Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.
leaving the other problems unresolved...
Money can only solve money problems.
~ found on the internet
And that was many years ago!
You go talk to kindergartners or first grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts. They ask deep questions. They ask, "What is a dream, why do we have toes, why is the moon round, what it the birthday of the world. why is grass green?" These are profound, important questions! They just bubble right out of them.Then you go talk to 12th graders and there's none of that. They've become incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade.
~ Carl Sagan
Yikes!
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
~ Albert Einstein
Indeed...
A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.
~ Naval Ravikant
New concepts I will apply
Amy Poehler’s Nine Rules for Improv (and life)
- Keep saying yes
- Be a good listener
- Find your team
- Find the game (what is the purpose of this situation)
- Take up space (believing you belong here, advocate for yourself, don’t shrink, be fearless). But ask yourself, “does the scene need you?”
- Can’t be halfway in (life is a parade, you can watch from the sidelines, waiting to join the perfect float, or you can jump in and rock out!).
- Don’t bail on your partners. Everyone remembers, when things are at their worst, the people who scram. Conversely, you are closest to the people that go down with the ship with you.
- Don’t worry about being cool.
- Playing with status. Being aware of status (Who you are in relation to other people) in social or professional situations can be entertaining or elucidating.
Let’s dance!
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or the most romantic sunset for a proposal.
But it’s not right here and it’s not right now.
Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.
~ Seth Godwin
They don't write 'em like they used to...
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.
With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.
~ Thomas Jefferson (1822)
Seems reasonable enough
Be stronger than those that hate you, so that they cannot destroy you. Then forgive them.
~ Elon Musk
Indeed
Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out of it, but that's not why we are doing it.
~ Richard Feynman
Terrifying!
Compulsive liars shouldn't frighten you. They can harm no one, if no one listens to them.
Compulsive believers, on the other hand - they should terrify you.
Believers are the liars' enablers.
~ Nick Cohen
Been there, done that...
She was the super destructive cruel beautiful dark-haired woman that I eternally write about.
~ Philip K. Dick, author of Blade Runner, describing actress Sean Young, who played the replicant Rachael
Yep
The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yep
There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.
We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.
~ Bishop Desmond Tutu.
Everybody needs a good plan!
A Good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
~ General George Patton
Fear
We often fear what we don't understand.
Our best defense is knowledge.
~ Tuvok, on Star Trek: Discovery
Self awareness
Love yourself. But also analyze and be critical of how you think, act & behave.
Self love without self awareness is useless.
Be accountable.
~ Richard Feynman
How to improve your standing...
Most people will tell you it starts in the mind, but I'm a big believer that everything starts with the body,
My first piece of advice to anyone trying to improve their standing: Wake up early and work out.
There's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out.
~ Sahil Bloom
Education
The ultimate purpose of education is to change an empty mind into an open one.If you wanna be a good teacher, teach open-mindedness, teach enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, heuristics, and values.
~ Richard Feynman
I'm trying!
Be humble. Be teachable.The universe is bigger than your view of the universe. There's always room for a new idea.
~ Richard Feynman
It's agonizing!
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
~ Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Tale as old as time...
Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster): I've never been so miserable in my life as I have since I met you
Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr): Neither have I
Milton: I wouldn't trade a minute of it
Karen: Neither would I
~ in From Here to Eternity
Do we do science any more?
Science:
If you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong.
If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong
If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all.
~ Richard Feynman
Seeing is the secret
Danny: What happened to you?
Sheila: This is who I've always been, Danny. I just never let you see it before.
~ divorced couple on Physical
Play it where it lies...
You are responsible for exactly who, what, and where you are in life. That will be just as true this time next year. Situations aren't important. How you react to them is. You have to play it where it lies.
~ David Kekich
Happened to me once
Princess Leia: I love you!
Han Solo: I know...
~ Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back
Every Sunday in the fall...
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt
~ Juvenal
Sports offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance which keeps them from worrying about things that might matter in their lives - things that they could otherwise do something about.
~ Noam Chomsky
More V.P. Word Salad
I feel very strongly about the importance as a general matter of engaging in U.S. policy as it relates to foreign affairs in a way that we pay attention, of course, to the immediate concerns and threats if they exist, but that we also pay attention to 10, 20, 30 years down the line and what we are developing now that will be to the benefit of our country then.
~ Vice President Kamala Harris
Yep
- Intelligence:
- You question everything you think you know.
- Stupidity:
- You think you know everything, without questioning.
~ Richard Feynman
The Bagpipe Player
As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man who had no family or friend's.
The service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the back country, and as I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions.
I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently left, and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the grave diggers and crew there and they were eating lunch.
I felt so badly and apologized to the men for being late.
I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault-lid had already been put in place. I didn't know what else to do, So I started to play.
Surprisingly the workers put down their lunches and began to gather around me. Well I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man.
As I played "Amazing Grace", the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head was hung low, my heart was full.
As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say,
"I never seen nothing like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."
Cult of Ignorance
It seems that Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov was predicting Internet forum discourse when he said:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
~ From a Newsweek magazine column, January 21, 1980
Sounds like a man worthy of a statue
On August 1, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower received a letter from a frustrated citizen named Leon Scott.
Mr. Scott asked Eisenhower why he had a picture of Robert E. Lee in his office.
This was Eisenhower's response to Mr. Scott:
Dear Dr. Scott,
Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States, the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing, and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.
General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which, until 1865, was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting, and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle.
Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as read the pages of our history.
From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee's calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation's wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.
Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.
Sincerely, Dwight D. Eisenhower
or your 60's...
How to avoid regret in your 80’s:
- Lift weights
- Prioritize family
- Eat a healthy diet
- Fix your sleeping habits
- Stop taking shit personally
- Work on something meaningful
- Stop comparing yourself to others
- Spend more time living
- Less time on a screen.
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