Oakley Quotes

This is why homophobia is a terrible evil: it disguises itself as concern while it is inherently hate.

Check thyself before thy wreck thyself.

Procrastination expert Rita Emmett explains: “The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.

The Law of Serendipity: Lady Luck favors the one who tries

I ain't afraid to love a man. I ain't afraid to shoot him either.

Focus on the process (the way you spend your time) instead of the product (what you want to accomplish).

Attempting to recall the material you are trying to learn—retrieval practice—is far more effective than simply rereading the material.

The only constant you have from Point A, your birth to Point B, your death is you. There is no point in changing who you are to appease others when they're gonna leave your life. LOVE YOURSELF because you're the only one who's stuck with yourself. Fall in love with who you are and if anybody wants to join in on that. More Power to them.

When life throws a wrench in your plans, catch it and build an IKEA bookshelf.

No person, no matter how important society deems their relationship to you, has the right to denounce you for who you are.

Sure relationships include arguments, but pain is not a side-effect of love.

The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.

Aim at a high mark and you'll hit it. No, not the first time, nor the second time. Maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect.

Tyler Oakley isn't my real name.

Thiss sentence contains threee errors.

If you protect your routine, eventually it will protect you.

Well, yes. I definitely consider myself to be your one that got away.

Every relationship ends, unless one doesn't. And everything we've learned from the relationships leading up to that last one has been the training we needed to make that final one last.

The best way out is always through.

Any man who has got himself set over others and don't have any responsibility to something bigger than him is a son of a bitch.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

In every community, some people will fit every stereotype, and some people will fit no stereotypes, and both are valid representations for that community.

Procrastination is like addiction. It offers temporary excitement and relief from boring reality.

The biggest lie ever is that practice makes perfect. Not true—practice makes you better.

Process, Not Product If you find yourself avoiding certain tasks because they make you uncomfortable, there is a great way to reframe things: Learn to focus on process, not product

I was taught that being myself was not only okay, but encouraged - and by being unapologetically yourself, you thrive and inspire others to thrive.

Homophobic people are outdated and life is too short to put up with them.

I freely admit that I have many times adopted Jim Oakley’s precept of a “bloody good gallop,” often with spectacular results. To this day I frequently learn things from farmers, but that was one time when I learned from a postman.

Science can’t explain why two specific people are magnetically drawn to each other instead of repelled. Only love can.

There is a deep connection between technical, scientific, and artistic creativity.

Sometimes doing what's right for your conscience is not always the most popular decision, but I can guarantee that in retrospect you won't regret the choice you made.

The only way to walk a journey of a thousand miles is to take one step at a time.

Multitasking means that you are not able to make full, rich connections in your thinking, because the part of your brain that helps make connections is constantly being pulled away before neural connections can be firmed up.

It’s normal to sit down with a few negative feelings about beginning your work. It’s how you handle those feelings that matters.

This is where the Law of Serendipity comes to play: Lady Luck favors the one who tries.

Over the past decades, students who have blindly followed their passion, without rational analysis of whether their choice of career truly was wise, have been more unhappy with their job choices than those who coupled passion with rationality.

I suppose all couples feel this way at some point—that their bond is the most special, the strongest, the Greatest Love of All. Not all the time, just in those few and far between moments where you look at the person you’re with and think: Yes. It’s you.

Learning organic chemistry is not any more challenging than getting to know some new characters. The elements each have their own unique personalities. The more you understand those personalities, the more you will be able to read their situations and predict the outcomes of reactions.” —Kathleen Nolta, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer in Chemistry

And as far as a ‘one that got away’? Do I believe in that?” I smiled. “Well, yes. I definitely consider myself to be your one that got away.

Sometimes you just have to turn off the lights, sit in the dark, and see what happens inside of you.

I’m not into boys who give nonconsensual kisses. Sure, he had good intentions, but, like, don’t kiss me in my sleep. It’s a simple ground rule. You don’t know if those ladies wanted that. Maybe they were having a good dream. Maybe they were dreaming about Darren Criss. You don’t know what you just interrupted. Rude.

CJ added more beer to her mug. “If I recall correctly, the last verbal directive we were given was ‘don’t shoot anyone’ when we were in Hoganville. And I do believe I did not fire my weapon.” She glanced over at Paige. “But our dear, sweet Paige Riley turned into Annie Oakley.

Binge on giving, in all senses. Binge on indulging. We’re told every day from an early age that moderation is key. Count your calories, wait a while before you tell someone you love them, and remember that balance is the path to happiness. While all of those are great in theory, does a lesson taught from someone else’s mistakes resonate just as deeply as the ones you learn yourself? When you binge, you find your own boundaries.

Oakley won't," the duke said. She turned and blinked. "I beg your pardon." "Lord Oakley. He won't forget to find us rooms. I've known him for years. The only thing that is making this bearable is that he must be dying inside over all this." "You don't like him?" "On the contrary. I've long considered him a friend. It's why I enjoy his misery so much.

Stories were the way People lived. Like paths, they could be traveled in any direction, yet always ran from beginning to end.

What, after all, is mathematics but the poetry of the mind, and what is poetry but the mathematics of the heart?” —David Eugene Smith, American mathematician and educator

Over my lifetime, I've had an interesting relationship with poop...the rectum is a grand thing. My favorite thing about the human body is that we're all basically doughnuts.

