Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.
Before They Are Hanged, Book Two of the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
Monarch butterfly in my mom’s garden
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Joy
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We say our souls want joy, but they don’t. They want what they already know, joyful or not.
The Tyrant’s Law, by Daniel Abraham
Fountain Rainbows
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Jabberwocky
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What do you say into a microphone to check whether it’s working properly? I usually start reciting “Jabberwocky.” ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / did gyre and gimble in the wabe…
Starting over
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It’s weird starting over from zero. It changes the scale of your ambitions. Instead of fantasizing about what kind of mansion you’ll buy when you win the lottery, you ask yourself, Do I own socks? Do I have a toothbrush? Do I have a shirt that’s not covered in blood?
Sandman Slim: A Novel by Richard Kadrey
Hypocrisy vs. cynicism
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Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations – they want to live more ethically – and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn’t moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day.
George Monbiot, “I’d rather be a hypocrite than a cynic like Julie Burchill“
Dancing at a wedding
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F.lux’s New ‘Backwards Alarm Clock’ Is The Sleep Angel On Your Shoulder
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A lot of good product ideas come from listening to those small annoyances. It’s not the big stuff. Everybody knows the big stuff. You listen to the little things – I have a friend who says, “You pick one thing at random and say, ‘What if this were 100 times more important? What would the product look like?’” That’s a fun exercise to do.
F.lux’s New ‘Backwards Alarm Clock’ Is The Sleep Angel On Your Shoulder
“Safe Sex” by Up Syndrome
Aside
Another post from my Tumblr about obscure music!