Real Life Scenarios Quotes

Friendship isn't partying with a group of people to get drunk or chatting with him/her once a week, it's exactly the opposite. Friends make sure you get home safely and they help you when you need it, no matter the scenario. They don't care about what clothes you wear or what you look like, and they don't last for a day. Real friends are more interested in what direction your life is headed rather than your popularity. They care about what you have to say and how you feel, and once you meet this person you'll know it without having to think twice.

Self-compassion is like a muscle. The more we practice flexing it, especially when life doesn’t go exactly according to plan (a frequent scenario for most of us), the stronger and more resilient our compassion muscle becomes.

Only those who are able to adapt to changing scenarios will continue to survive and prosper. Success is directly proportional to the degree of positive adaptation to change.

None of these scenarios seemed less real than the life she’d landed in, so much so that she was struck sometimes by a truly unsettling sense that there were other versions of her life being lived without her,

reality usually delivers results a little worse than the 'worst-case scenario'. It's called the planning fallacy, and the best way to fix it is to ask how long things took the last time you tried them. That's called using the outside view instead of the inside view. But when you're doing something new and can't do that, you just have to be really, really, really pessimistic. Like, so pessimistic that reality actually comes out better than you expected around as often and as much as it comes out worse. It's actually really hard to be so pessimistic that you stand a decent chance of undershooting real life.

We’re going to discuss only four or five different problems the Earth has, though there are multiple different scenarios going on. If any one of these scenarios were to break down, all life on the planet would eventually die. And at the moment, they’re all about to break down — it’s just a matter of which one breaks down first. And whenever one system goes, then all the rest of them will go eventually, and that’s it, there won’t be any more human life. It will be over with, and we’ll end up just like Mars or the dinosaurs. A few years ago, around the turn of this century, there were thirty million species of life forms on Earth — thirty million different species of life. In 1993 there were about fifteen million. It took billions of years to create these life forms, and in less than a blink of an eye, a mere hundred years, half of the life on this dear Earth is dead. Around thirty species a minute are now becoming extinct somewhere. If you were to watch this planet from space, it would appear to be dying very, very rapidly. Yet we’re going on as though nothing’s happening and everything’s great. We’re sticking money in the bank and driving our cars and just wiggling right on. Yet from an honest point of view, we have a real life-and-death problem going on here on Earth, and few people seem to be really serious about it.

Take the average man who has to stage in his own way the life drama of his own worth and significance. As a youth he, like everyone else, feels that deep down he has a special talent, an indefinable but real something to contribute to the richness and success of life in the universe. But, like almost everyone else, he doesn’t seem to hit on the unfolding of this special something; his life takes on the character of a series of accidents and encounters that carry him along, willy-nilly, into new experiences and responsibilities. Career, marriage, family, approaching old age – all these happen to him, he doesn’t command them. Instead of his staging the drama of his own significance, he himself is staged, programmed by the standard scenario laid down by his society.

There are individuals, who unfortunately are built with an immense amount of negativity. People will always tell you to run away from these types and when you follow that advice, you’ll be surprised to find yourself running into the same negativity in new people, and that scenario to be repeated again and again and again. Why? Well that’s only because it is in darkness that our light may shine it’s brightest. The more difficult the battle, the more important the victory. It’s easy to bring life forth from life; but to bring life forth from dry bones is truly a magical miracle. Those lights who have learned to shine in the deepest of darkness, are those lights that shine the strongest, the biggest, the hardest, the brightest. See the negativity in your life as a training ground and learn to love those who embody that darkness, because without them— you wouldn’t have gained any victories! Victories are gained through battles. This is the essence of the commandment “love your enemy.” There is no real enemy, for even the darkness is there to mold you into all that you may become.

Luckily, literature—and by “literature” I mean comic books—provides us a way to discuss issues like these without having to experience them. We don’t have to trick people into standing in front of a runaway trolley, and we don’t have to have a real-life Batman and Joker. That’s what thought experiments are for—they let us play through an imaginary scenario and imagine what we should or shouldn’t do.