And then I keep reading, anyway—but not just because I like the story. I like knowing that I'm touching her with my words. That they're crawling in her ears as she sleeps.

Sometimes it just feels like we still spend so much time trying to teach the house not to catch on fire, instead of teaching the arsonist not to light it.

You want your brain to become used to the idea that just knowing how to use a particular problem-solving technique isn’t enough—you also need to know when to use it.

I was taught that being myself was not only okay, but encouraged—and by being unapologetically yourself, you thrive and inspire others to thrive.

When I was in my single digits, I was subjected to the worst torture you can possibly inflict on a child: Catholic mass.

As one half of our nature seeks to create heroes to worship, the other must ceaselessly attempt to cast them down and discover evidence of feet-of-clay, in order to label them as mere lucky fellows, or as villains-were-the-facts-but-known, and the eminent and great are ground between the millstones of envy, and reduced again to common size.

Deficiencies of innate ability may be compensated for through persistent hard work and concentration. One might say that work substitutes for talent, or better yet that it creates talent.”6 —Santiago Ramón y Cajal

After traveling through fourteen foreign countries and appearing before all the royalty and nobility I have only one wish today. That is that when my eyes are closed in death that they will bury me back in that quiet little farm land where I was born.

Befuddlement is a healthy part of the learning process. When students approach a problem and don’t know how to do it, they’ll often decide they’re no good at the subject. Brighter students, in particular, can have difficulty in this way—their breezing through high school leaves them no reason to think that being confused is normal and necessary. But the learning process is all about working your way out of confusion. Articulating your question is 80 percent of the battle. By the time you’ve figured out what’s confusing, you’re likely to have answered the question yourself!” —Kenneth R. Leopold, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota

Every human being—every single one of us—wakes up each morning hoping, believing, that today is not our day. Not our time. That the storm is not yet here. That our island will not be wiped out. That we will see the sunrise the next morning. That life is worth living. Otherwise, we wouldn’t bother getting out of bed.

Finding my dream job was like finding a needle in a haystack. It was a crazy party in which every failed path I followed was like an attendee required to take away a single straw of hay as they departed, one by one. It took a while, and I eventually found that needle, but I couldn’t have done it without failing over and over.

I think I might not be straight.

Remember, research has shown that the more effort you put into recalling material, the deeper it embeds itself into your memory.

Focused problem solving in math and science is often more effortful than focused-mode thinking involving language and people.

How strange that there would be exactly twenty-four German carpenters in Chicago when the all-night manicure place on the corner of Oakley and Lawrence is called "24/7 Nails.

Relationships don't dissolve over one event, one fight, it's a thousand blows, delivered over time, uppercuts, jabs, crosses, some you barely even feel, and then before you know it, you're on the ground seeing stars and wondering what the hell happened!

She was bold, and yet she was reserved. She was sensual and girlish, but she was never coy. So I think that what she projected was a vitality and freshness that for many people came to stand for American womanhood. It's what made American women attractive: that outdoor complexion, that wonderful figure, and yet that carriage, that demureness, that suggested that she was in charge of herself and not to be had.

Also remember that the better you get at something, the more enjoyable it can become.

Habit is an energy saver for us. It allows us to free our mind for other types of activities.

The trick to overwriting a habit is to look for the pressure point—your reaction to a cue. The only place you need to apply willpower is to change your reaction to the cue.

May we all be loved and love each other so insanely. May we all be so human.

You may think you really have to understand something in order to explain it. But observe what happens when you are talking to other people about what you are studying. You’ll be surprised to see how often understanding arises as a consequence of attempts to explain to others and yourself, rather than the explanation arising out of your previous understanding.

whatever you’re learning, see whether you can make a metaphor to help yourself understand the most difficult topic—you’ll be surprised at how much it can bring the key idea to life.

Einstellung effect (pronounced EYE-nshtellung). In this phenomenon, an idea you already have in mind, or your simple initial thought, prevents a better idea or solution from being found.

Housework’s modern status,” writes Ann Oakley, “is nonwork.” A recent study shows that if housework done by married women were paid, family income would rise by 60 percent. Housework totals forty billion hours of France’s labor power. Women’s volunteer work in the United States amounts to $18 billion a year. The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn’t do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.

For wine is the color of blood and the texture of tears, and you can drink it to warm your belly and piss it out to get rid of it. And forget the whole damned mess that is too much for any man to face.

Does he even see us?" she whispered. As she spoke, the bear slowly tipped his big, furry head back, lazily studying Amy and Matt from his upside down perch. Yeah, he saw them. Reacting instinctively, she turned and burrowed right into Matt. "If you laugh at me," she warned as his warm, strong arms closed around her. "I'll kill you." He didn't laugh or mock her. For once, he was unsmiling, his jaw dark with stubble, eyes hidden behind his reflective Oakleys. "No worries, Tough Girl," he said, his warm, strong arms closing around her. "And anyway, I'm hard to kill.

The most satisfactory definition of man from the scientific point of view is probably Man the Tool-maker.

My favorite thing about the human body is that we're all basically doughnuts.

We need to talk,” Adam said one day, walking into my room.

I don't need a man. I have a gun.

