Power is greater than hap­pi­ness, con­tends Robert Greene in an online dis­cus­sion with Eliezer Yud­kowsky about Fear, Power and Mor­tal­ity (qual­ity sum­mary thereof), as hap­pi­ness is fleet­ing and unremitting.

Also dis­cussed in this con­ver­sa­tion is strate­gist Robert Greene’s lat­est book, The 50th Law: 10 Lessons in Fear­less­ness, which is the result of an unlikely col­lab­o­ra­tion with hip hop artist 50 Cent (Cur­tis Jackson).

Ini­tially (very) scep­ti­cal of such a col­lab­o­ra­tion (hip hop and its cul­ture is com­pletely alien to my tastes), I’ve heard The 50th Law called a “hip hop bible” and a “how-to for apply­ing The 48 Laws of Power” and so had to look deeper.

With the life of Cur­tis Jack­son as the nar­ra­tive, the book looks at “how to suc­ceed in life and work based on a sin­gle prin­ci­ple: fear noth­ing”. Based on the text of the chap­ter head­ings, there’s an ebook intro­duc­tion avail­able on Slideshare that gives you a good idea of what the book is like.

I found the fol­low­ing excerpts rather inspir­ing on mul­ti­ple lev­els and wanted to share them:

On self-reliance:

When you work for oth­ers, you are at their mercy. They own your work; they own you. Your cre­ative spirit is squashed. What keeps you in such posi­tions is a fear of hav­ing to sink or swim on your own. Instead you should have a greater fear of what will hap­pen to you if you remain depen­dent on oth­ers for power. Your goal in every maneu­ver in life must be own­er­ship, work­ing the cor­ner for your­self. When it is yours, it is yours to lose — you are more moti­vated, more cre­ative, more alive. The ulti­mate power in life is to be com­pletely self-reliant, com­pletely yourself.

On oppor­tunism:

Your lack of resources can be an advan­tage, forc­ing you to be more inven­tive with the lit­tle that you have. […] Do not let fears make you wait for a bet­ter moment or become con­ser­v­a­tive. If there are cir­cum­stances you can­not con­trol, make the best of them. It is the ulti­mate alchemy to trans­form all such neg­a­tives into advan­tages and power.

On cal­cu­lated momentum:

In the present there is con­stant change and so much we can­not con­trol. If you try to micro­man­age it all, you lose even greater con­trol in the long run.

On con­nec­tion:

Most peo­ple think first of what they want to express or make, then find the audi­ence for their idea. You must work the oppo­site angle, think­ing first of the pub­lic. You need to keep your focus on their chang­ing needs, the trends that are wash­ing through them.

On mas­tery:

To [build the foun­da­tions for some­thing that can con­tinue to expand], you will have to serve an appren­tice­ship. You must learn early on to endure the hours of prac­tice and drudgery, know­ing that in the end all of that time will trans­late into a higher plea­sure — mas­tery of a craft and of yourself.

Thanks, Ryan