None of these scenarios seemed less real than the life she’d landed in, so much so that she was struck sometimes by a truly unsettling sense that there were other versions of her life being lived without her, other Vincents engaged in different events.

What I call "slumdog hope" is unique. It is the ability of the mind to be hopeful in the worst of the worst scenarios when a person with normal emotional strength may crack and succumb to the pressures of life. Those who possess this unflinching and undettered hope are likely to become slumdog millionaries.

Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys. Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real stressful week” and really needed him at home.’ Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’ I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. I like to think I am confident and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. I don’t know why women find that so hard.

LOST is often lauded as one of the best fantasy dramas in television history, as well as one of the most cryptic and - occasionally – maddening. But confirmation of just how important it is came with an almost unbelievable communiqué from the White House last week. President Obama’s office reassured Lost fans that the commander in chief wouldn’t move his yearly state of the union address from late January to a date that would coincide with the premiere episode of the show’s sixth and final season. That’s right. Obama might have had vital information to impart upon the American people about health care, the war in Afghanistan, the financial crisis – things that, you know, might affect real lives. But the most important thing was that his address didn’t clash with a series in which a polar bear appears on a tropical island. After extensive lobbying by the ABC network, the White House surrendered. Obama’s press secretary promised: “I don’t foresee a scenario in which millions of people who hope to finally get some conclusion with Lost are pre-empted by the president.

I'm learning that's marriage. At least it's the kind of marriage I want. And I know I want said that our fairy tale is on hold for a while, but I don't think that's true now. This is the fairy tale. We are living it. Fairy tales were never really about a perfect end to a story. It's the day by day living that counts. I like that scenario better anyway. At least it's real.

If you imagine a world of real abundance. Like a world where we built the right AI that's just pulling wealth out of the atmosphere and no one really has to work anymore, because we literally have machines that can build machines that can build machines, that are all powered by sunlight, that do everything better than we can. Now why wouldn't that be some kind of utopia? Well it wouldn't be a utopia because we have these very weird emotions, or many of us do, that make it seem like it would be wrong to spread the wealth around. Most people are living as though they want to live in a world where there's a few trillionaires living in compounds ringed by razor wire, and everyone else is sort of starving to death. It's like a winner take all scenario. And so, we have to find a new ethic whereby people are no longer—their purchase on existence is no longer justified by doing profitable work that other people will pay them for. In a world of true abundance you shouldn't have to work to justify your life. You should be free to enjoy the wealth of the world. If we are going to get to that place, we have to change our ethics around that.

All mammals dream. All mammals share the same neural structures that are important in sleeping and dreaming. If a person loses the ability to dream, they will die. Entering into a restorative dream world, our cells replenish themselves. In our dreams, we can engage in playacting without undertaking actual risks. Dreaming is an aesthetic activity, a creative act of communing with oneself in code. Dreams allow for the rehearsal of our participation in nerve-racking scenarios, dreaming enables a person to simulate reality in order to better prepare for real-life threats. The Platonic dualism of physical courage and spiritual courage can tryout roles in our dreams. The dream world allows us to explore acrobatic thrills and confront our personal house of horrors. Ministering dreams allow lingering anxieties to take form of objects and images of other people, aiding us confront our fears playacted in nighttime theater with morning courage. Without lifelike dreams, we would encounter difficulties dealing with exterior reality. Dreams assisting human beings emotionally process latent suspicions, doubts, uncertainties, and unrequited desires.

If there is something you take away from these pages, let it be that God is passionately, personally concerned with every small hurt or inconvenience in your life, and you should talk to him about whatever you want, whether it is a real estate deal or a broken washing machine. What happens, though—what certainly happened to me—is that in thinking about how God cares about the humdrum business of your day, you start to fall more in love with him and less in love with the thing you started praying about in the first place. That’s the best possible scenario, if for no other reason than you are a little less stressed out.

