"The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality - without exploiting them for fun and profit." - Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

Q: Hey, be who you are, or who you're becoming.
Q: Maybe best advice I was ever given: "Be true to yourself and change"
C: I think I'm becoming a lesbian.
C: or just prepping for seattle :P
C: it's the same thing, right?

Unlike a virgin, kicking and screaming; this still works well.

January: "I was sent this link and can't bear to read more than a couple of grafs ( Read more... )

"Must I remind you of the evening when you visited the servant Leo and wished to be recognized by him as a League brother, although this was impossible, for you had made yourself unrecognizable as a League brother? Must I remind you of the things which you yourself said to the servant Leo? ... About the dreadful, stupid, narrow, suicidal life ( Read more... )

A friend said to me the other night (fittingly, on Thanksgiving), not for the first time, that certain modes of life, certain roles, certain responsibilities one might accept, are not for everyone.

"It's not for everyone." It has resonated more this time than in the past. Sort of the contrapositive of Unapologetic GeniusThe way we're taught this ( Read more... )

What I meant was, cooptation works both ways, so let's take it to the assholes. I get that I don't get just how effective the organizing and marching and art are - seriously, I'm getting schooled - but let's not settle ( Read more... )

"Indeed, every day I see my egoism more clearly in my plan to write some kind of history of the Journey to the East. At the beginning, it seemed to me that I was undertaking a laborious task in the name of a noble cause, but I see more and more that in the description of my journey I am only aiming at the same thing as Mr. Lukas with his war-book ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think I should have been (and so should yet be) a counselor. I've never really fooled myself I'd be good or happy outside the niche of helping privileged people with their first-world problems of metaphor and narrative. But as I think about it, even acknowledging that severe restriction, I'm not really into helping individuals, or ( Read more... )

The Lovemaps model of a split between saintly love and sinful lust is meant to explain the association of a behavior, interest, or identity with sex that is not associated with sex for most people. But it also beautifully models the contradictory and extreme ways I think and feel about selflessness and innocence, obligation and privilege ( Read more... )

"And when you wanna be alive you're gonna wanna see the sun still shining where they ripped out part of your life"
- LC
The owner-baristas of my usual morning coffee haunt know well their clientele, the downtown ProxCard-sporting bigwigs-and-drones set: they have each day's horoscopes and Dilbert strip on display. The former are, of course, pulp ( Read more... )