Lex Fridman: preference

Transcript context

…Yes, he was recognized by his contemporaries as something special, right? You don’t get invited to those coronations if you’re a nobody. But the most famous story of Canute that I know, my favorite story, is, you know, being in positions of power, being famous, a lot of people sucking up to you, a lot of people telling you whatever they think you wanna hear. And so people are telling him all the time how wonderful he is, and he takes his whole court down to the seashore and orders his, his courtiers to carry him on his throne into the water, and then he commands the seas to stop, the waves to stop and to retreat. And they don’t, obviously, and everyone thinks he’s a little… But his point is that, “Y’all are saying how great I am. I have no control.” I mean, this is his active humility to kind of embarrass… “I have no control over anything. Stop telling me I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.” I like the leaders, and there’s a few of them in history that rise to the very top, and they’re still able to maintain humility. Marcus Aurelius in the Roman Empire is an example that, you know, reading Meditations is also just an insight into the mind of a man who’s to himself—’cause Meditations is not supposed to be work that’s published. It’s just a diary. To himself, he’s deeply humbled. And- … and one of the most powerful humans in history- … is still humble. The two most famous stoics, one was an emperor and one was a slave.…

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