What’s going on there?” THAT’S JUST SOME REAL ESTATE DEALS I’M WORKING ON. “Real estate?” I HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF THIS COMPANY, YOU KNOW. “More than I do,” I said. “Is … that legal? Owning real estate?” YOU MEAN, BECAUSE I’M A CAT? “Well, yes.” I HAVE A TRUST SET UP FOR MY BENEFIT AND A HUMAN LAWYER THAT ACTS AS THE EXECUTOR. I TELL HIM WHAT TO DO, HE DOES IT. “Does he know you’re a cat?” YOU KNOW, IT’S NEVER COME UP. “So, you’re a real estate maven.” I HAVE A DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIO, Hera wrote. MOSTLY BORING BUT SOME EXCITING PARTS. I DO A LOT OF INVESTING IN EMERGING MARKETS. “Sounds risky.” I’M A CAT, I CAN HANDLE RISK. WORST-CASE SCENARIO IS I LOSE EVERYTHING AND I STILL GET FED AND HAVE A PLACE TO NAP. “That’s … a surprisingly chill way of thinking about things.” SOMETIMES IT’S BETTER NOT TO BE A HUMAN, CHARLIE.

Though not true in all cases, people with ADHD often have trouble planning ahead. Planning means organizing a number of different options into a workable game plan and anticipating what will happen in various scenarios. Executive function differences in the ADHD brain often don’t accommodate these common skills. One upside of not being natural planners is that people with ADHD can be really good at going with the flow, making things work in real time. It’s not unusual for a person with ADHD to be attracted to a partner who is a good planner. In courtship, her ability to organize and plan helps to make things happen, and his easygoing nature provides liveliness and spontaneity. They both benefit and thrive. After kids, though, the ADHD partner’s inability to plan becomes a real negative as the organizational demands imposed by taking care of children require that both pitch in to keep life from becoming overwhelming.

If you program a self-driving car to stop and help strangers in distress, it will do so come hell or high water (unless, of course, you insert an exception clause for infernal or high-water scenarios). Similarly, if your self-driving car is programmed to swerve into the opposite lane in order to save the two kids in its path, you can bet your life this is exactly what it will do. Which means that when designing their self-driving car, Toyota or Tesla will be transforming a theoretical problem in the philosophy of ethics into a practical problem of engineering. Granted, the philosophical algorithms will never be perfect. Mistakes will still happen, resulting in injuries, deaths, and extremely complicated lawsuits. (For the first time in history, you might be able to sue a philosopher for the unfortunate results of his or her theories, because for the first time in history you might be able to prove a direct causal link between philosophical ideas and real-life events.)

I like to say the idea of Phantasma came to me all at once, hitting me like a ton of bricks one cloudy afternoon in November 2021, but truly, my experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder has been building to this story for a very long time. During the process of brainstorming the sort of adult romance I wanted to debut with, I was going through a period where my obsessive-compulsive tendencies were flaring up more than usual and the voices in my head were getting a little too bold. To my friends, these compulsions were alarming little anecdotes over lunch—‘that sounds like a horror movie’ one of them said (affectionately)—which is funny because, to me, someone who has lived with OCD my entire life, it was just another day of being unfazed by the increasingly creative scenarios my mind likes to conjure. OCD has such a wide range of symptoms that it makes every person’s experience with it different. Unfortunately, it has also become a commonly misused term conflated with the idea of being overly neat and clean, when in reality a lot of people with OCD have much darker symptoms. In my experience this has made explaining the real effects of OCD very hard as well as making it more difficult for people to regard the condition seriously. It’s so important to me to convey, with the utmost sincerity, that I know people are not doing this to be malicious! Because of the misuse of the term, however, some of the ways this disorder is shown in this book may come off as exaggerated or dramatic—but the details of Ophelia’s OCD are drawn directly from experiences that I, or someone I know who shares my condition, have had first-hand. And it’s still only a fraction of the symptoms we live with daily. Ophelia’s story is a love letter to my journey of getting comfortable being in my own head (as well as my adoration for Gothic aesthetics and hot ghosts). And while her experience with OCD, my experience with OCD, might look a lot different to someone else’s, I hope that the same message rings clear: struggling with your mental health does not make you unworthy of love. And I hope the people you surround yourself with are the sort of people who know that, too.

