The Pursuit of Nobility: Living a Life That Matters

by Daniel, Tim

• ISBN13: 9780757313707
• ISBN10: 0757313701
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-03
• Publisher: Hci

Summary

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT LIBERATION. It is highly personal. It is about freeing yourself from the conditions that keep you locked up and lost among the mass mentality that you have willingly joined and hidden behind because it is safe and expected of you. But the voices inside of discontent can no longer be squelched. You are bored, disconnected, and apprehensive, and feel with growing urgency a need to do something bold, original, and significant to step out of the shadows and start pursuing your true assignment from life. You are ready for the Pursuit of Nobility, where you will leave despair and fear behind and do something that really matters in the real world. But how? The answer is to be found in a larger question: Why? Why are you here? Who are you supposed to be in the world? Once you have a why, you can figure out the how. This book will help you solve these riddles like no other can. It is not written by a guru. You have probably never heard of its author. But if you are open to the type of guided exploration that rattles you in order to ignite you, that helps you unleash your creative potential without 'steps' and popular psychology but instead with wisdom and philosophy, then you just might be ready for your great life's work. You might be a member of the New Nobility.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. v
The Specialists	p. 1
The Assignments	p. 30
The Academy	p. 53
The Skirmish	p. 77
The Desert	p. 103
The Night	p. 124
The Dawn	p. 146
The Crest	p. 166
The Approach	p. 191
The Cadre	p. 212
The Visit	p. 233
The Storm	p. 256
The Signal	p. 273
Epilogue	p. 293
References	p. 295
Index	p. 297
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Specialists We don't live the way we used to. We don't live in caves. We don't defend slavery anymore. Humans do change the way they behave eventually. We do evolve, somehow but not always. It is not inevitable; it is a choice. There are moments in the human saga when despair reigns, when it appears that this time we won't evolve. Civilizations and societies before us have stood at this place: at the crossroads between despair and greatness. Most failed the test and slid into oblivion either rapidly or slowly, but at some point inexorably. Are we next in line? Will we follow their example or defy it? There is good news: we do evolve, which means that we can evolve when we want to and when we have to. How we do that matters, because the future has a nasty habit of showing up whether or not we are prepared for it. When we keenly grasp how humans evolve and actively participate in the process, we ascend to greatness. When we ignore the lessons and refuse to join the game, we descend into a hell of our own making. If you're the type who likes to grasp things keenly and actively join the game, keep reading. Here is how we have always done it and how we will do it again if we so choose. Charles Darwin described how our bodies evolved: natural selection and all that. But how does the way we behave change and evolve?Our physical traits are passed on to our progeny through our genes. If we are parents, part of us will inhabit the future. The way we behave is called culture. It includes all those things we pass on to our progeny through teaching, learning, mimicking, and incentives. Culture is passed on through memes (rhymes with 'themes'). A meme is a unit of cultural transmission or a unit of imitation. Memes are ways of thinking and behaving that are taught and learned, generation after generation. Richard Dawkins (1976) explains them as follows: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. . . . Memes are the DNA of human society, influencing every aspect of mind, behavior, and culture. We humans are a social species. We are built to mimic. Most of us will spend our lives imitating the behaviors of our social group, understanding the world the way our group understands the world, choosing essentially what we were taught to choose and acting in ways that were modeled for us. We will mimic more or less happily until we die. Even then, when we come to the end of our days the way we die, the way we are laid to rest, and the way our passing will be mourned will be in the form of customs received from our specific culture. Even that most intimate and profound human moment will be mimicked, guided by culture. It stands to reason that if we