It can take a lot of hard focused-mode work beforehand, but the sudden, unexpected solution that emerges from the diffuse mode can make it feel almost like the “aha!” mode.

start early on your assignments and, unless you are really enjoying what you are doing, keep your working sessions short.

Part of the beauty of falling in love with you is the fear you won’t fall.

why do people always say they could get hit by a bus? Like life is just one big game of Frogger and people are getting struck left and right by dangerous city transport.

Are you ready to leave, Oakley? Cole is waiting outside,” my mum said softly. She leant against the doorframe of my room and smiled

Oakley nods before a photo of us comes up on the small screen behind him. He swivels in his seat and grins. “Yeah, that’s her. That’s my Ava.

Why is it called a grandfather clock and not a grandmother clock?” her eldest granddaughter, Poppy, asked once. “Because only a man would find the need to announce it every time he performed his job as required,” Louise replied.

givers always score high on other-interest, but they vary in self-interest. There are two types of givers, and they have dramatically different success rates. Selfless givers are people with high other-interest and low self-interest. They give their time and energy without regard for their own needs, and they pay a price for it. Selfless giving is a form of pathological altruism, which is defined by researcher Barbara Oakley as “an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one’s own needs,” such that in the process of trying to help others, givers end up harming themselves.

Internalizing problem-solving techniques enhances the neural activity that allows you to more easily hear the whispers of your growing intuition. When you know—really know—how to solve a problem just by looking at it, you’ve created a commanding chunk that sweeps like a song through your mind.

Ah,the pure shine of a few moments of heroism, high courage, and derring-do! In its light we genuflect before the Hero, we bask inthe warmth of his Deeds, we tout him, shout him praises, deify him, and, in short, make of him what no mortal could ever be.

It’s important to transform distant deadlines into daily ones. Attack them bit by bit. Big tasks need to be translated into smaller ones that show up on your daily task list. The only way to walk a journey of a thousand miles is to take one step at a time.

I aggressively run into things, back up into things, have no depth perception, often forget which buttons and knobs do what, and am easily distracted. But enough about my sex life! Back to my driving skills!

THE LAW OF SERENDIPITY Remember, Lady Luck favors the one who tries. So don’t feel overwhelmed with everything you need to learn about a new subject. Instead, focus on nailing down a few key ideas. You’ll be surprised at how much that simple framework can help.

From your “due date” calendar, write down a weekly to-do list of twenty or fewer key items. Each night, create the next day’s daily to-do list from the items on the weekly to-do list. Keep it to five to ten items. Try not to add to the daily list once you’ve made it unless it involves some unanticipated but important item (you don’t want to start creating endless lists). Try to avoid swapping out items on your list.

The patient ability to keep working away, a little bit at a time, is important. This is why, if procrastination is an issue for you, it will be critical to learn some of the upcoming neural tricks to effectively address it.

Remember, habits are powerful because they create neurological cravings. It helps to add a new reward if you want to overcome your previous cravings. Only once your brain starts expecting the reward will the important rewiring take place that will allow you to create new habits.

Just focus on whatever section you are studying. You’ll find that once you put the first problem or concept in your library, whatever it is, then the second concept will go in a bit more easily. And the third more easily still. Not that all of this is a snap, but it does get easier.

We are a race of tradition-lovers in a new land, of king-reverers in a Republic, of hero-worshipers in a society of mundane get-and-spend. It is a Country and a Time where any bank clerk or common laborer can become a famous outlaw, where an outlaw can in a very short time be sainted in song and story into a Robin Hood, where a Frontier Model Excalibur can be drawn from the block at any gunshop for twenty dollars.

I tell my students they can procrastinate as long as they follow three rules: 1. No going onto the computer during their procrastination time. It’s just too engrossing. 2. Before procrastinating, identify the easiest homework problem. (No solving is necessary at this point.) 3. Copy the equation or equations that are needed to solve the problem onto a small piece of paper and carry the paper around until they are ready to quit procrastinating and get back to work. “I have found this approach to be helpful because it allows the problem to linger in diffuse mode—students are working on it even while they are procrastinating.” —Elizabeth Ploughman, Lecturer of Physics, Camosun College, Victoria, British Columbia

She didn’t think anyone in her family appreciated how utterly exhausting it was to be so angry all the time.

The harder you push your brain to come up with something creative, the less creative your ideas will be.

recalling material when you are outside your usual place of study helps you strengthen your grasp of the material by viewing it from a different perspective.

Multitasking is like constantly pulling up a plant. This kind of constant shifting of your attention means that new ideas and concepts have no chance to take root and flourish.

What is it about darkness that compels one to reveal so much?

the learning process is all about working your way out of confusion.

I think most clearly when I’m driving. Sometimes I’ll just take a break and drive around—this helps a lot.

Incidentally, the little book Calculus Made Easy, by Silvanus Thompson, has helped generations of students master the subject.

This is precisely why one significant mistake students sometimes make in learning math and science is jumping into the water before they learn to swim.

Interleaving means practice by doing a mixture of different kinds of problems requiring different strategies.

What, after all, is mathematics but the poetry of the mind, and what is poetry but the mathematics of the heart?

He tells me the AWARE technique is an acronym for Accept the anxiety, Watch the anxiety, Act normal, Repeat, and Expect the best.

I was going to be getting the food.

Articulating your question is 80 percent of the battle.

