A warrior does not let a friend face danger along
~ Klingon saying, heard on Star Trek: Academy
Step lightly
Love is thin ice.
~ written on a bracelet found on a dead man washed ashore in Acapulco, in Love Has Many Faces (starring Lana Turner as the dead man's former lover, Kit)
I can't see!
The most dangerous form of blindness is believing that your perspective is the only reality.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Movement
Trust only movement.
Life happens at the level of events, not of words.
Trust movement.
~ Alfred Adler
I'm doomed...
The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.
~ Naval Ravikant
Grandma wisdom
My Grandma said that, in life, there are only two things you have to worry about:
Are you are healthy or are you are sick?
If you are healthy, you have nothing to worry about.
If you are sick, then you have two things to worry about:
Will you will get better or will you get worse?
If you will get better, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you will get worse, then you have two things to worry about:
Are you going to live or are you going to die?
If you will live, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you will die, then you have two things to worry about:
Will you go to heaven, or will you go to hell?
If you go to heaven, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you go to hell, then you have two things to worry about:
Original or extra crispy?
Buzz buzz
A bee does not waste its energy trying to convince a fly that honey is better than shit.
Some minds are not meant to be changed.
Save your energy for what actually matters.
The Story of MacGregor the Scotsman
A Drunk starts talking to a tourist in a Scottish pub.
He says “Do you see that dock over there? I built that myself, stone by stone. But do they call me MacGregor the dock builder?”
“No.”
“Do you see that bridge over there? I built that too! But do they call me MacGregor the bridge builder?”
“No.”
“But you fuck one sheep…”
Two, not three - the paradox of choice
There's a story about a shoe salesman in Los Angeles in the 1950s, a very successful entrepreneur who owned a string of women's shoe stores.
A journalist asked him, "What's your secret?"
And he said, "Two, not three."
The journalist says, "What do you mean?"
The shoe salesman said, "If a woman comes into my store, I'll bring her a pair of shoes. She'll try them on."
"And she'll say, 'Can I see that pair please?' And I'll bring out second pair of shoes."
"And then she'll say, 'Can also I see that pair please?'"
And he'll say, "Which pair would you like me to take away?"
You see, he found was that, when the customer had a choice of three, they bought none. And when they had their choice of two, they bought one.
Two, not three.
Too much choice is overwhelming.
Learn from Scott Adams
The Day You Became A Better Writer
I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive.A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it. Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink” when you can say “swill.”Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball” quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.” Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work”?)That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome.
~ Scott Adams (RIP January 13, 2026)
Even now, I can still remember feeling love like this - a long time ago.
August
Salt air, and the rust on your door
I never needed anything more
Whispers of "Are you sure?"
"Never have I ever before"
[Chorus]
But I can see us lost in the memory
August slipped away into a moment in time
'Cause it was never mine
And I can see us twisted in bedsheets
August sipped away like a bottle of wine
'Cause you were never mine
[Verse 2]
Your back beneath the sun
Wishin' I could write my name on it
Will you call when you're back at school?
I remember thinkin' I had you
[Chorus]
But I can see us lost in the memory
August slipped away into a moment in time
'Cause it was never mine
And I can see us twisted in bedsheets
August sipped away like a bottle of wine
'Cause you were never mine
[Bridge]
Back when we were still changin' for the better
Wanting was enough
For me, it was enough
To live for the hope of it all
Cancel plans just in case you'd call
And say, "Meet me behind the mall"
So much for summer love and saying "us"
'Cause you weren't mine to lose
You weren't mine to lose, no
[Chorus]
But I can see us lost in the memory
August slipped away into a moment in time
'Cause it was never mine
And I can see us twisted in bedsheets
August sipped away like a bottle of wine
'Cause you were never mine
[Outro]
'Cause you were never mine
Never mine
But do you remember?
Remember when I pulled up and said "Get in the car"
And then canceled my plans just in case you'd call?
Back when I was livin' for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all
"Meet me behind the mall"
(Remember when I pulled up and said "Get in the car")
(And then canceled my plans just in case you'd call?)
(Back when I was livin' for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all)
("Meet me behind the mall")
Remember when I pulled up and said "Get in the car"
And then canceled my plans just in case you'd call?
Back when I was livin' for the hope of it all (For the hope of it all)
For the hope of it all, for the hope of it all
(For the hope of it all, for the hope of it all)
~ Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff
20 Sentences to stop overthinking
Here are 20 Sentences to Stop Overthinking by Nir Eyal.
Use these one-liners as mantras when your brain won't switch off.
- I don't need certainty to act.