The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists

The Croft East Dene, Sussex August 11th, 1922 My dear Watson, I have taken our discussion of this afternoon to heart, considered it carefully, and am prepared to modify my previous opinions. I am amenable to your publishing your account of the incidents of 1903, specifically of the final case before my retirement, under the following conditions. In addition to the usual changes that you would make to disguise actual people and places, I would suggest that you replace the entire scenario we encountered (I speak of Professor Presbury's garden. I shall not write of it further here) with monkey glands, or a similar extract from the testes of an ape or lemur, sent by some foreign mystery-man. Perhaps the monkey-extract could have the effect of making Professor Presbury move like an ape - he could be some kind of "creeping man," perhaps? - or possibly make him able to clamber up the sides of buildings and up trees. I would suggest that he grow a tail, but this might be too fanciful even for you, Watson, although no more fanciful than many of the rococo additions you have made in your histories to otherwise humdrum events in my life and work. In addition, I have written the following speech, to be delivered by myself, at the end of your narrative. Please make certain that something much like this is there, in which I inveigh against living too long, and the foolish urges that push foolish people to do foolish things to prolong their foolish lives: There is a very real danger to humanity, if one could live for ever, if youth were simply there for the taking, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our pool world become? Something along those lines, I fancy, would set my mind at rest. Let me see the finished article, please, before you submit it to be published. I remain, old friend, your most obedient servant Sherlock Holmes

So the Formula One driver has a dual status: he is both an automatic terminal of the most refined technical machinery, a technical operator, and he is the symbolic operator of crowd passions and the risk of death. The paradox is the same for the motor companies, caught as they are between investment and potlatch. Is all this a calculated — and hence rational — investment (marketing and advertising)? Have we here a mighty commercial operation, or is the company spending inordinate sums, far beyond what is commercially viable, to assuage a passion for prestige and charisma (there is also a manufacturers' world championship)? In this confrontation between manufacturers, isn't there an excessive upping of the stakes, a dizzying passion, a delirium? This is certainly the aspect which appeals, in the first instance, to the millions of viewers. In the end, the average TV viewer has doubtless never been aware that McLaren is a flagship for Honda. And I am not sure he or she is tempted to play the Formula One driver in ordinary life. The impact of Formula One lies, then, in the exceptional and mythic character of the event of the race and the figure of the driver, and not in the technical or commercial spin-offs. It is not clear why speed would be both severely limited and morally condemned in the public domain and, at the same time, celebrated in Formula One as never before, unless there is an effect of sublime compensation going on here. Formula One certainly serves to popularize the cult of the car and its use, but it does much more to maintain the passion for absolute difference — a fundamental illusion for all, and one which justifies all the excesses. In the end, however, hasn't it gone about as far as it can? Isn't it close to a final state, a final perfection, in which all the cars and drivers, given the colossal resources deployed, would, in a repetitive scenario, achieve the same maximum performance and produce the same pattern in each race? If Formula One were merely a rational, industrial performance, a test-bed for technical possibilities, we should have to predict that it would simply burn itself out. On the other hand, if Formula One is a spectacle, a collective, passionate (thoug h perfectly artificial) event, embracing the multiple screens of technological research, the living prosthesis of the driver, and the television screens into which the viewers project themselves, then it certainly has a very fine future. In a word, Formula One is a monster. Such a concentration of technology, money, ambition and prestige is a monster (as is the world of haute couture, which is equally abstract, and as far removed from real clothing as Formula One is from road traffic). Now, monsters are doomed to disappear, and we are afraid they might be disappearing. But we are not keen, either, to see them survive in a domesticated, routinized form. In an era of daily insignificance — including the insignificance of the car and all its constraints — we want at least to save the passion of a pure event, and exceptional beings who are permitted to do absolutely anything.