In life, there were two kinds of friends: friends who would wish you well on your journey to battle, and friends who would jump in the trenches with you.

Nothing in life goes according to plan. Nothing. And the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.

Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life.

If I wanted to shoot someone’s face, they’d know it.

So I can’t explain why, for the next twenty minutes, I stand at the window quietly willing him with my mind to come inside and erase the distance between us.

One of the single most important pieces of advice I can give you on dealing with procrastination is to ignore distractions!

Research has confirmed that a special place devoted just to working is particularly helpful.

A Mind for Numbers is an excellent book about how to approach mathematics, science, or any realm where problem solving plays a prominent role.

whenever possible, you should blink, shift your attention, and then double-check your answers using a big-picture perspective, asking yourself, “Does this really make sense?

If you don’t make a point of repeating what you want to remember, your “metabolic vampires” can suck away the neural pattern related to that memory before it can strengthen and solidify.

LYB NBC—which means “love ya, babe; nuts, back & critters”—the first half being pretty self-explanatory. Less obviously, “nuts, back, and critters” means watch out for crazy people, watch your back because you can’t trust anyone, and don’t run over any animals.

They say experience is the best teacher. Instead, it should be that failure is the best teacher. I’ve found that the best learners are the ones who cope best with failure and use it as a learning tool.

So I rented out a roller rink, bought out an entire wig store, and threw the biggest drunk, roller-skating, wig birthday extravaganza the world has ever seen. The older I get, the more I realize what a gift a true friend is. Especially since my mom can't make me return those.

My mom screamed, jumping out of her seat and making her way toward me, wrapping her arms around my rotund body and pumping it an attempted Heimlich maneuver. (Until my early twenties, I thought it was called the Heimlich remover. Which makes more sense, if you think about it.)

Miss Burns needs air," the duke announced and before anyone could offer an opinion, he scooped her up in his arms and said, "I'm taking her inside." And just like that, all the chill left the air. Catriona allowed herself the indulgence of resting her cheek against Bretton's chest, and as she lay there, listening to the steady beat of his heart, she could not help but think that this was where she was meant to be. But then, of course, Lord Oakley had to spoil the whole thing. "You're taking her inside so she might get air?" "Shut up," the duke said.

As writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant recommends to her writing clients: “Eat your frogs first thing in the morning.” Do the most important and most disliked jobs first, as soon as you wake up. This is incredibly effective.

He glanced around, his eyes widening a little when he looked toward her bedroom. She winced, but resisted the urge to jump and close the door. He was staring at the poster above her bed, an image of Annie Oakley with the quote "I ain't afraid to love a man. I ain't afraid to shoot him either.

It should be noted that before phones had every letter displayed on their touch screens, you had to press the number-pad buttons. To text, you had to use a system called T9 texting--with the letters being evenly divided among all the numbers. I would explain the process in more depth, but those were dark times and I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole, even mentally.

Gary Noesner notes that we could all learn from the successes and failures of hostage negotiation.7 At the beginning of such situations, emotions run high. Efforts to speed matters along often lead to disaster. Staving off natural desires to react aggressively to emotional provocations allows time for the molecules of emotion to gradually dissipate. The resulting cooler heads save lives.

Now I think of breaking up as moving. Imagine you have your own house, full of your own boxes. A person you meet has his own house, full of his own boxes. When you have a relationship with that person, you shack up in a third house, into which you can each put any number of your boxes. You shouldn't move them all in at once, or else you will seem too eager. And don't dawdle too much either, or you will seem skittish about commitment. You kind of aim to match each other's pace, so that the power balance feels fair and equal. Happy marriage--at least ideally--would be the situation in which both parties enthusiastically choose to keep all of their boxes in their shared house. Conversely, when someone starts to doubt the relationship, he might move a box or two back into his own house, just in case. While he's weighing his options, he may transport a few more boxes to the safety of his own home. When he's ready to take back his final few boxes, he breaks up with you. If you were too infatuated to see it coming, there you are, with all of your boxes in the shared house, and none in the security of your own home.

But for me to give you Mathew right off the bat...that's me trusting you, It's me saying hi, welcome to my life, not everything is perfect or edited with jump cuts. That's Tyler. You know Tyler. It's time for me to tell you all of Mathew's stories.

Try doing a few situps, pushups, or jumping jacks. A little physical exertion can have a surprisingly positive effect on your ability to understand and recall.

Learning is often paradoxical. The very thing we need in order to learn impedes our ability to learn.

This approach [solving easiest problems first, during the test] works for some people, mostly because anything works for some people.

But be wary of the idea that some people are “left-brain” or “right-brain” dominant—research indicates that is simply not true.17

Complex training environments such as action video game play may actually foster brain plasticity and learning.

Samantha imagined that in another life, she and Alison could have, indeed, been friends. Had she not been about to rob the train.

Alison’s gaze gentled. “Tell me, Samantha, have you ever been to Scotland?

Tis best to weight the enemy more mighty than he seems.” Or she, as was this particular case.

Ye’re wet,” he groaned. “I’m underwater.” “I ken that, bonny. But this dampness has nothing to do with that.

Persistence is often more important than intelligence.1 Approaching material with a goal of learning it on your own gives you a unique path to mastery. Often,

The key is to do something else until your brain is consciously free of any thought of the problem.

one significant mistake students sometimes make in learning math and science is jumping into the water before they learn to swim.