- If it's reversible, I decide fast.
- I choose one next step, not ten.
- I don't solve feelings; I surf them.
- My thoughts are not instructions.
- Action creates clarity, not thought.
- I write it down so my brain can rest.
- I'm allowed to move with partial info.
- I give myself a deadline, then choose.
- I ask, "What's the next visible action?"
- I schedule thinking so that I don't spiral.
- I trade rumination for one small experiment.
- I let future-me correct, not present-me freeze.
- I'm aiming for progress, not the perfect plan.
- I ask, "What would this look like if it were easy?"
- I accept that some questions stay open while I move.
- I notice loops and ask, Is this helping or just hindering?"
- I'm the kind of person who stops rehearsing and starts doing.
- If it won't matter in 5 years, it doesn't get this much brainspace.
- I'd rather be roughly right in motion than stuck "perfecting" ideas.
~ from the interwebs
Wordy, but profound -
The distance between deciding and doing is the single most reliable predictor of whether your life will be extraordinary or ordinary. Not talent, not circumstances, not even the quality of your decisions—but how quickly you collapse the space between intention and reality. Think of this gap as a kind of friction coefficient on your existence: the smaller it is, the more of your internal force actually translates into external motion. When you can move from "I should do this" to physically doing it within hours instead of weeks, you're not just accomplishing more—you're operating in a fundamentally different mode of being where your thoughts have immediate consequences in the world, where your inner life and
outer life are in constant, tight conversation.
This matters profoundly because success isn't really about outcomes—it's about iteration speed. The person who can decide and act in the same breath gets ten attempts at something while someone with a week-long gap between decision and execution gets one.They fail faster, learn faster, course-correct faster, and compound their advantages faster. More crucially, they remain in contact with reality. When your decisions meet the world immediately, you get immediate feedback about whether they were good decisions. You can't hide in comfortable delusions about what you would do or could do because you're constantly discovering what you actually do. This brutal, liberating honesty with reality is what separates people who achieve extraordinary things from people who have
extraordinary intentions.
The ultimate insight is that shrinking this gap isn't just correlated with success —it might be the most honest definition of success we have. Because what is success except proof that you actually lived according to your own values and vision? That you were who you said you were? Every moment between decision and action is a moment of self-betrayal, a small death where a possible version of you fails to be born.
Successful people have built lives with almost no lag between recognition and response, between seeing what needs doing and doing it. They've achieved something most people never do: they've synchronized their two selves—the one who knows and the one who acts—into a single, undivided person
moving through the world with uncommon force.
~ from the inter webs
Problem, indeed
The real problem of humanity is the following:
We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.
~ E.O. Wilson
...and some people don't come back...
Paper Flowers
Every heart has its graveyard.Names we never speak,buried beneath all that we had to doto survive.I've laid flowers at the feet of lovesI outgrew,but still visit in dreams.I've lit candles for the oneswho left and never came back.Not every goodbye deserves a monument,but I still remember them.How could I forgetwhen their ghosts still haunt me?Some things just endand some people don't come back.And some nights,I still whisper into the dark,"If I could, Id love you better next time."
~ Jessica Jocelyn
Good to recall this from time to time
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is; it doesn’t matter how smart you are.
If it doesn’t agree with the experiment, it’s wrong.
~ Richard Feynman
But who?
If I had my life to live over again,
I'd find you sooner and love you longer.
~ seen on a coffee mug
Healthy, indeed
Chester: Oh, marriages are very healthy, sir. They say married men live much longer than bachelors.Tom Bowen (played by Fred Astaire): If that's true, they're only trying to outlive their wives so they can be bachelors again.
~ Royal Wedding
So, what do you think about HIM?
Strong minds discuss ideas,
average minds discuss events,
weak minds discuss people.
~ Socrates
Does it seem chilly in here?
Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.
~ Terry (Deborah Kerr), to Nickie (Cary Grant), in An Affair to Remember
People are vectors
Tom Mueller on SpaceX's early days:
If people were negative, they were not in the next meeting.Elon was technically very strong, even though he was just learning about rockets.The one thing I noticed, if people were negative, they were not in the next meeting.He said, a company is a bunch of vectors. Each person is a vector and they need to point in the direction that you want to go.Bureaucracy and office politics and low morale, it's almost random vectors.He was always about making all the vectors which are all the employees pointing in the right direction. Forward, moving forward.
~ From BBC's documentary The Elon Musk Show, 2022
Lot of crazy for sale these days...
Go sell crazy somewhere else - we're all stocked up here.
