I deeply believe that when there is an explanation behind what we use and what we do, it changes the way we perceive the action.
If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
“I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives… In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”
I once read about a survey where they went to one person and asked what job she or he would like to have, and then went to someone with that job and asked the same, and so on. The chain finally ended with a professor of English at a fancy research institution with a low teaching load. That person said that she had the best job in the world, and would not change for anything.
The drugs didn’t work. Or at least only for a bit. We believed there was no hope without dope but we were wrong. I’m always amazed there aren’t drugs by now, but there aren’t. They didn’t get any better, whereas computers never stopped getting better.
In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end.
"It is only the attempt to write down your ideas that enables them to develop." — Wittgenstein to Drury, Recollections of Wittgenstein
It’s shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.
The 8 AM self which desires to be left alone to drink his coffee and read a book is a wildly different person than the 10 PM self hopped up on whiskey and telling the bartender how it really is.
This dilemma is far from unique. It is called hyperbolic discounting; humans can make the rational decision when at a great distance from a choice, but the closer they come, the more warped their decisions are.
There is no objective reality. Instead, we live in perceived realities and are thus responsible for the worldview we adopt.
More than my life
What I most regret
Is
A dream unfinished
And awakening.
Luke: "Is the dark side stronger?"
Yoda: "No, no, no! Quicker, easier, more seductive…"
We are all of us descended from survivors, which is to say, the most prolific murderers. To bring justice once and forever would require tracing the twisted skeins back to the beginning, and when we had reached it, we might find we had gone nowhere at all.
Furthermore, long-term planning instills a false sense of security. The sooner you admit you have no idea what the world will look like in five years, three years, or even one year, the sooner you’ll be able to move forward without the fear of making the wrong big decision years in advance. Nothing looms when you don’t make predictions.
The opposite of conquering the world isn’t failure, it’s participation. Being one of many options in a market is a virtue that allows customers to have a real choice. If you can embrace that, then the war metaphors of business can more easily be buried, as they should be.
Mark Twain nailed it: “Comparison is the death of joy.” We’re with Mark.
The promises keep coming. More time-management hacks. More ways to communicate. And new demands keep piling up. To pay attention to more conversations in more places, to respond within minutes. Faster and faster, for what?
If it’s constantly crazy at work, we have two words for you: Fuck that. And two more: Enough already.
Когда-то я сравнил современного человека с хищной обезьяной, которой вложили в руку бритву. Это сравнение нисколько не утратило своей актуальности, разве что обезьяна сделалась еще более алчной.
Каждый человек имеет некоторый горизонт взглядов. Когда он сужается и становится бесконечно малым, то превращается в точку. Тогда человек говорит: «Это моя точка зрения».