We procrastinate about things that make us feel uncomfortable.

Why Trying Too Hard Can Sometimes Be Part of the Problem

If you are trying to understand or figure out something new, your best bet is to turn off your precision-focused thinking and turn on your “big picture” diffuse mode,

Testing is itself an extraordinarily powerful learning experience.

Listen, your asshole is precious. It deserves to be shown love, and that's all I'm doing. Let me live. Let your asshole live.

Tyler is who I generously offer, at school, in life, on YouTube. Mathew is what my parents and siblings call me...I've always been both, and to some people I'm more than the other.

Heimlich

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”10

... girdled in story, trapped in story, and the only way out was to go through.

Is not the semblance of guilt, however slight the tinge, already a corruption?

I want my husband to not be possibly falling in love with another woman.

Once you are distracted from the problem at hand, the diffuse mode has access and can begin pinging about in its big-picture way to settle on a solution.

Once you understand why you do something in math and science, you shouldn’t keep reexplaining the how. Such overthinking can lead to choking.

One important key to learning swiftly in math and science is to realize that virtually every concept you learn has an analogy—a comparison—with something you already know.

Learning is often paradoxical. The very thing we need in order to learn impedes our ability to learn. We need to focus intently to be able to solve problems—yet that focus can also block us from accessing the fresh approach we may need. Success is important, but critically, so is failure. Persistence is key—but misplaced persistence causes needless frustration.

Read it over, then look away and see what you can recall—working toward understanding what you are recalling at the same time. Then glance back, reread the concept, and try it again.

If you’d like to see how to apply these ideas directly to memorizing formulas, try out the SkillsToolbox .com website for a list of easy-to-remember visuals for mathematical symbols.7

The complex neural activity that ties together our simplifying, abstract chunks of thought—whether those thoughts pertain to acronyms, ideas, or concepts—are the basis of much of science, literature, and art.

Students who are beginning to struggle in math and science often look at others who are intellectual racehorses and tell themselves they have to keep up. Then they don’t give themselves the extra time they need to truly master the material, and they fall still further behind. As a result of this uncomfortable and discouraging situation, students end up unnecessarily dropping out of math and science. Take a step back and look dispassionately at your strengths and weaknesses. If you need more time to learn math and science, that’s simply the reality. If you’re in high school, try to arrange your schedule to give yourself the time you need to focus on the more difficult materials, and limit these materials to manageable proportions. If you’re in college, try to avoid a full load of heavy courses, especially if you are working on the side. A lighter load of math and science courses can, for many, be the equivalent of a heavy load of other types of courses. Especially in the early stages of college, avoid the temptation to keep up with your peers.

One of the first steps toward gaining expertise in math and science is to create conceptual chunks—mental leaps that unite separate bits of information through meaning. Once you chunk an idea or concept, you don’t need to remember all the little underlying details; you’ve got the main idea—the chunk—and that’s enough.

She lay there in the dark and allowed the grief to flow through her veins, thick as mud. She’d learned long ago not to fight it, to make space for it, the way one might for a new tchotchke on the shelf, a souvenir from a trip you didn’t want to forget. That was all grief was, really, Louise had determined—remembering.

His lips captured mine in a kiss that made my toes curl. Slowly, he rolled us, so he was on top. He chuckled and kissed my forehead. “Oakley?” His voice wobbled. “This is probably really late, considering everything, but…well, I was wondering if…” He sighed and shook his head. “Shit, I’m such a twat. Will you be my girlfriend?” My mouth fell open. Breathe, Oakley! His body tensed. “Er, is that a no?” I shook my head, and he frowned. “It’s a yes?” I nodded and kissed him.

Well, they should be glad, then, he said, that we did it, shouldn't they? That we stole Death's death from them, I mean, so that they could never have it, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they wanted it. That was good for them, wasn't it? Aren't they lucky? You're asking me? the Coyote said. He crawled out from his hidey-hole, lifted a hind leg to pass a few drops of water. Overhead Crows were calling Crows to feast, heading in numbers for the mountain at the end of Ymr. Well I think they are, Dar Oakley said. And what have we ever got for it? Stories, Coyote said. Not to tell you something you don't already know. We're made of stories now, brother. It's why we never die even if we do.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHUNKING “Mathematics is amazingly compressible: you may struggle a long time, step by step, to work through the same process or idea from several approaches. But once you really understand it and have the mental perspective to see it as a whole, there is often a tremendous mental compression. You can file it away, recall it quickly and completely when you need it, and use it as just one step in some other mental process. The insight that goes with this compression is one of the real joys of mathematics.”26 —William Thurston, winner of the Fields Medal, the top award in mathematics

Habits can be good and bad. Habit, after all, is simply when our brain launches into a preprogrammed “zombie” mode. You will probably not be surprised to learn that chunking, that automatically connected neural pattern that arises from frequent practice, is intimately related to habit.1 Habit is an energy saver for us. It allows us to free our mind for other types of activities

There aren't many now who leave from the same world they were born into. Not here, not anywhere on earth as far as I can tell or know; the simplest and most unchanging of human societies have been shattered in the last hundred years, people flung into centrifuges of change and loss, that there comes to be nothing at last to say good-bye to. I was leaving the world, but it was not my world I was leaving

blinking is a vital activity that provides another means of reevaluating a situation. Closing our eyes seems to provide a micropause that momentarily deactivates our attention and allows us, for the briefest of moments, to refresh and renew our consciousness and perspective.16

You may want your learning to progress more quickly—to somehow command your diffuse mode to assimilate new ideas faster. But compare it to exercise. Constantly lifting weights won’t make your muscles any bigger— your muscles need time to rest and grow before you use them again.

