BOOK REVIEW // THE SCOUT MINDSET
Seeking Higher Ground
Confronting new challenges? Be a scout, not a soldier
by Walter Foley
EXCERPT //
Steve Callahan’s ship capsized in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean during a solo voyage in 1981. He survived on a raft for weeks, sometimes circled by sharks while cautiously rationing his supplies and examining the tradeoffs inherent to his situation: Should he take a chance and light one of his few flares now, or save them all in case a ship appears within eyesight? Should he fish today for food, or conserve his energy for tomorrow? Should he stay up late in hopes of spotting something in the distance, or rest now so that he can strategize better in the morning?
“I have often hidden things from myself. I have sometimes fooled other people. But Nature is not such a dolt,” Callahan would write in his memoir. “I may be lucky enough to be forgiven some mistakes, the ones that don’t matter, but I can’t count on luck.”
In her book The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef uses this story and others to make the case that facing reality is, on a technical and practical level, the right thing to do. It’s a message of optimism, that “whatever your goal, there’s probably a way to get it that doesn’t require you to believe false things.”
When you confront the messiness and uncertainty of the world on its own terms, Galef argues, new possibilities emerge for solving your problems: “It’s striking how much the urge to conclude ‘That’s not true’ diminishes once you feel like you have a concrete plan for what you would do if the thing were true.”
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