The more complete the despair, the more complete the awakening.
~ Carl Jung
An oldie but a goldie
A man was in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth.
He mumbles, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"
The nurse lifts his gown, holds his penis in one hand & his testicles in the other, takes a close look & says, "There's nothing wrong with them sir."
The man pulls off the oxygen mask, smiles at her & says very slowly, "Thanks for that. It was lovely, but listen very very carefully... Are-my-test-results-back?"
And yet we do nothing
There shouldn't be a classroom in America from kindergarten to PhD where you're allowed to use your personal devices.
We're rewiring their brains to become lonely and depressed.
~ ArthurBrooks
A great story
from the Athenaeum Book Club
A powerful scene in the Odyssey comes when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca after twenty years of war and wandering.
You'd expect the story to end with a great celebration: with the hero coming home and the family reunited.
Homer does something far stranger.
Odysseus arrives disguised as a beggar, because Athena warns him that the palace has been taken over by more than a hundred suitors who have been living there for years, eating his food, drinking his wine, and pressuring his wife Penelope to marry one of them. They believe Odysseus is dead and in their minds the kingdom is already theirs.
So the king of Ithaca walks through his own halls dressed in rags while the men stealing his house sit comfortably at his tables. They mock him, throw scraps at him, and one of them even strikes him, and Odysseus takes it. The same man who blinded the Cyclops now stands quietly while strangers insult him in his own home. Homer tells us his heart burns inside his chest and that he wants to attack them immediately, yet he restrains himself and waits.
Instead of striking, Odysseus studies the room carefully. He counts the men, watches their habits, and observes which servants remain loyal and which have betrayed him. He delays his revenge until the moment is right.
Eventually Penelope announces a contest and brings out Odysseus' great bow, declaring that she will marry the man who can string it and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads lined up in a row. One by one the suitors try and fail, because none of them can even bend the bow. Then the beggar asks for a turn. The suitors laugh at first, but the bow is eventually handed to him.
Odysseus takes it in his hands and strings it effortlessly. Homer says the sound of the bowstring tightening rings through the hall like the note of a swallow. Then he places an arrow on the string and sends it cleanly through all twelve axe heads.
In that moment the beggar disappears. Odysseus turns the bow toward the suitors and reveals who he is.
What follows is one of the most brutal scenes in Greek literature. The doors are sealed and the suitors realize too late that they are trapped inside the hall. Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and two loyal servants begin killing them one by one. There is no escape and no negotiation. The men who spent years consuming another man's house die inside it.
It is a violent ending, but Homer wants you to understand something important. The real danger to Odysseus was never just the monsters and storms along the journey. It was the possibility that someone else might take his place while he was gone.
When Odysseus finally returns, he reminds everyone in Ithaca of a simple truth:
A man's home is never truly his unless he is willing to fight for it.
A powerful scene in the Odyssey comes when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca after twenty years of war and wandering.
You'd expect the story to end with a great celebration: with the hero coming home and the family reunited.
Homer does something far stranger.
Odysseus arrives disguised as a beggar, because Athena warns him that the palace has been taken over by more than a hundred suitors who have been living there for years, eating his food, drinking his wine, and pressuring his wife Penelope to marry one of them. They believe Odysseus is dead and in their minds the kingdom is already theirs.
So the king of Ithaca walks through his own halls dressed in rags while the men stealing his house sit comfortably at his tables. They mock him, throw scraps at him, and one of them even strikes him, and Odysseus takes it. The same man who blinded the Cyclops now stands quietly while strangers insult him in his own home. Homer tells us his heart burns inside his chest and that he wants to attack them immediately, yet he restrains himself and waits.
Instead of striking, Odysseus studies the room carefully. He counts the men, watches their habits, and observes which servants remain loyal and which have betrayed him. He delays his revenge until the moment is right.
Eventually Penelope announces a contest and brings out Odysseus' great bow, declaring that she will marry the man who can string it and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads lined up in a row. One by one the suitors try and fail, because none of them can even bend the bow. Then the beggar asks for a turn. The suitors laugh at first, but the bow is eventually handed to him.
Odysseus takes it in his hands and strings it effortlessly. Homer says the sound of the bowstring tightening rings through the hall like the note of a swallow. Then he places an arrow on the string and sends it cleanly through all twelve axe heads.
In that moment the beggar disappears. Odysseus turns the bow toward the suitors and reveals who he is.
What follows is one of the most brutal scenes in Greek literature. The doors are sealed and the suitors realize too late that they are trapped inside the hall. Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and two loyal servants begin killing them one by one. There is no escape and no negotiation. The men who spent years consuming another man's house die inside it.
It is a violent ending, but Homer wants you to understand something important. The real danger to Odysseus was never just the monsters and storms along the journey. It was the possibility that someone else might take his place while he was gone. When Odysseus finally returns, he reminds everyone in Ithaca of a simple truth:
A man's home is never truly his unless he is willing to fight for it.
Elegantly put!
Forgive me.
My mind is beset with chaotic thoughts at the moment.
~ William Ransom, in Outlander
Revolutionary Wisdom
Act worthy of yourselves.
~ Dr. Joseph Warren
Dr. Warren died on the battlefield at Bunker Hill, 1775
[sob...]
Cry as much as you want to.
But make sure when you're finished, you never cry for the same reason again.
I've always thought this is true...
Before you argue, build the strongest possible version of the opposing view.Not the weak, easy-to-attack version. The version that actually challenges you.The person who can argue both sides clearly is the only one who truly understands the problem.
~ read on X (twitter thread)
Unsettling truth about today's healthcare
A healthy patient is a lost client.
~ an unsettling line in the film Healthcare Decoded, that explores the incentives, pressures, and hidden structures shaping modern medicine
Indeed
Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, social justice.
~ Thomas Sowell
Nutrition 101
Stop eating like a child.
Stop eating pancakes for breakfast or ordering Panda Express for lunch. Stop it with stress snacking between meals.
Eat meats, veggies, fruits, single ingredient whole foods.
Control the foods you put in your mouth.
Eat like a damn adult.
~ Dan Go
Peace and Love
I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.
~ Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota tribe
Live every moment
Life is a heartbreaking, gorgeous blip in the universe,
Everything matters and nothing does.
What has always been certain:
Time is both forever and achingly finite.
But what a shame it would be not to live every moment.
~ Star Fleet: Academy, The Life of the Stars
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