The harder you push your brain to come up with something creative, the less creative your ideas will be. So far, I have not found a single situation where this does not apply. Ultimately, this means that relaxation is an important part of hard work— and good work, for that matter.

Show business imposes its own strict temporality: no matter how many CDs or DVDs we own, it would still have been better to have been there, to have seen the living performers in the richness of their being and to have participated, however briefly, in the glory of their performance.

It seems people can enhance the development of their neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons.9 We’re still in the infancy of understanding neural development, but one thing is becoming clear—we can make significant changes in our brain by changing how we think.

Maybe we all go through life carefully constructing our profiles to say what we're looking for, all while not saying anything that might scare people away... and after time we start to believe what we're putting out there. Our fear of people rejecting the things that make us happy limits how much happiness we can actually find. I guess when we're a bit more honest with ourselves and others, we might get more of what we actually desire.

A curious peculiarity of our memory is that things are impressed better by active than by passive repetition. I mean that in learning by heart (for example), when we almost know the piece, it pays better to wait and recollect by an effort from within, than to look at the book again. If we recover the words in the former way, we shall probably know them the next time; if in the latter way, we shall very likely need the book once more.” —William James, writing in 189012

A synthesis—an abstraction, chunk, or gist idea—is a neural pattern. Good chunks form neural patterns that resonate, not only within the subject we’re working in, but with other subjects and areas of our lives. The abstraction helps you transfer ideas from one area to another. That’s why great art, poetry, music, and literature can be so compelling. When we grasp the chunk, it takes on a new life in our own minds—we form ideas that enhance and enlighten the neural patterns we already possess, allowing us to more readily see and develop other related patterns. Once we have created a chunk as a neural pattern, we can more easily pass that chunked pattern to others, as Cajal and other great artists, poets, scientists, and writers have done for millennia, Once other people grasp that chunk, not only can they use it, but also they can more easily create similar chunks that apply to other areas in their lives—an important part of the creative process.

One of the most extraordinary stories of reframing is that of Roger Bannister, the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. Bannister was a medical school student who couldn’t afford a trainer or a special runner’s diet. He didn’t even have time to run more than thirty minutes a day, squeezed in around his medical studies. Yet Bannister did not focus on all the reasons why he logically had no chance of reaching his goal. He instead refocused on accomplishing his goal in his own way. On the morning he made world history, he got up, ate his usual breakfast, did his required hospital rounds, and then caught a bus to the track.

There are hidden meanings in equations, just as there are in poetry. If you are a novice looking at an equation in physics, and you’re not taught how to see the life underlying the symbols, the lines will look dead to you. It is when you begin to learn and supply the hidden text that the meaning slips, slides, then finally leaps to life.

We don’t engage in passive rereading because we are dumb or lazy. We do it because we fall prey to a cognitive illusion. When we read material over and over, the material becomes familiar and fluent, meaning it is easy for our minds to process. We then think that this easy processing is a sign that we have learned something well, even though we have not.

Let Your Mind Work in the Background The next time you are tackling a tough problem, work on it for a few minutes. When you get stuck, move on to another problem. Your diffuse mode can continue working on the tougher problem in the background. When you later return to the tougher problem, you will often be pleasantly surprised by the progress you’ve made.

Who knew being married was such fun," he panted, pressing a kiss to her temple and swatting her backside simultaneously. She pulled back to look at him, one of her rare, reluctant smiles tugging at the corner of her kiss-reddened mouth. "You probably should have done it years ago." "Nay, lass," he said suddenly feeling very serious. "Then it wouldna have been ye.

A synthesis—an abstraction, chunk, or gist idea—is a neural pattern. Good chunks form neural patterns that resonate, not only within the subject we’re working in, but with other subjects and areas of our lives. The abstraction helps you transfer ideas from one area to another.15 That’s why great art, poetry, music, and literature can be so compelling. When we grasp the chunk, it takes on a new life in our own minds—we form ideas that enhance and enlighten the neural patterns we already possess, allowing us to more readily see and develop other related patterns.

As you can see from the following “top-down, bottom-up” illustration, learning takes place in two ways. There is a bottom-up chunking process where practice and repetition can help you both build and strengthen each chunk, so you can easily gain access to it when needed. And there is a top-down “big picture” process that allows you to see where what you are learning fits in. Both processes are vital in gaining mastery over the material.

He had no name for it in the language of Ka; there was no name for it because he was the first Crow ever to feel it within him. Pity for them in the awful complications of the lives they built for themselves, laboring as helplessly and ceaselessly as bees building their combs, but their combs held no honey, he thought now. Useless, useless, and worse than useless, needless: the labor of their lives, the battles and deaths, and all their own doing. He lifted his wings to fly, to fly from this pity, but he could not; folded them in disorder; bowed with open mouth in pity. If only he had not gone into Ymr. For out of Ymr he had brought pity into Ka, and now could never get it out.

