Loneliness is the tax we have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.”

“Deep” or “profound” means nothing in research design. If you read it somewhere, see if it defined precisely in this context. If not, see if you can mentally replace it with a more precise word. If not, be skeptical of the validity of the claims.

- My Research Design professor

I’m being a bit cheeky but this has actually stuck with me over the years and I do think it’s helpful.

Seriously though:

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. — Douglas Adams

You can’t help people that don’t want help.

Goes for people who are going through mental/physical health problems or substance abuse issues. If they don’t want help you have to accept that and be there for them when they do.

Choose your rut carefully.

Hurt people hurt people.

The world needs fewer cynics and more skeptics.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

“Know your worth.”

I’ve struggled with self-worth my whole life and I’m finally taking a stand for myself both in my professional and personal life. It feels great tbh.

Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism—and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in faith and in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

–Stanley Kubrick, responding to the question “If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?” in a 1968 Playboy interview.

“It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.”

-Captain Jean-Luc Picard

We thought of life by analogy was a journey, was a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end. And the thing was to get to that end.

Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you’re dead.

But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing, or to dance, while the music was being played

– Alan Watts

This kind of question always immediately makes me think of something a friend said years ago when I was still a teen. We were talking about school and education and shit and it was on the subject of asking questions when you don’t fully understand something and he said “rather ask a stupid question and be a fool for five minutes, then keep your mouth shut and be a fool for the rest of your life.” I think it was something that his mother had told him, in their language, so I’m constructing that statement from memory but it was something close to that.