EVERYBODY who is anybody is now reading or have read The Black Swan.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is published by Penguin. ST PHOTO: Desmond Wee
An issue of the Economist early this month had a lengthy report on the unpredictability of the the financial system and idiocy of calculating risk to the fifth decimal point. It adorned its cover with, yes, a black swan. The magazine editors must be quite certain its readers know what the bird represents because they never bothered to explain its presence.
When my Editor, a somebody, first asked me late last year if I had read The Black Swan, I thought he was talking about Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. I launched enthusiastically into the merits of Mitchell's book, comparing it with his prize-winning Cloud Atlas.
Then he said he was talking about a non-fiction book... and I realised I was a nobody.
Now that I have read the book, allow me to, ahem, enlighten you. It's by an amateur philosopher-cum-political scientist who used to trade in (horror of horrors!) financial derivatives.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese, postulated that the unpredictable cannot be, well, predicted. He's talking majorly unpredictable events, catastrophes of the 9/11 kind. They surface like the rare black swan among millions of white ones. Now, do you comprehend the book title?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan.
PHOTO: Supplied by Penguin
Also, Mr Nassim says that rather than self-flagellate, consult bomohs (my word, not his) or scare ourselves to death waiting in trepidation for the next Black Swan, we should... wait for it... take control of our own life!
There is a lot of stuff in between, names of assorted philosophers and mathematicians whose theories Mr Nassim takes delight in debunking. Good luck getting through the middle. I have to shamefully admit I skipped and skimmed through some dreadfully tedious pages.
What's interesting is his tone of voice: He comes across as a pompous, very clever, egotist. Despotic even.
But the fact is, after all that fantastic theorising, he ends the book with some very basic principles your parents or grandparents would have said to you at some time in some way or other.
"Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favour of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don't be like the ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth - remember you are a Black Swan. Thank you for reading my book."
Thank you for the cliches, grandpa.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is published by Penguin and is available from good book stores and online.