For me it was these.
“A focused fool can accomplish more than a distracted genius”
“Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter”
These two quotes really helped get my @** in gear.
I’ve always prided myself on being empathetic and sympathetic to people no matter what. During the me too times, a lady was being interviewed about why survivors and victims don’t go to the authorities about their treatment from (men) powerful people.
She said something along the lines of “stand with us if you want things to change, but don’t you dare stand opposite to tell me how offended I’m allowed to be”. In an instant I realised I’d been guilty of minimizing the suffering of others simply because I’d not been through what they’d been through (in a sense - if I wouldn’t be offended why should they?). Changed my whole outlook on life actually
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
- Ferris Bueller, from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.I love that movie for so many reasons.
I loved that if you stayed through the credits there was a small bit there.
I think it was the first movie to do that.
“being trans isn’t a mental illness and it’s ok to be yourself”
“Gentoo can be easy or hard, depending on how you look at it”
Now I really need to hear how you look at it…
I just assume it’s easy with instructions. It’s turned out well till now
check out Funtoo, instead of Gentoo:
it’s the guy who began Gentoo, doing an improved version.
https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc?si=gYzjaai7eZEoJ5tq
Yellow Parenti. Helped to remove myself from obsession over optics and just do what helps people.
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When I was 16 I had my first job at a shitty fast food restaurant, and on the first day my manager told me, "The difference between a good job and a great one is often just a couple minutes "
20 years later It still pops into my head whenever I’m working on a project, or work task, or even just stuff around the house. Usually it’s right when I’m about to quit or give up and call it “good enough”. And for the most part, I’ve found it to be true.
“Never perfect. Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase, cannot catch.”
It’s a video game quote but it helped me realise that there is always some aspect that can be changed for the better
“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops”
-Stephen Jay Gould
Yeah just imagine if Isaac Newton was born as a sl***e rather than a rich estate owner. We would still be stuck in the dark ages.
Were you spelling slave and misspelled it or am I missing something?
We’re in the process of declaring some words unsayable in order to massively amplify their power as offensive slurs. It’s going great so far, though sl**e still has some distance to go.
Sorry, you’re trying to turn slave into an unsayable slur? What the actual fuck, is this some kind of right wing psyop to nullifying discussions of historical and modern slavery, or just USian libshit racism that equates black skin and slavery?
I think they’re joking.
I hope you’re right, but I’ve seen a bunch of this “slavery is for African Americans” rhetoric recently and I’m not sure if it’s ignorance or maliciousness.
I was absolutely joking, but in hindsight I can see that’s not clear.
There are a number of words that are being declared in some quarters to be so offensive they may not even be uttered, like “faggot” which I have been chastised for even uttering in quotation, and informed I must call “the f-slur”.
My take on this is it is giving power to these words they would not otherwise have and is deeply regressive. We should follow the example of “queer”, which used to be used in highly offensive ways but in recent years has been adopted and claimed by the queer community and has been stripped of much of its power.
I was trying to poke fun at the idiot who is trying to give “slave” new power to offend, but obviously I didn’t do it well.
Newton was a total slute don’t let the virgin propagandists win.
Well not really. That is great man theory bs.
Newton did not “invent” gravity, it is an immutable law of the universe, no more did Marx “invent” socialism or the labor theory of value.
In both cases they observed actions and reactions that were testable and quantifiable and in both cases they were not the only ones to reach the same conclusions.
If anything the Gould quote is saying the opposite. That having so many people confined and coerced into such labors for the sole purpose of maximizing profits for a single individual, we are robbing ourselves of many great minds.
Two things, actually. “You are fired”, and “You are hired”. Also, does “I do” count?
As someone with anxiety: “the best way out is always through” - Robert Frost
“If you’re going thru hell, keep going”
“Erfahrung heißt gar nichts. Man kann seine Sache auch 35 Jahre lang schlecht machen.” - Kurt Tucholsky
Which DeepL translates to
“Experience means nothing. You can do a bad job for 35 years.”
Not strictly life changing, but a very valuable reminder, if you need to deal with ‘that’ kind of person.
This and the difference between decades of experience and experience that’s decades old.
Sometimes a person that’s 30 years in a field or profession just managed to avoid getting fired for 30 years.
“The first thing that jumps to your mind isn’t always what you truly think. Sometimes, it’s just what you’ve been trained to think. What matters, is what you do next”
I grew up in a really racist, queerphobic environment, and that comment really helped me by letting me give myself space to undo the bigoted indoctrination I had been taught, without getting trapped in guilt and self disgust whenever one of the racist or bigoted things I was raised with jumped in to my mind.
It let me recognise the bigot thoughts as something I was trained to think, rather than being what I actually believe, and by recognising it, I could disempower the thought, and start to unlearn it
Similarly if you shit talk yourself in your head to motivate yourself it really will eventually start to condition you that way even if it does motivate you
That’s a powerful thought.
Conditioning significantly influences our psyche.
These thoughts that are the result of conditioning are like knee jerk reactions.
Our brain is designed to conserve energy so it actually prioritises conditioned knee jerk reactions rather than introspective thoughts.
One needs significant amount of training to bypass this process.
If you won’t care in 10 years, don’t care now.
(In reference to bad things happening)
This was my approach to things even as a kid. I didn’t care who got the bigger “half” between my brother and I, because I wasn’t going to care once I’d eaten it. All I would remember is that I’d eaten it :)
Wow, that’s impressive - most kids are very tuned into jealousy
It’s usually not so much jealosy as a sense of fairness. Sometimes that judgment is skewed, maybe they don’t remember they had the largest part last time for instance, but kids tend to be ok with situations they percieve as fair and very unhappy with situations that seem unfair.
“Excellence is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle teaching that good comes from the whole, not from a single step. Focus on the whole, and the steps will follow.
“So, what’s the next action for this?” - the GTD approach to task management teaching me to be specific and then go do it (or plan it, or delegate it). This really kicks me into productivity mode.
