“There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.” – Ralph Marston
“As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.” – Chanakya
Waking Life: On Language, Communication, And Disconnection
“What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say “love,” the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand?
Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we’ve connected, and we think that we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.”
Waking Life- Written by Richard Linklater
Waking Life: On Awareness, Connection, and Going Through The Motions
“Excuse me.
Could we do that again? I know we haven’t met, but I don’t want to be an ant, you know? I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant auto-pilot with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient polite manner. “Here’s your change.” “Paper or plastic?” “Credit or debit?” “You want ketchup with that?” I don’t want a straw, I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to be an ant, you know?”
“We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations.” – Stephen Covey
Philip Roth on the Danger of Love
“The only obsession everyone wants: ‘love.’ People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you’re whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You’re whole, and then you’re cracked open.” The Dying Animal by Philip Roth
“Be Brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” – Paulo Coehlo
You aren’t going to find the meaning of life in philosophy
People claim to study philosophy for all sorts of reasons, but there are really only two. Either they are fucked up and need to ‘figure life out’ because they are concerned about meaning and purpose, or they are joyless losers who go into analytic fields so they can feel superior