Let’s say you’re a politician. You’re still you, but you are an elected official. In other words, in this scenario, you get to keep your intelligence, integrity, loyalty, and honesty, whereas any other politician in real life would be totally void of those qualities. Now, what is the first thing you’d do when you step foot in your office?

Adolescence is a period of life when the brain is malleable, and it represents a good opportunity for learning and social development. However, according to UNICEF, 40 percent of the world’s teenagers have no access to secondary-school education. The percentage of teenage girls who lack this access is much higher, yet there is strong evidence that the education of girls in developing countries has many significant benefits for family health, population growth rates, child mortality rates, and HIV rates, as well as for women’s self-esteem and quality of life. Adolescence represents a time of brain development when teaching and training should be particularly beneficial. I worry about the lost opportunity of denying the world’s teenagers access to education.

As an example of the use of technology in the democratic process, I visualize an election scenario where a candidate files his nomination from a particular constituency. Immediately, the election officer verifies the authenticity from the national citizen ID database through a multipurpose citizen ID card. The candidate’s civic consciousness and citizenship behaviour can also be accessed through the police crime records. The property records come from land registration authorities across the country. Income and wealth resources come from the income tax department, as well as other sources. The person’s education credentials come from his university records. The track record of employment comes from various employers with whom he has worked. The credit history comes from various credit institutions like banks. The person’s legal track records come from the judicial system. All the details arrive at the computer terminal of the election officer within a few minutes through the e-governance software, which would track various state and central government web services directories through the network and collect the information quickly and automatically and present facts in real-time without any bias. An artificial intelligence software would analyse the candidate’s credentials and give a rating on how successful that person would be as a politician. The election officer can then make an informed choice and start the electoral processes.

In 1999, authors Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht released The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. Providing humorous but real-life instructions for what to do in unusually dire circumstances, the book advertised itself as “the essential companion for a perilous age.” Both frightening and funny, it offered pithy chapters on how to perform a tracheotomy, identify a bomb, land a plane, survive if your parachute fails to open, deal with a charging bull, jump from a building into a dumpster and escape from killer bees, among other things. Someone gave me a copy of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook when it came out. I shrugged and said, “Meh.” It sold ten million copies.

The hope is that, by a circuitous route, these values will become – even if only a little – more powerful in reality. In the ideal scenario, they will radiate out from the gallery and shape the way we lead our lives. Yet the money that paid for them may have been accumulated under a very different vision of life: workers were paid the least possible amounts; only the responsibilities enforced by law were embraced; governments were lobbied to reduce consumer and environmental protection; quality was reduced as low as the market would allow; debts were paid slowly but creditors were hounded. Oddly, in their business, the artistic philanthropist had the opportunity to make real – on a large scale – the qualities they subsequently sought to honour in their gifts. Yet very often they did not. It would be better to repatriate the ambition and for the capitalists to be themselves the agents of the virtues they admire in the arts. The cost (in terms of cash) might be approximately the same. Their businesses might be a little less profitable year by year and they might not feel they had enough left over to lavish on the arts. But it would be no loss, for instead of hanging reticently on a wall, those values so ably captured in art – of friendship, love, wisdom and beauty – would be enacted day to day in the boardroom and the canteen, the distribution centre and the factory – in other words, in the vastly more consequential realm of commerce itself.