~ Melvin Udall (played by Jack Nicholson), in As Good As It Gets
A spicy take!
If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it.The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury.Therefore, what he must be taught to fear is his victim.
~ Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, U.S.M.C.
This resonated with me - my dad often said the same thing (in a slightly different way)
You can have a million problems,
but when you have a health problem,
that is your number one problem.
~ heard on TV on a medical center ad
Suffering, indeed...
We must all suffer one of two things:the pain of disciplineor the pain of regret or disappointment.
~ Jim Rohn, author
Dependencies
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
~ Upton Sinclair
Cognitive dissonance
It’s easier for some people to live with comforting lies than uncomfortable truths.
Climb the best you can
Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
~ Albert Einstein
Ageless love
I saw this couple sitting at McDonald’s every day that were like 80 years old. They would order a cheeseburger, a medium fry, a glass of water and an extra glass.
I watched them cut the cheeseburger in half and divide the fries. Then the guy ate first. I was so moved, thinking maybe they couldn’t afford two meals.
He finished eating and he poured half the water from one cup into the extra cup they asked for. I was watching them share this relatively inexpensive meal that didn’t seem like much.
So I went up to The couple and said, "Can I buy you an extra meal?"
And the old woman goes, "No, I’m just waiting till he’s done eating, then I will borrow his teeth."
Simple, but important truth
If you wanna remain happy, stop caring about what other people think.
~ Professor Richard Feynman
Oh, but what a high price it is!
Regret is the emotional price we pay for free will.
If we were just pawns tossed around on the chessboard of life, there’d be nothing to regret.
~ Julie Beck, author
Arnold Schwarzenegger's rule on complaining
No complaining about a situation unless you're prepared to do something to make it better.If you see a problem and you don't come to the table with a potential solution, I don't want to hear your whining about how bad it is.It couldn't be that bad if it hasn't motivated you to try to fix it.
A good lesson
Ryan: I don't get it. I don't get what I did wrong.
Dwight: Not everything's a lesson, Ryan. Sometimes you just fail.
~ Dwight and Ryan, in The Office
Almost always true!
You don't have to turn this into something.
It doesn't have to upset you.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Shhh, trying to calm my mind...
The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Chasing Motivation
You keep failing because you chase motivation.
Here’s the truth:
Motivation is a spark.Discipline is the engine.Identity is the fuel.
Until you build an identity around health, you’ll always be starting over.
~ Mackenzie Smith
True
When a man's father dies, he realizes that the one man who truly wanted him to be better than him is gone.When my daddy died, I didn't have nobody to say they was proud of me.
~ Steve Harvey
Good plan!
Be the oldest person in the gym, not the youngest person in the nursing home.
~ found on the Interwebs
Billions and billions of stupidity (if you know, you know)
Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity
~ Carl Sagan
Powerful words at the time (Kids, look it up...)
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan.
There were no survivors.
~ Radar O'Reilly, Mash
Spicy!
It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies...
~ 1984, George Orwell
Pointless death...
ALLCHARLIE KIRKDIDWASHAVEARESPECTFULDIALOGUEWITHPEOPLEHEDISAGREEDWITH
~ John Rocker
So, what are you doing Saturday night?
Rich people plan for three generations.
Poor people plan for Saturday night.
~ Gloria Steinem
My daily meditation these days
Every day we make choices:
Choices that build strength,
Choices that bring peace,
Choices that grow our mind,
Choices that power our body,
Choices that connect,
Choices that disconnect.
Because how we feel tomorrow
starts with what we do today.
~ London Fitness Guy
Me, too!
I’m killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.
~ Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes)
Hold me now...
I have a picturePinned to my wallAn image of you and of me and we're laughing, we're loving it allBut look at our life nowAll tattered and tornWe fuss and we fight and delight in the tears that we cry until dawnHold me nowWarm my heartStay with meLet lovin' start,Let lovin' start
You say I'm a dreamerWe're two of a kindBoth of us searching for some perfect world we know we'll never findSo, perhaps I should leave hereYeah, yeah, and go far awayBut you know that there's nowhere that I'd rather be than with you here today
Hold me nowWarm my heartStay with meLet lovin' start,Let lovin' startYou ask if I love youWell, what can I say?You know that I do and that this is just one of those games that we playSo, I'll sing you a new songPlease don't cry anymoreI'll even ask your forgiveness, though I don't know just what I'm asking it forHold me nowWarm my heartStay with meLet lovin' start,Let lovin' start
~ The Thompson Twins
Untroubled spirit
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Change
You can't go back and change the beginning,but you can start where you are and change the ending.
~ C. S. Lewis
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