Peer Cruelty

Also from Taleb’s Black Swan is this discourse on peer-cruelty, something entrepreneurs and innovators working on long term projects with big goals would resonate with.

“You work on a project that does not deliver immediate or steady results; all the while, people around you work on projects that do. You are in trouble. Such is the lot of scientists, artists, and researchers, lost in society.

Positive lumpy outcomes, for which we either collect big or get nothing, prevail in numerous occupations, those invested with a sense of mission, such as doggedly pursuing (in a smelly laboratory) the elusive cure for cancer, writing a book that will change the way people view the world (while living hand to mouth), making music, or painting miniature icons on subway trains and considering it a higher form of art.

Many people labor in life under the impression that they are doing something right, yet they may not show solid results for a long time. They need a capacity for continuously adjourned gratification to survive a steady diet of peer cruelty without becoming demoralized.

Most people engaged in the pursuits that I call concentrated spend most of their time waiting for the big day that (usually) never comes. This takes you away from the pettiness of life because you have your mind on bigger and better things. But this does not mean that the person insulated from materialistic pursuits becomes impervious to other pains, those issuing from disrespect. Often these Black Swan hunters feel shame, or are made to feel shame, at not contributing. “You betrayed those who had high hopes for you,” they are told, increasing their feeling of guilt. The problem of lumpy payoffs is not so much the lack of income they entail, but the pecking order, the loss of dignity, the subtle humiliations near the water cooler.”

Remember this, next time you weigh the values of a friend working on trying to cure cancer and feels discouraged, versus one that collects large bonuses on Wall Street and feels successful.