At the time, I thought it was a rather cynical take on life. Over the years, though, I've come to be more and more in agreement with it.

He's also the fellow who once, in response perhaps to my own low self-esteem, said: "Xxx, you have to realize, most people are as dumb as rocks." I'm still working on that bit of imparted wisdom. Some days I agree. Some days, I am surprised by the unexpected abilities I find in others. (And a bit disappointed at my own lack of insight prior to such realizations.)

I guess the real eye opener, although it didn't come all at once and I still fall short, is that, the more you (truly) respect yourself, the more others respect you. Don't look to others to give you your self worth, though you can find it in part in your interactions with them.

Finally, one time I said to a group, thinking it nothing terribly special, that one should not expect from others what they are unable to give you. Another brilliant, if a bit self-centered and brutal friend, responded in a surprisingly positive fashion: She said she had never expected to learn anything from me, but that this really surprised her. Her feedback reinforced my own point to me. It also showed me that you cannot always tell what someone else will find valuable. Finally, over time, it showed me that when someone echos a sentiment to you, pay heed: I was hoping for a relationship with her that she was willing to tease and "pretend" about, but not willing to really start.

Despite the comic and sentiment about "lies", most people, when you really pay attention, are communicating fairly immediately what their interests and perspective are. It may not always be in their words or even in their short term actions, but it is in -- pardon the use of the word -- their Gestalt.

+Descartes' Geometry where he declares that you can choose any line as a unit to measure other lines (your knowledge depends on what you already know, your unit) (p.1) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26400/26400-pdf.pdf

+Galileo's Dialogues for the realization that real understanding of nature does not come from academic gibberish and research is actually fun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chi...

+Dana Densmore's Newton book to understand Principia http://www.greenlion.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.100.exe/principi.h...

+Slow burn by Stu Mittleman to understand how human body deals with fat and sugar http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Burn-Faster-Exercising-Slower/dp/...

+The Answer John Assaraf about habits http://www.amazon.com/Answer-Business-Achieve-Financial-Extr...

+Paul Graham's essays on education and dropping out of school for early startup http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html

+Ernst Mach's History of mechanics for its incredible lucidity and classic simplicity http://books.google.com/books?id=8bI3-JSarecC&dq=ernst+m...

+Euclid for its complete lack of physics in it and its beautiful diagrams http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html +Aristotle for appreciation of curiosity http://books.google.com/books?id=WWyF4vS8P7UC&pg=PA154&#...

+Bertrand Russel for his humor http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell and for his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy Really beautiful book so simple and fun to read... http://books.google.com/books?id=9GK_Fhz5RDUC&dq=introdu...

+Tolstoy's Confessions http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tolstoy/confession... For his intellectual quest going in circles

I believe that if you continue long enough in your quest, your research and understandings will describe such a circle. That's not a bad thing, I guess.

How does the world work? The world works the way you look at it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210104 We see what we believe.

Ooops, I think I am steering away from your question. But I learned something about how the world works from each one of these books.

I never really got any allowance, mostly just because my old man was a bit of a cheap-ass and a control freak. It was easier to earn my own money instead of having to be beholden to him and account for where my spendings went.

And I've always been rather enterprising, so I tried various forms of income multiplication like loansharking and other investments.

You learn how the world works much more quickly when you are on your own and interacting with various people at various levels in various ways. For me this started in earnest around age 10.

Me personally, I would say the newspaper. I would read it cover to cover when I was a kid (yes I know, I am weird like that). Even clip out articles I found super interesting.

Nowadays, with the internet and wikipedia, anything that pops in my mind is easily searchable. Plus, I read a lot of non-fiction books on a variety of topics (though I mostly prefer anything having to do with money, analyzing human behaviour, social/society issues and analysis).

I've not understood anything specific that led to this (as far as my tired mind remembers), but my hunger for some specific statistics grew. For instance: Partitions of US workforce into industry, median wage, median age, geographical locations, etc. Trying to see the overhead in society. Sources of political contributions. Wealth division. Each industry's contribution to: GDP, pollution, natural resources, workforce, etc.

My long-running goal has been to create visualizations that sum up a lot of these big questions. I'd love to work with others if they share similar goals.