talks about how we are not self made men and women. We live in far more opportunistic times than ever before. There is far more order today than there is the disorders of millennia's past: famine, incurable disease, predation from animals, and national invasions.
I'm not saying there aren't problems with the world, I'm saying that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. The compound interest from the work that others have put before us.
We live in a crafted world world full of available wisdom. Common knowledge and capacity includes knowing about the atoms, shoes on our feet, how to operate an air conditioner, the airplane, the heart bypass, poppy seed bagels, Twitter, group chats, and Wikipedia.org. Thing that all would have been superpowers 200 years ago. This didn't come about naturally. To take it for granted is shameful. We can show gratitude through the cultivation of ourselves and higher purpose.
There is a Brat is in all of us. It's the stranger that we don't understand that makes ourselves easier to swallow, whispering to us how pretty we are and how the world is composed of injustice and owes us something. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This brat makes us entitled and ungrateful. Ignore it. Understand we have much to be grateful for, and we can be infinitely more rewarded by focusing on giving back instead. We have a role to play in this world. It's our job to find it and pursue it, and through that medium contribute back to the world that gave us so much.
Takeaway #2: We are not as rational as we think
If we were totally rational, psychology departments would have packed up their bags and patted themselves on the shoulders long ago for a job well done. Green refers to the stranger in all of us, whose role it is to photoshop our self-images to make it prettier. I call it the Brat. Know that no one is an exception to this rule. The truth is we are driven by the inner deep forces of human nature.
By understanding this reality we can:
- Piece together a more accurate assessment of the world
- Be better prepared to navigate the world around us
- True character comes out over time and under stress.
- Understand Envy in Yourself
- Accept people as facts
The out of character moments in people are really the true character. Look to those moments for insight into yourself and others.
Be a detective of your own shadows. Understand all your negative moments, especially under stress or those rare moments, are deeply rooted in a true self that you are constantly trying to disguise.
Envy is a dangerous emotion because it disguises itself as other emotions. It is elusive and pervasive. So much so you think you don't experience it.
Envy involves a difficult pill to swallow, that you are inferior to someone else in some capacity you value. It is so painful for you to see that it is often disguised.
If the mind is jabbering about someone, stop to think about whether it is envy in disguise (the guy that is dating the person you like, the girl that is popular, the kid that doesn't have to study but gets straight A's in school). In my example, my friend who got 400% returns on his first stock pick. But as long as you're chewing on the delicious gum of resentment anyways, might as well try to turn envy into admiration. It's a bitter flavor, but it has a bit of nutrition to it.
People were created in different ways to navigate this odd world, like water seeping into different cracks and holes in the stones of different personalities and behavior. We were built with a biology and the cultivation of this odd world, it only makes sense that we would have a variety of character traits.
Instead of interpreting it all as good or bad, its recommended you focus on the reality that they simply are. They make life rich and interesting.