I know that things can’t stay the same, that change is the whole of the law: but that not just the human world but the earth and the weather and life itself could be different at the end of a single lifetime from how it was at the beginning . . . you feel that the world, the earth, can die along with you. Can it? How can I believe that all around me is ruination unless I believe it was once as it should be, and I was alive then to see it? And how am I to know that this is so?

You may be surprised to learn that simply being awake creates toxic products in your brain. During sleep, your cells shrink, causing a striking increase in the space between your cells. This is equivalent to turning on a faucet—it allows fluid to wash past and push the toxins out.23 This nightly housecleaning is part of what keeps your brain healthy. When you get too little sleep, the buildup of these toxic products is believed to explain why you can’t think very clearly. (Too

Diffuse-mode thinking is what happens when you relax your attention and just let your mind wander. This relaxation can allow different areas of the brain to hook up and return valuable insights. Unlike the focused mode, the diffuse mode seems less affiliated with any one area of the brain—you can think of it as being “diffused” throughout the brain.5 Diffuse-mode insights often flow from preliminary thinking that’s been done in the focused mode. (The diffuse mode must have clay to make bricks!)

If you have a library of concepts and solutions internalized as chunked patterns, you can more easily skip to the right solution to a problem by listening to the whispers from your diffuse mode. Your diffuse mode can also help you connect two or more chunks together in new ways to solve unusual problems. There are two ways to solve problems—first, through sequential, step-by-step reasoning, and second, through more holistic intuition. Sequential thinking, where each small step leads deliberately toward the solution, involves the focused mode. Intuition, on the other hand, often seems to require a creative, diffuse mode linking of several seemingly different focused mode thoughts. Most difficult problems are solved through intuition, because they make a leap away from what you are familiar with.24 Keep in mind that the diffuse mode’s semi-random way of making connections means that the solutions it provides with should be carefully verified using the focused mode. Intuitive insights aren’t always correct!25

The number one thing I stress when students come to see me is that there is a direct connection between your hand and your brain, and the act of rewriting and organizing your notes is essential to breaking large amounts of information down into smaller digestible chunks. I have many students who prefer to type their notes in a Word document or on slides, and when these students are struggling, the first thing I recommend is to quit typing and start writing. In every case, they perform better on the next section of material.

ADVICE ON SLEEPING “Many people will tell you that they can’t nap. The one thing I learned from a single yoga class I took many years ago was to slow down my breathing. I just keep breathing slowly in and out and don’t think I must fall asleep. Instead, I think things like, Sleepytime! and just focus on my breathing. I also make sure it’s dark in the room, or I cover my eyes with one of those airplane sleep masks. Also, I set my phone alarm for twenty-one minutes because turning a short power nap into a longer sleep can leave you groggy. This amount of time gives me what’s basically a cognitive reboot.” —Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist and catnap queen

particularly interesting about Cajal is that he achieved his greatness even though he wasn’t a genius—at least, not in the conventional sense of the term. Cajal deeply regretted that he never had a “quickness, certainty, and clearness in the use of words.”10 What’s worse is that when Cajal got emotional, he lost his way with words almost entirely. He couldn’t remember things by rote, which made school, where parroting back information was prized, agony for him. The best Cajal could do was to grasp and remember key ideas; he frequently despaired his modest powers of understanding.11 Yet some of the most exciting areas of neuroscientific research today are rooted in Cajal’s original findings.12

To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl Do you realize that if you had started building the Parthenon on the day you were born you would be all done in only one more year? Of course, you couldn’t have done it alone, so never mind, you’re fine just as you are. You are loved simply for being yourself. But did you know that at your age Judy Garland was pulling down $150,000 a picture, Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory, and Blaise Pascal had cleaned up his room? No wait, I mean he had invented the calculator. Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life after you come out of your room and begin to blossom, or at least pick up all your socks. For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England when she was only fifteen, but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model. A few centuries later, when he was your age, Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas, and two complete Masses as a youngster. But of course that was in Austria at the height of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland. Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15 or if Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17? We think you are special by just being you, playing with your food and staring into space. By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes, but that doesn’t mean he never helped out around the house.

Remember, accepting the first idea that comes to mind when you are working on an assignment or test problem can prevent you from finding a better solution. Chess players who experience Einstellung truly believe they are scanning the board for a different solution. But careful study of where their eyes are moving shows that they are keeping their focus on the original solution. Not only their eyes, but their mind itself can’t move away enough to see a new approach to the problem.15 According to recent research, blinking is a vital activity that provides another means of reevaluating a situation. Closing our eyes seems to provide a micropause that momentarily deactivates our attention and allows us, for the briefest of moments, to refresh and renew our consciousness and perspective.16

If you are one of those people who can’t hold a lot in mind at once—you lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures, and have to get to someplace quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum—well, welcome to the clan of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because you’re learning new, more creative combinations. Having a somewhat smaller working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex, doesn’t lock everything up so tightly, you can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what’s going on in the environment, but also are the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes (or even much of the time) to understand what’s going on, but once you’ve got something chunked, you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round—putting it through creative paces even you didn’t think you were capable of! Here’s another point to put into your mental chunker: Chess, that bastion of intellectuals, has some elite players with roughly average IQs. These seemingly middling intellects are able to do better than some more intelligent players because they practice more. That’s the key idea. Every chess player, whether average or elite, grows talent by practicing. It is the practice—particularly deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of the material—that can help lift average brains into the realm of those with more “natural” gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind.