Guess what the first consideration was of the graduating class of 2014 when looking for a job.1 Nature of the work. Salary and the friendliness of co-workers come in second and third, to complete this completely dysfunctional job-seeker trifecta. The problem with this scenario is that there is no way to know the real “nature of the work” before you have gotten very close to actually getting the job. It’s impossible. Since so many job descriptions are dysfunctional and inaccurate, most people rule out a job as not being “right” for them before they’ve even applied (and before they actually know what they’re rejecting). It’s a nasty chicken-and-egg problem that can severely shrink your potential opportunities. That’s why the most important reframe when you are designing your career is this: you are never looking for a job, you are looking for an offer.

Rather than concentrating on fast action and unreal scenarios, some arcade games replicate a mundane real-life experience as closely as possible. This allows the player to fantasize about living a different life, an alluring concept in a country where lifetime employment with one company is the norm and career change is very rare.

When I initially heard a description of the search area and the scenario, I was certain this would be a wasted effort. I suspected there was very little we could do, given the huge size of the search area, rough terrain, terrible weather, age of the track (around 52 hours old), and the lack of resources. Clearly, I was wrong. I underestimated the ability of a trained SAR dog. – Deb Tirmenstein

Building on the Pentagon’s anthrax simulation (1999) and the intelligence agency’s “Dark Winter” (2001), Atlantic Storm (2003, 2005), Global Mercury (2003), Schwartz’s “Lockstep” Scenario Document (2010), and MARS (2017), the Gates-funded SPARS scenario war-gamed a bioterrorist attack that precipitated a global coronavirus epidemic lasting from 2025 to 2028, culminating in coercive mass vaccination of the global population. And, as Gates had promised, the preparations were analogous to “preparing for war.”191 Under the code name “SPARS Pandemic,” Gates presided over a sinister summer school for globalists, spooks, and technocrats in Baltimore. The panelists role-played strategies for co-opting the world’s most influential political institutions, subverting democratic governance, and positioning themselves as unelected rulers of the emerging authoritarian regime. They practiced techniques for ruthlessly controlling dissent, expression, and movement, and degrading civil rights, autonomy, and sovereignty. The Gates simulation focused on deploying the usual psyops retinue of propaganda, surveillance, censorship, isolation, and political and social control to manage the pandemic. The official eighty-nine-page summary is a miracle of fortune-telling—an uncannily precise month-by-month prediction of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as it actually unfolded.192 Looked at another way, when it erupted five years later, the 2020 COVID-19 contagion faithfully followed the SPARS blueprint. Practically the only thing Gates and his planners got wrong was the year. Gates’s simulation instructs public health officials and other collaborators in the global vaccine cartel exactly what to expect and how to behave during the upcoming plague. Reading through the eighty-nine pages, it’s difficult not to interpret this stunningly prescient document as a planning, signaling, and training exercise for replacing democracy with a new regimen of militarized global medical tyranny. The scenario directs participants to deploy fear-driven propaganda narratives to induce mass psychosis and to direct the public toward unquestioning obedience to the emerging social and economic order. According to the scenario narrative, a so-called “SPARS” coronavirus ignites in the United States in January 2025 (the COVID-19 pandemic began in January 2020). As the WHO declares a global emergency, the federal government contracts a fictional firm that resembles Moderna. Consistent with Gates’s seeming preference for diabolical cognomens, the firm is dubbed “CynBio” (Sin-Bio) to develop an innovative vaccine using new “plug-and-play” technology. In the scenario, and now in real life, Federal health officials invoke the PREP Act to provide vaccine makers liability protection.

Simulated scenarios can effectively emulate real-life financial situations in a controlled environment. By engaging in these exercises, young adults can practice making informed decisions without facing the real-world risks.

