The Business Romantic

A natural outgrowth of the romantic’s interest in emotional states—the primacy of the subjective experience over objective truth—was the movement’s attraction to the nostalgic and the uncanny.

deeper antagonism in society: technologists don’t know what they don’t know until they know it. In contrast, artists and romantics, by the very nature of their work, live with the tensions of ambiguity, conflict, doubt, and hesitancy.

“Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real.”

channeling a rebellious spirit and passion into initiatives and provocations that have impact at the workplace,

As these technological innovations create economic disruptions, they also destabilize our value systems.

we believe that the benefits of the market economy generally outweigh its faults,

Quantified, efficient selves—the good news is: we’ve been there before. The original Romantic Movement—toward the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth—emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment.

the elevation of emotion over reason and of the senses over the intellect; an introspective orientation and fascination with the self; hypersensibility and heightened awareness of sentiments and moods; a keen interest in strangers and strangeness; the pose of a contrarian; a belief in community combined with a need for solitude; an appreciation for

After reading this book, you will have more ways to open yourself up to the delights, the mysteries, the moments of transcendence, and even the hard-won sorrows of an everyday life in business.