I've never had the patience or strength to finish one of Robert Greene's books. They're not only thick, the margins are filled with citations and extra stories to cement Greene's well-researched points. I know this from skimming through a number of them.
Greene has written, among others, the infamous The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and Mastery.
Hearing about his latest book, The Laws of Human Nature, I thought, it's about time I picked his work up. The description for The Laws of Human Nature is as follows:
We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose.
On the Aubrey Marcus podcast, Greene shares plenty about human nature but one bit particularly caught my attention:
“There are forces in you that go back hundreds of thousands of years from how we evolved as early humans, even as primates. We actually share a lot of qualities of primates that were not even aware of. But these forces are wired into your brain. They’re wired into your nervous system. They’re wired into your musculature. And they cause you to behave in certain ways and you’re completely unaware of it. And by not being aware of it, it controls you.”
It's the greatest mystery we can possibly know - what are we doing here?