The nature of being at the correct distance from the opponent and of understanding the principle of reaction time does not give the attacker the luxury of completing more than one strike before being counterattacked by a skilled defender. Once you have created the distraction with your first strike, you need to continue and attack appropriately. Therefore, when you train, students need to gain a complete understanding of what they are drilling and the training drill should be designed accordingly. Be aware that the human mind is constantly trying to create imaginary connections between motion possibilities without always seeing the whole picture. Shortening the range from a kick to a hand strike cuts down on time between the first and subsequent attacks. Such an attempt does not recognize that a good defense against a kick eliminates the option for a continuous hand attack since that was already taken into account. Executing multiple attacks on the defense however would break the opponent’s train of thought and give the initiator another second to hit again. If you have reached the target through the first strike, with no obstacles, you are buying time for a more devastating attack. You must recognize that with less devastating strikes, you buy less time, and in a real fight it is measured in splits of a second. It should only take a few seconds to finish the opponent. Krav Maga principles dictate a perfect relationship in which a counterattack requires the same speed as the block, but sometimes the distance can be too close to accelerate the hand to a maximum speed—and then you are just buying another second and must follow up with a more devastating attack. If you deliver attacks of medium strength, your opponent might get the message and stop attacking you. However, while it is a good practice to change an attacker’s mind and habits, you may not want to risk your own life protecting your attacker from extensive harm. Finally, when executing a counterattack, please be as precise as possible, so you do not need to rework. I personally would not spend more than two seconds on one opponent, since it would occupy and distract me from other dangerous changes that might occur in the environment. If you break glass in a store, you would want to get out of there as quickly as possible instead of waiting around in the same spot. I’d like to remind the reader that the above paragraphs elaborate the dangers and safety in both training and in reality. By understanding safe training, you need to understand the dangers of reality. To master the process, you need to train in simulated scenarios that are as close as possible to a realistic fight for survival. Keep in mind that when you identify a threat, you should set your boundaries, and decide that if the opponent gets too close to you, you should attack him by kicking or punching according to the distance between you two. If however the attacker attacks you by surprise, not giving you enough time to think, your body instinctively defends itself. This means that if you are at the point where you notice an attack coming at you, your primary instinct is to defend as opposed to attack.

Without knowing this, without having been to the future, there would be no way to situate this vision among the other items in my memory. And since most of our thoughts are as evanescent and hard to remember as dreams, I will be unlikely to remember this vision or notice how it corresponded to an actual event in my life some time afterward. It has often been suggested that déjà vu experiences may reflect this kind of “memory of a premonition,” although neural signals of familiarity may misfire for more mundane reasons, so it would be hard to substantiate such a claim in many, or most, cases. It is the same difficulty that J. B. Priestley identified in the context of his future-influencing-present effect: How often will it occur to people to (a) record their passing thoughts and moods in detail and (b) compare those recorded thoughts and moods to later events? Almost never. Yet as we will see later, when people’s lives, thoughts, and feelings are recorded for some other purpose, such as in psychotherapy, it sometimes does—quite by accident—reveal suggestive evidence for something like the existence of a perturbing influence of future events on prior behavior. “The brain is an illusion factory,” as neurobiologist Dean Buonomano puts it.52 Humans’ ability to vividly and realistically imagine things that haven’t happened (or haven’t happened yet) poses a huge challenge to studying anomalous experiences and ESP phenomena. One of the million functions of the Swiss Army Knife in our skulls is to serve as a powerful all-purpose imaging device, a special effects studio that would put Industrial Light and Magic to shame. It is able to create from scratch, instantly, vivid images to dramatize any piece of information or idea, real or fictitious, as well as translate complex thoughts instantly into pictures. It does this not only in dreams but also in the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states on the edge of sleep, and even in waking reality when we “mentally time travel” or daydream or imagine possible scenarios.

But the tent caterpillar invasion on university grounds provided the perfect scenario to study his theory in the real world. The besieged trees did eventually change the composition of their leaves, sickening the caterpillars, who would essentially die of starvation through diarrhea. He was pleased. His theory checked out. But he also noticed something else: even the leaves of faraway trees, which the caterpillars had not yet touched, changed their composition too. They’d been warned, and somehow the warning had traveled a long distance. Plants are tremendous at chemical synthesis,

Weirdly, people resented it even though Jesus was saying in so many different ways, "Look, folks: God is better than you think. You can trust Him. Because of Him, you're safe in this world. You can go all in with Him. Even in the worst-case scenario: He's still got you.

