From the New York Times: Money is not the only metric for measuring life outcomes. Charts and articles like this seem to reflect an inappropriate obsession with narrowly materialist values. If you do want to measure your life with money, it looks like the 99th percentile is where you want to be. Why aren’t you there? Why aren’t you a CEO? Why aren’t you making a million a year? If you can’t figure out how to get there, don’t begrudge the people who did figure it out. If you don’t have the education, motivation, intelligence or skills to get there, don’t begrudge those who do. The amount of wealth is not a fixed amount. It’s not a zero-sum game. If it were, it would be concerning that a few people are very wealthy. But it isn’t. The distribution of income has to be skewed to the right because income is… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Life
Cocaine, Heroin, Ecsatcy
In case you hadn’t noticed, being alive is difficult and probably overrated. Why not take all the drugs you can? Just playing devil’s advocate here . . . Read more →
The Blindness and the Wretchedness of Man
hen I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me in conditions of a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed than I am. They tell me that they are not. And thereupon these wretched and lost beings, having looked around them, and seen… Read more →
Aside
I wore the mask as long as I could . . . I wanted to take it off but everyone thought it was my face.
Chuck Barris, 1929-2017
Chuck Barris was well ahead of his time in recognizing how many Americans are willing to make an ass of themselves on television. The quote below is from the movie based on his book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I don’t know if the quote is actually in the book but I include it here nonetheless . . . When you are young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren’t Einstein. You weren’t anything. That’s a bad moment. RIP Chuck Barris Read more →
Keep the Channel Open
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urge that motivates you. Keep the channel open. — Martha Graham Read more →
In a Flash
In a flash you could walk by your true love or miss your path in life, and you’d never have the chance to recover it . . . Read more →
Aside
What am I kidding myself about today? A lot of things, probably . . .
What is Life Telling Me Right Now?
“You married a crazy person, you got old, there are women out there hooking up with everybody and you missed it, you dumb fucker . . .” Read more →
You’re Funny
Yeah, I’m fucking hilarious . . . I’m not good at life, I’m completely alone in the world, but I’m pretty snappy with the jokes . . . Read more →
How Are You Doing?
I feel like I’m confronting the challenges of existence pretty effectively, with the following exceptions: the inevitability of death, freedom and its attendant responsibility, existential isolation, and meaninglessness. Read more →
ife is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. — Shunryu Suzuki
Doors That Didn’t Necessarily Need to Be Closed
You know, you spend your childhood watching TV, assuming that a some point in the future everything you see there will one day happen to you: that you too will win a Formula One race, hop a train, foil a group of terrorists, tell someone ‘Give me the gun,’ etc. Then you start secondary school and suddenly everyone’s asking you about your career plans and your long-term goals, and by goals they don’t mean the kind you are planning to score in the FA Cup. Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg — that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you’d imagined, that the world occupied by your parents, the world of washing the dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to buy floor tiles is actually largely what people mean when they speak… Read more →
Aside
I wonder what the world would be like if we all took responsibility for what we were contributing or not contributing to it.
An Inevitable and Perfect Future
I control the rhythm and length of my strides: a half second for each step, a step and a half for each yard, eighty yards a minute. Of my own free will I am walking toward an inevitable and perfect future. Read more →
Aside
It’s lonely at the top. It’s lonely at the bottom too. It’s lonely in the middle . . .
3 Possibilities
From The Possibilities of Organization by Barry Oshry (with very slight modification): Possibility I. Internal Warfare We can misunderstand one another’s worlds; we can misinterpret one another’s behavior; we can see malice, insensitivity and incompetence behind one another’s actions; we can see ourselves as the well-intentioned, blameless, helpless victims of other people and of circumstances; we can act accordingly and go to war with one another. Possibility II. Understanding and Accommodation We can see into, comprehend, accept and adjust to one another’s worlds; we can accommodate to others, acting in ways that make it possible, easy even, for them to do what we need them to do in order for us to move ahead with our work; we can see the “stuff” that comes at us from others as the behavior of people struggling to cope with and survive in the unique conditions of their worlds; we can choose NOT… Read more →
A Student of Life
I’m a student of life. Not an A+ student of life. More of a C- student of life. Read more →
What is My Face Telling You Today?
That not only am I set to meet all opposition, I am actively seeking it out. Read more →
Aside
I live in fear of my own inadequacy. True story.