Everyone edits their own story. We remember things in ways that make us look a little better, forget details that make us look worse. Now imagine doing that when the story involves mass murder and you are sitting in front of a prosecutor twenty-five years later.
Picture this: It’s 2,500 years ago. You’re in your late fifties, stranded in the woods, and you haven’t eaten in a week. Your students are starting to lose it, and you’re wondering if your life’s work was all for nothing.
Book: Common Sense on Mutual Funds: Fully Updated 10th Anniversary Edition by John C. Bogle ISBN: 978-0-470-59748-4
Bogle opens this chapter by borrowing from Einstein. Time is the fourth dimension. It was true in physics, and Bogle argues it’s true in investing too.
Who exactly was Confucius? If you’re thinking “just some old guy with a beard,” you’re missing the point. He was the most influential person in Chinese history, period.
When you are buying a house, you aren’t just buying a building. You are buying someone’s home. Most sellers have lived there for a decade. They have memories attached to the space, and they aren’t going to just hand over the keys to a stranger they don’t trust.
Book 11 of The Analects is basically a giant vibe check on Confucius’s students. If you ever wondered what it was like to be in his inner circle, this is where we see the receipts. He didn’t just teach them theory; he sized them up constantly and had very specific opinions on who was doing it right.
Book: Common Sense on Mutual Funds: Fully Updated 10th Anniversary Edition by John C. Bogle ISBN: 978-0-470-59748-4
Bogle calls taxes the fund industry’s “black sheep.” And he subtitles this chapter “The Message of the Parallax,” which is a fancy way of saying that a small shift in how you look at returns completely changes what you see.
Book 10 is different from the others. It’s not a collection of quotes. It’s a record of what people observed about Confucius in his daily life. It’s basically a “Day in the Life” of a philosopher.
If you can’t run the numbers, you aren’t an investor, you are just guessing. Being a deal maker means knowing exactly what a property is worth and how much you can afford to pay for it.
So, here’s the thing: trying to write a biography of Confucius is a total nightmare. When Meher McArthur started this book, a scholar straight-up told her it was impossible. And honestly? They weren’t wrong.