I recently checked out an ebook called, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It has some really interesting ideas about unpredictability and causality. The author expounds on his theories about the Black Swan phenomenon, which I won’t dwell on here.

A few days ago, this quote caught my attention:

“He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors–though never the same error more than once–is more reliable than someone who has never made any.”

I don’t think the author’s calling Christ unreliable, at least if he knows Christ and sin the way Christ knows sin. I think Taleb statement works particularly well here because the Atonement accounts for all mistakes. Because Christ knows what it feels like to make them, he becomes the most reliable person that will ever exist.

Now if we separate Christ from the rest of mortality, I can understand being a little skeptical of a person who has never sinned. Taleb’s premise states that the fragilistas have little to gain because they fear making mistakes, and the ones they do make are huge and destructive and difficult to bounce back from. The antifragile don’t fear mistakes; they thrive on them, and the mistakes they make aren’t as big and they can make more of them. The more mistakes they make, the more they have to gain.

This is a little aspect of the book, but I like it not because it encourages me to make mistakes. It actually supports what I believe on a religious and spiritual basis: Even though I don’t go out of my way to make mistakes, I can rely on the Atonement when I do make them. He already knows all the lessons, and my sins can help me learn them. Taleb emphasizes that reliable people don’t make the same mistake more than once. This is repentance. If what I have to gain from the sins I commit is to become a better person and strengthen my relationship with Christ, that will in turn help me to become more reliable. However, because I won’t or can’t commit all the sins I can’t ever become as reliable as Christ. At least in my finite perspective. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be helpful to others. That doesn’t diminish any meaning or fulfillment my life should have.

Anyway, Antifragile presents some fun philosophy. I enjoy following the author’s thoughts as they wander. Antifragile is a good book because I can allow myself to disagree with some of the author’s ideas. While I haven’t formed full arguments yet, I quite enjoy the inner monologue. Certainly, this book offers a lot of unpredictability through its structure and ideas, and my quasi-formalistic mind can appreciate how the book’s form contributes to its function: As I stumble through ideas I haven’t thought about before, I find myself learning new things. Not necessarily because Taleb lays it all out in the open, but because what he does present helps me tinker the new things with what I already know. That experience alone holds a lot of potential.

That experience is so very easily practical, because we all know that we ought to try to make the best of what we can’t always predict. There’s only so much we can do to prepare. But if we can rely on true sources of strength and love and if we can thrive from volatile circumstances, then we phoenix our way out of any ambush, the ashes. Resurrect in more than one way.

Not sure why I’m reading a 500-page book to explain what I already know. Well, yes I do.