The Daily Laws
by Robert Greene
Today I’m recommending a book I’ve barely even started reading.
But I have a good excuse for that.
It’s written by the wise and wonderful Robert Greene.
If you’ve read anything by Robert Greene, you know what I mean. And if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat.
The Daily Laws is set up much like The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. There is a short essay for each day of the year and something concrete to think about and each month has a theme.
Greene is fearless and doesn’t mince words. He gets to the core of human behavior, the stuff we don’t like to think about too deeply because it’s uncomfortable. He often points out how devious and manipulative people can be and it’s helpful to learn how to recognize that. But reading or listening to him also makes you feel more compassionate towards humans in general (including yourself) because we’re all flawed in some way, we all tell ourselves lies, and if you’ve ever had this vague feeling that much of what you see or hear out there isn’t quite as shiny as it looks, that’s because quite often it’s not. And there’s something weirdly comforting about knowing that too.
In the preface Greene writes that The Daily Laws is designed to reverse the toxic patterns we’ve become trapped in, reconnect us to reality, and to attune our minds to the most entrenched traits of human nature and how our brains operate.
I started The Daily Laws about two weeks ago, on November 17. November’s theme is The Rational Human. Realizing Your Higher Self and December’s essays, The Cosmic Sublime. Expanding the Mind to its Furthest Reaches, include thoughts from his upcoming book on the Sublime.
Considering how often we make snap judgments about people based on a single action or statement, the essay for November 27th was really one to think about. It was titled “Assume You’re Misjudging the People Around You.”
At the bottom of each daily essay/thought is the title and chapter of the book it came from, in case you want to delve more deeply into a certain topic.
It seems to me that there are lots of really smart people out there, but very few who are wise. Robert Greene is one of those exceptions.