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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it
Unfortunately, too many people have been trained to reject ideas or thoughts without first thinking them through. Many simply react to whatever word, expression, or concept triggers them without giving the rest a second thought. For example a brilliant idea can be presented online, but if one word is out of place, the usage of that word will debated instead of the idea.
Oh my god, 100% Read a post about it on r/196 a while ago, went something like "It's important to have discussions about things like cannibalism because arguments like «it's just gross/bad/unnatural» have been used to condemn homosexuality and the like"
I'm not saying I would murder someone to try human, but I would go to the store to try longpork
I love this! And if you find yourself afraid to even entertain an idea, perhaps you're afraid that you'll find it convincing and accept it. We should WANT to be convinced, because that means the different idea holds more merit than our current belief!
There's this quote attributed to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter:
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
There are two lessons here. First - the best way to affect meaningful change is to start local. Rather than spending a lot of time agonizing over national politics, get involved in your community - your neighborhood, your town, your apartment building, even just the house you share with your family. Your community will take better care of you and the other people that you care about than any national government ever will.
Second - ultimately the only person whose behavior you can change is your own. Don't be too harsh with other people when they don't behave the way that you believe they should. Be a more stringent judge of your own behavior.
But temper that with this:
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much. Or berate yourself too much either.
Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
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.
I've always heard this as "You can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink"
'Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle'
Sometimes that grumpy old man really is just having a bad day.
I think about that one often. It's too easy to dismiss people because their attitudes don't line up with our personal ideals, but even those people have some internal struggle going on. We all do. Not that it ever justifies terrible behavior, but it does warrant consideration.
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
Choosing means losing a little, said by a teacher in highschool when I was struggling to decide what to do after I'd graduate, still remember it 12 years later
It's opportunity costs all the way down, baby!
Just because two sides are fighting doesn't mean one side is good (something along this line)
... I don't think it is that profound, but I think about it a lot
There's this quote early in Good Omens: “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”
It's an awkward one these days, but it sounds Pratchett-esque enough to salvage.
My Uncle once told me that the most important thing you can learn is where to find more information.
Bill Nye: "Everyone you'll ever meet knows something you don't"
“Don’t work yourself out if a job.”
My pops told me this after I told him how much more work I had been doing than my coworkers, and how fast I got all of my stuff done. This was like 15 years ago. I immediately started pacing myself, and I’ve since been infinitely less stressed at work.
From "The Good Place": If soulmates do exist, they're not found. They're made.
I believe Seth MacFarlane said something similar in "The Orville".
A great reminder from two great shows.
This can be applied to anything, but the quote as I read it in a book by Piers Anthony (I know, gross, I was in middle school), was:
Power is a means to an end. Don't let the means become the end.
I often think of it as:
Money is a means to an end. Don't let the means become the end.
When my dad was teaching me how to ride a bike, I kept falling.
He noticed that I was paying so much attention to the road that I couldn't focus on riding the bike.
Finally he picked me up, looked me dead in the eyes and said, "You rule the road. Don't let the road rule you".
Somehow that phrase immediately gave me the ability to ride a bicycle.
I have shared it with other people learning to ride a bicycle after they have fallen down at least once.
It freaking works.
"Look where you want to go, not where you are." worked for me.
Similar sentiment.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Loneliness is the tax we have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind
"Sometimes, at the end of a sentence, I come out with the wrong fusebox. And the thing about saying the wrong word is a] I don't notice it, and b] sometimes orange water given bucket of plaster."
I think we can all take something away from that.
The world needs fewer cynics and more skeptics.
"The thing about happiness is that you only know you had it when it's gone. I mean, you may think to yourself that you're happy. But you don't really believe it. You focus on the petty bullshit, or the next job, or whatever. It's only looking back by comparison with what comes after that you really understand, that's what happiness felt like."
-Conrad Kellogg. Fallout 4.
Two quotes/ statements from a book named “The Midnight Library” ;
“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise”.
“Never underestimate the big importance of small things”.
You won't know if you don't ask.
People fear rejection or embarrassment for asking other people questions but once you realize that it's the most efficient way to navigate life it really helps. Saves you time and energy. Often saves you emotional energy as well in the long run.
If you like someone just ask them.
If you want to know where someone got something or learned a skill just ask them.
Curiosity is important and I feel so many people are so socially anxious that they will just try and Google and Google as opposed to entering into a simple verbal exchange with a stranger or something.
What is better: to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
"Freedom is not a goal, but a tool".
-Reiraku (Downfall) By Inio Asano
