A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
It’s a poem by Stephen Crane, but so short I’m often reminded of it in full:
A man said to the universe:
”Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
It sounds nihilistic, but it’s somehow calming whenever I start to feel like I’ve been wronged or I’m owed a break of some sort.
Hold on tightly, let go lightly.
The Croupier in Croupier.
It doesn't come with extra instructions, so it means what I want it to mean and someone else may have it mean something else entirely. For me it means hold on to the important things tightly while they are important and when they aren't then it is time to let them and other things go.
Don't carry things that don't need to be held onto, especially if you can't control them. I hold onto the memories of my sister both good and bad, I embrace the pain of her not being here anymore when they come, then I let the pain go because I keep ahold of the happiness she brought into people's lives while she was here.
Hmmm. I'll try to remember this one, thank you, that's a real gift.
Sadly, pretty much all struggles against a common oppressor take on heavy identity characteristics and have the accompanying problems. It's the main reason they don't work immediately.
Anyway, probably "What I cannot build, I don't understand", by Richard Feynman (although the exact wording varies by source). If I write a book that's probably going to take up the first page.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who know history are doomed to know it's repeating.
It's the second part that makes this otherwise well know phrase hit much closer to home for me.
Golf: A nice walk, ruined.
You can't leave the party if you can't find the door. Randall Jacobs, aka Uncle Bunky
I got two. First is just Hanlon's razor; "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"
The second one is a bit of a strange pick; its "But there's no sense crying over every mistake; You just keep on trying till you run out of cake."
Another version I've heard is "When you suspect a conspiracy you often only find incompetence"
a collective struggle or defense against a common oppression.
What do you think WW1 was about?
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it." -Seneca
When we complain about not having enough time, we think of ourselves as being passively allocated an insufficient resource. But maybe the problem isn't that life is too short, but that we waste much of the time we're given.
I think this is relevant in these modern times more than ever. How much of our time goes to mindless scrolling, worrying about things beyond our control, or pursuing goals that don't truly align with our values? We should be thinking about the difference between being busy and spending time meaningfully.
And that's not to say all time spent should be something "productive". Leisure time can be meaningful. But I think it's worth even thinking about that. Are you truly happy with how you choose to spend your leisure time when you watch 100 short videos you probably won't even remember? Or when you sit there getting angry or depressed about article after article after article? I think it's worth thinking about.
Fortune favors the bold.
It was written in a graduation card from my grandfather.
"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source" - Iroh
And
"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now." - Hitchhikers Guide
Dont think about things too much. Just accept it, and change accordingly with a response
Came for the second, stayed for the first
Also from H2G2, behold the majestic : " -Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd far rather be happy than right any day.
-And are you?
-Ah. No. Well that's where it all falls down, of course "
I like it even better in the movie, Bill Nighy embodies this sentence perfectly.
It's all so tiresome - Lao Yang in the 2011 documentary Empire of Dust