Thread by @jposhaughnessy, It’s *what* is said that’s important, not *who* has said it, a [...]

It’s *what* is said that’s important, not *who* has said it, a thread

1/ I have long recommended reading outside of the field of finance and investing in order to gain useful insights that help you learn how to become a better investor. There is one book, in particular,

2/ that I have been re-reading and contemplating ever since I was 18—“The Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu.

I recently re-read some threads (included below) that tried to illustrate how studying Lao Tzu’s ideas are very helpful in this regard. But when I was going through some

3/ old journals (also something I’ve done since age 18) I realized that we often change in ways so subtle that we don’t recognize them until we read thoughts from our earlier self. / When I was younger, I wanted to know as much as I could about the author of what I was reading.

4/ I thought an insight into the *person* would help me understand their philosophy better. I used to get into endless debates with other fans of Taoism about which specific translation of the book was better and how if they knew more about Lao Tzu—the man—they would have

5/ a “deeper understanding” and “agree with me.”

Not only was my earlier fascination with Lao Tzu’s biography and life naïve and misguided, I’ve found him saying as much to me as I have re-read the book countless times.

6/ It is not *who* said something that is important, it is *what* they said that is of paramount importance. If you find yourself focusing on the *person* who is advocating a particular philosophy, stop and learn from my example. You see, I slowly became aware of both my own

7/ error and those of others when I realized that endless fascination with the quotidian details of someone’s life distracts you from really paying attention to the message they are trying to impart. In fact, depending upon the individual (Nietzsche springs instantly to mind)

8/ It can totally obscure their underlying argument. One of our bad habits as thinkers (myself included) is to allow our like or dislike for the person making an argument to overwhelm the points that are being made. Thus, the cliché “don’t shoot the messenger.”

9/ Indeed, would you think differently of Lao Tzu if you knew that members of the Tang Dynasty claimed to be decedents of his linage or that many stories had him becoming a hermit because he disagreed with the then reigning Emperor? You might.

10/ The fact is so little is known of the *actual* life of Lao Tzu (not his real name by the way, it’s an honorific meaning “old master”) that most of it can legitimately be thought of as myth and legend. My younger self got bogged down and distracted by Lao Tzo, the man,

11/ and thus prevented me from understanding several of his key insights for a long, long time. I must hasten to add—I love biographies and read a ton of them. Yes, you can learn a lot from reading about someone’s life, but in those cases,

12/ it’s the life itself that is teaching you lessons, not the work that person accomplished over that life. Guard against missing the forest because of the trees and learn to focus on the thoughts and ideas you’re reading, not the author. Pay close attention to those

13/ that bring about a negative, often visceral and emotional reaction—they often are the ones that you can learn the most from because they are poking at a weak spot in your mental models. In the meantime, I’ve found that reading all these threads together makes a bigger