“From the behavior of many rich people we can infer they live constantly terrori

—“From the behavior of many rich people we can infer they live

constantly terrorized that other rich people think that they are

poorer than they actually are.”— Taleb

Well, as a former member of that set, the thrill of the competition in one’s field, despite that much of it is a lottery effect, is exceeded only by the excitement of meeting and working with increasingly interesting rather than tedious and mundane people, on projects and ideas that are increasingly interesting rather than tedious and mundane.

Nassim dealt with the (exasperating and epistemically challenged) financial sector, but engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, athletes and artists tend to be fairly interesting – and they fill you with awe and humility. And that experience is as awe inspiring on a daily basis as is the feeling of revelation one experienced from one’s most profound professors.

So we tend to forget that what separates the west from the rest is heroism. Egalitarian heroism. And the absurd excesses of the upper economic classes are a minor side effect of the cultural processes that create them. And that cultural process is what produces, when not suppresses by authority or mysticism, the rapid evolution of western civilization, despite its status as a small, poor, backward people on the margins of the bronze age.

Be glad we produce such extremes, because of the benefits we obtain from the cultural process that creates them.

Revel in it. If there is anything in man that approaches the divine, that is it.