Many paths up the mountain...

Been there...am there...

Ted:        How you been?
Jamie:    Uhh, awesome!
Ted:       Yeah?
Jamie:   The best. Pretty good. Okay.
               Little depressed, yeah...
               It's all shit, Ted.

~ from Ted Lasso

She should know by now!

Dammit, Woman, you're my wife!
Your sole purpose is to make me do things I don't want to do!

~ Dan, on The Connors

Explains a lot

A patient cured is a customer lost.

~ John D. Rockefeller

If the shoe fits...

Some people run away by packing their bags.
Others run away by staying in the same place too long.

~ Martha, Baby Reindeer, Episode 1

Embrace the chase

We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well that we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect.
But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence.
I am not remotely interested in just being good.

~ Vince Lombardi

Compound Interest

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.

The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.

~ C.S. Lewis

Simply put - we keep doing things the old way

Path Dependence Feedback Loop

A "path dependence feedback loop" refers to a situation where initial choices or events create a self-reinforcing cycle, meaning that the early decisions progressively lock a system into a particular path, making it increasingly difficult to change direction due to the accumulated effects of those initial choices, often creating a positive feedback loop where the initial trend further strengthens itself over time.

Tale as old as time...

"How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

~ Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Truth

One day you will bury your father and that day you will realize you lost the only man who wanted to see you do better than him.

~ found on the interwebs

Not a bad idea

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.

~ Thomas Paine

Oh, to be a poet!

In English, we say:
Can I be a child again?

But in poetry, we say:
Take me back to when laughter was endless,

and my dreams were bigger than my fears.

Ouch!

Nothing hurts a man like seeing himself getting older without any progress in his life.

~ found on the internet

Indeed...

You say you got a real solution.
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan.

~ Revolution 1, the Beatles

Do or do not. There is no trying ~ Yoda

Come on! What's scarier?
Trying something? Or not trying something?

~ Surfer dude, on Younger, to a reluctant beginner surfer

Indeed

"Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco."
Not all donuts have a hole

meaning things don't always turn out as planned

If not LotR canon, it nevertheless is a fine statement

I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.

~ Arwen, in Lord of the Rings (the movie, not in the books)

Good advice all around

You never interfere with your opponent when he is kicking his own ass.

~ Senator John Kennedy (no, not that John Kennedy)

The devil is in the details

They ask me: "Do you want to die on Mars?"
And I say, "Well, yes, but not on impact."

~ Elon Musk, who aspires to achieve space travel to Mars

He had a knack for pithy observation

"Victims of unsynchronized passion"

How Ernest Hemingway described his relationship with Marlene Dietrich

Magical, indeed

They say she had magical powers,

That turned men melancholy.

~ from the TV series Younger

Good advice

Don't bite till you know if it's bread or stone.

~ Anne Sexton

Watch out!

Watch out for love

(Unless it is true...

and every part of you says yes,

including the toes)

~ Anne Sexton

Classic Rock lyrics

All I need is the air that I breathe,
and to love you.

~ The Hollies

Quality

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships.

~ Ester Perel, well-known therapist

Love and meaning, indeed...

You can get happiness from Chipotle, Cialis, and Netflix.

All those things will bring you short-term happiness.

I think when we really talk about meaningful happiness, we talk about investments we make through the course of our lives and decisions in forgiveness we provide ourselves and other people, such that at the end of our life, we feel like we built a narrative of satisfaction.

~ Scott Galloway, in The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love and Meaning

A worthy goal

I hate my life less and less every day

~ Scott Galloway’s common response when asked “How are you doing?”

It's funny if you watch the show!

The situation seems dark,
But if my military career has taught me anything, it's that
you can always give up!

~ Captain Isaac Higgentoot, on Ghosts

Looks like I have work to do

Where your fear is,
there your task is.

~ Karl Jung

Peace

Sometimes, a man has to make a decision that will break his heart but give him peace for the rest of his life

~ interwebs wisdom

Especially late at night

Nothing kills a man faster than the weight of his own thoughts

~ interwebs wisdom

Maybe this time...

"...For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time.

Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago..."

~ William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, 1948

One of those uncomfortable questions

How big would you dream if you knew you couldn't fail?

it hurts so bad

Nothing hurts a man like seeing himself getting older without seeing any progress in his life.

~ from the interwebs

Same

I love walking in the rain
because nobody can see my tears.

~ Charlie Chaplin

The Number One Cause of Divorce:

Uncommunicated expectations

~ according to Couples Therapists

Jazz...

There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.

~ Thelonious Monk

I'll be okay...

In English, we say: “I’ll be okay.”

But in poetry, we say: “I gather the shattered pieces of myself like broken glass, knowing someday, even scars can catch the light.”

~ Larson Langston

You're a ghost,

driving a meat-coated skeleton

made from stardust,

riding a rock,

hurtling through space.

FEAR NOTHING!

(found on the web)

Spicy! But true.

Science Literacy empowers you to know when someone else is full of shit.

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

My mantra these days

"Signal versus Noise"

Learn to distinguish between performative acts and meaningful change.

Differentiate between what shocks people versus what affects people.

You'll never be criticized by someone who is doing more than you.

You'll always be criticized by someone doing less.

Remember that.

~ Denzel Washington

There is no way you will experience your best life if you try to operate out of your history or memories of your past.

~ Ed Mylett

Makes sense

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

~ Jane Smiley

There is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

~ Alan Watts

Comparison is the thief of joy

~ JP Morgan

Two tigers cannot live on one mountaintop

~ Chinese saying

Published in 1997...

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

I, too, feel old...

The father: "Really, can't you see that we are in a loveless marriage?"

Logan: "Everyone can see that you're in a loveless marriage! But you are OLD - that is just marriage at this point!"

~ Our Little Secret (a Hallmark Christmas-type show on Netflix)

The Van Maanen Family Motto

Suck it up

~ Jim Van Maanen

Generally a one-way trip

Best Russian aphorism to sum up the challenge that regional and global powers now face in fixing Syria:

“It is easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup, than to turn fish soup into an aquarium.”

~ Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Opinion Columnist

Dec 2024

Ugh! I need to remind myself this every day

Don't ever say that you don't have time to train. I’d rather you just tell me that you don't want to train, that you don't care about getting stronger, that you are satisfied at being inadequate as a human.

If you say that to me, what can I say? It’s so much easier that way: just say it and I will respect you more than saying that you don’t have time to train.

~ Jim Steele, from the Starting Strength website

Back when leaders were leaders

I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing.

We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls.

~ George S Patton, June 1944

Advice when given two bad choices...

If we must have an enemy at the head of the government, let it be one whom we can oppose and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.

~ Alexander Hamilton, to fellow Federalist the House speaker Theodore Sedgwick