Shame and pride are useful motivators in getting you to be who you most want to be. If you don’t care what others think, you don’t get these boosts. The person with a phone screen “blinder” understands his addled cycles of e-mail to weather to news to messages is shameful… but has opted out of shame-based boosts.
Addiction is the narrowing of things that bring you pleasure.
-Gus Gordon
You know when you offer somebody some food, and they make a face? Maybe it’s not the most appealing looking. Maybe it’s the hummus or baba ghanoush for the first time. And they’re like, What is that that? It’s chickpeas. It’s eggplant. You ask them, “Have you ever had it?” That’s the contempt prior to investigation. You gotta remain curious and open.
just approaching skateboarding with more grace. It was like, Okay, it’s not working. Just take a second, drink some water, reapproach in like five minutes. There’s no rush. I think there’s that thing with skateboarders where we punish ourselves, like, I’m not allowed to drink water until I land it. All that crazy shit. But if I drink water, it’ll probably help.
-Sage Ellsesser
Movies
- Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie
- Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
- The Peanut Butter Falcon
- The Paper Chase
- One Battle After Another
Books
- The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate // Ted Chiang
- The Lincoln Highway // Amor Towles
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet // David Mitchell
It was because it meant nothing and you never expected anyone who mattered to read it that you were free to say unconsciously truthful things.
And people who would do anything for power can’t believe that the IF, with more power than anybody, might really refrain from using it.
He recognized that his impulse to be boastful was the result of fear—no one knew him here, and so he wanted to assert his abilities as a means of winning respect.
No sentence that begins, “You Americans,” is going to end productively.
Think what it means to take a test in a class. They say they’re giving us problems that we’re supposed to solve. But that’s never true, is it? Because they give us problems to which the solutions are already known. That’s why they’re able to give us grades. So all you do in classroom tests is solve problems that have already been solved.
Do I have honor?
I do if I want it. All I have to do is keep my word.
No, I have to mean my promises when I make them. When I say I’ll do something, I mean to do it, and then I do it. That’s honor. Not to give your word unless you can keep it, unless you intend to keep it. To be the kind of person who, when they say they’ll do a thing, the other people can go about their business because that job is as good as done.
take easy wins. Why?
There is something in me that revolts at taking help when it’s the type of help everyone else would take. “Here, this is the way to study…” If nobody was going to take this advice, or if it required real effort to gain this advice, I would be open to it. But if a bunch of kids are raising their hands and asking the same question, I can’t stand being seen alongside them. You need help, but not me!
It’s fine to hold yourself to a higher standard if you can actually win under normal conditions. But if you are finishing 7th by your “higher standard,” you might wanna check if that standard is truly higher. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism that guarantees you never have to take a loss.
A lot of this comes back to wanting so badly to be different from everyone else. Different needs. Different desires. Different standards. Hard vs. soft. Overindexed on all this stuff.
Don’t make permanent decisions on temporary feelings.
- Always take the stairs
- Twenty-min workouts matter
- Daily smoothie
- Deprioritize Uber: you shouldn’t be in such a rush that you can’t take the more natural route (e.g., walking, train). Seeing how a population moves as actually more important than seeing some tourist attraction you are rushing to see.
We need freedom from freedom in a world brimming with a level of temptation no human was evolved to navigate. Of course every student *feels* the endless buzz of electronic distraction, and nobody seems to dispute the literature declaring the superiority of handwritten notes, and yet we still can’t help ourselves in continuing to employ electronics. So please save us from ourselves and ban electronics in class. You will help us learn better, gain more of our attention—currently wasted on iMessage, YouTube, etc—and maybe even assist us in finding some peace in a world increasingly devoid of it.
But maybe you find this unpersuasive. After all, this is America, land of the free, home of the brave, and these are smart adults using their own free will however they damn well please—if they want to sabotage their attention, so be it. Yet this is not a victimless crime. Consider how a single cell phone lighting up in a dark movie theater draws attention from more than a single person. So just as people can’t “choose” to avoid breathing in secondhand smoke, diligent non-laptop students can’t well “choose” to avoid the TikTok video that crosses their vision due to the single laptop student and his inability to focus on your lectures.
One of the sacred tenets of Pat’s moral code was that it’s unacceptable to let a hangover interfere with one’s duties and commitments.
He was one of those rare individuals who can’t be bought at any price. Although he had no quals about making a boatload of money if it happened to mesh with his master plan, Pat was impervious to greed. His belief that other things in life too priority over amassing wealth never faltered. But if Tillman was uncommonly resistant to the temptations of the baser human appetites, and was thereby well defended against attempts by others to manipulate him into doing their bidding with such enticements, he found it nearly impossible to resist appeals to his sense of decency and justice. Paradoxically, this latter trait would ultimately prove to be his downfall.
My job is challenging, enjoyable, and strokes my vanity enough to fool me into thinking it’s important.
My moods at this point, with the exception of constant loneliness & guilt associated with my separation from Marie, vary depending on how I’m doing at my tasks. Blow the land navigation, feel bad for a few hours; do something to help someone or get my marching calls correctly, feel good for a few hours.
I’m somewhat put off by the lack of letters from my friends at home… No question I am overly sensitive, but… It’s funny, these last 6-7 years I’ve noticed some of my close friends putting governors on our relationship. In most cases it is I who calls, I who sets up dinner, I who makes the effort. Why this is the case is not exactly clear… I care about my friends openly and unselfishly and–though I realize I’m sounding like a woman–am bothered by their apparent lack of interest.
Kevin and I are forced to yell and swear as opposed to recommend and suggest… Perhaps I’m not as good a leader as I think.
Everything has to do with time in battalion, time of rank–no comment on ability, aptitude, skill… I bring up “rule break” only because I want someone to do this for us. Realize we are not normal privates, break the fucking rules, and put us in a position to add value. Fuck this place.
Are you the new guy in Second Platoon? My name is Pat Tillman. Relax, this stuff will pass. It’ll be over soon. Nice to meet you.
- Check for ceiling fans
- Check for lights tied to switches
- Check ceiling height
- Note that carpet, while desirable, may be worse than hardwood + rug because of previous tenant’s dirt
- Check for pull-up bar readiness
- See during day, specifically to understand natural light
- Check if pets were previous residents