Nothing was stranger to Crows than this: how People thought that only by their own actions would the seasons be made to turn, the days grow warm after winter and the green things grow up that they planted. They thought the sun was a person like them, and did what it pleased; on the longest of winter nights, they must fire a great pile of dry brush on a hilltop to cause the sun to wake and rise rather than remaining below the daywise edge of the world. The Crows knew the world had no edge, because they flew, and could see the steady arising of it up from the far-off, tree by hill, and then beneath them and away—but the People didn’t know it and wouldn’t have believed the Crows if the Crows had told them. But People knew the day on which the season of the long sun changed into the season of the short sun; they knew when the moon would brighten and when it would darken, and for how long: and about those things they were never wrong.

So,” Cole says. “Did you decide on a name yet?” Before I can answer, everyone starts speaking at once. “You should name him Jace after your favorite brother.” Cole shoots Jace a dirty look. “You should name him Cole after your good-looking brother.” Dylan gives me a rueful grin. “Dylan is a great boy’s name, too. Just saying.” Sawyer nudges her in the ribs. “So is Sawyer.” Oakley and I exchange a humorous glance. “Okay,” Oakley declares, rubbing his hands together. “The bidding starts at fifty dollars.” After pulling out his wallet, Jace slaps some money on the tray table. “I got a hundred for Jace, right here.” Cole shoves some bills into Oakley’s hands. “I got two hundred for Cole.” Wayne reaches inside his pocket. “Do you take credit?” “Sorry, Pops. Cash only.” Fanning the money in his hand, Oakley looks around the room. “Any more takers?” Dylan pulls some money out of her bra. “Yup. Four hundred for Dylan.” “Well, I didn’t bring my checkbook with me.” Smiling smugly, Sawyer pats her stomach. “But we are having a girl and a boy. Perhaps we can work out an exchange.” Jace glowers. “That’s not fair.” “It’s called bartering, bro.” Reaching over, Cole high-fives his wife. “And that right there is just one reason I love you so much, Bible Thumper. You’re so fucking smart.” Oakley’s shoveling the money into his wallet when a nurse waltzes in. “Hi, Bianca. I’m the lactation nurse. Do you think you’re ready to try breastfeeding yet?” Jace makes a face. “And that’s my cue to leave.” Cole shakes his head. “Not me. I’m not leaving until I know my nephew’s name is Cole.” I’m shifting to get into a more comfortable position when I notice the blue, green, orange, and purple butterflies scattered across the nurse’s scrubs. My chest swells and I look over at Oakley who’s smiling. There’s only one name that feels right. “Liam,” we whisper at the same time.

And I thought, no, the dead are there, and do know themselves and others. I know it’s so; it can’t be otherwise. To be dead, though, isn’t to have further life like ours, just elsewhere; nor is it to live on in the memories of others, or in the dark aliveness of tombs, or in the voices that the still-embodied believe they hear. It’s not like any story that any traveler to that realm has told, or any spirit claiming to have come out of that land either. No. But I believe that even though their life is divided forever from the life we live in the day and the sun, we can know something of it: because we live part of our lives the way they do, in a realm that’s like the realm where they are. I mean in dreams. In dreams we traverse other geographies; we walk the roads, we enter the rooms, we speak to the people and beings we encounter. We meet our kin and our dead, just as they were in their youth and in ours, or transfigured, not themselves. We see and hear but can’t quite smell or touch. We know ourselves to be there while we are there, but we don’t know we know: it’s only when we wake that we know what we saw and heard and felt. Usually we know that we saw and felt much more, but we can’t retrieve it, and so the experience of it is lost for good; in effect it was never ours. And I thought that it must be the same in the sleep of death: there, too, we will do deeds, learn truths, pass through landscapes, meet other souls, think about the living, ponder, feel terror and delight, go always further. The difference is this: from death we will never, never ever, wake to know of it.

Homework _Yes _No 1. Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? (Just hunting for relevant worked-out examples doesn’t count.) _Yes _No 2. Did you work with classmates on homework problems, or at least check your solutions with others? _Yes _No 3. Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution before working with classmates? Test Preparation The more “Yes” responses you recorded, the better your preparation for the test. If you recorded two or more “No” responses, think seriously about making some changes in how you prepare for the next test. _Yes _No 4. Did you participate actively in homework group discussions (contributing ideas, asking questions)? _Yes _No 5. Did you consult with the instructor or teaching assistants when you were having trouble with something? _Yes _No 6. Did you understand ALL of your homework problem solutions when they were handed in? _Yes _No 7. Did you ask in class for explanations of homework problem solutions that weren’t clear to you? _Yes _No 8. If you had a study guide, did you carefully go through it before the test and convince yourself that you could do everything on it? _Yes _No 9. Did you attempt to outline lots of problem solutions quickly, without spending time on the algebra and calculations? _Yes _No 10. Did you go over the study guide and problems with classmates and quiz one another? _Yes _No 11. If there was a review session before the test, did you attend it and ask questions about anything you weren’t sure about? _Yes _No 12. Did you get a reasonable night’s sleep before the test? (If your answer is no, your answers to 1–11 may not matter.) _Yes _No TOTAL