Just as the book was going to print a new leadership has begun to emerge in North Korea. As one might expect, the emergence of this new leadership has been accompanied by expectations and hopes for a better future for North Korea. As we will see, however, the country’s past gives little ground for optimism, but it is not impossible that the plump and jolly-looking young new Kim may well seek to break with the past and reform the country. He is still surrounded by the advisers and senior lieutenants of his father, but he might not agree with the logic of their survival strategy. There is a distinct possibility that he will attempt to improve the situation. Such attempts might even succeed, but it is also possible that the old guard is right, and that tampering with the system will aggravate the situation and lead to an uncontrollable implosion of the regime—a nightmarish scenario for North Korea’s many neighbors.

there is currently no simulator software for landing on water, and no real life training scenario in how to ditch a plane. To be fair, it would be a difficult situation to reproduce.

If we purchased the land, the zoo would be enlarged from four acres to six. At the time, it seemed like an enormous step to take. We argued back and forth. We talked, dreamed, and planned. Steve always seemed to worry about the future. “If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll take care of the zoo.” “Of course I will,” I said. “That’s easy to promise, but nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry.” “Will you still love me if a croc grabs me and I lose an arm or a leg?” “Yes, of course I would still love you,” I said. But there were many evenings when he would run through improbably scenarios, just checking to see how I really felt. One night he looked particularly concerned, his brow furrowed. “What’s up?” I asked. “Tell me why you married me.” I laughed. “Because you’re hot in the cot.” That broke the tension, and he laughed too. We both relaxed a little bit. But he would sometimes wonder if I’d married him just because I loved him, or if it was because he was a bit of Tarzan and Croc Dundee and Indiana Jones all rolled into one. “I’m in love with Steve Irwin,” I assured him, “and part of the reason I love you is because you are such a staunch advocate for wildlife. Your empathy and compassion for all animals is part of it too. But most of all, I know that destiny brought us together.” Steve continued our serious discussion, and he spoke of his mortality. He was convinced that he would never reach forty. That’s why he was in such a hurry all the time, to get as much done as he could. He didn’t feel sad about it. He only felt the motivation to make a difference before he was gone. “I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “I’m only afraid of dying. I don’t want to get sick and dwindle. I love working hard and playing hard and living hard, and making every moment count.” I learned so much from Steve. He helped me reevaluate my own purpose, my own life. What would happen if I didn’t make it to forty? What legacy would I leave? That evening he was unusually contemplative. “None of our petty problems really matter,” he said. I agreed. “In a hundred years, what difference is it going to make, worrying about this two acres of land? We need to focus on the real change that will make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren.” Steve gave me a strange look. Children? We had never discussed having children much, because we were flat strapped. The thought of filming more documentaries, running the zoo, and raising a family was just too daunting. But that evening we did agree on one thing: We would spend some of my savings and make the leap to enlarge the zoo. We were both so happy with our decision. “We’re lucky that we met before I became the Crocodile Hunter,” he said. I knew what he was talking about. It made things a lot easier, a lot more clear-cut. I had fallen in love with Steve Irwin, not the guy on TV. “I don’t know how they do it,” he said. “Who?” I asked. “People in the limelight,” he said. “How do they tell who’s in it for them and who’s just after their celebrity? It puts a new slant on everything. Not for us, though,” he added. “Too right,” I agreed.

The elaboration of culture depends upon long-term memory, and in this capacity humans rank far above all animals. The vast quantity stored in our immensely enlarged forebrains makes us consummate storytellers. We summon dreams and recollections of experience from across a lifetime and use them to create scenarios, past and future. We live in our conscious mind with the consequence of our actions, whether real or imagined. Placed out in alternative versions, our inner stories allow us to override immediate desires in favor of delayed pleasure. By long-range planning we defeat, for a while at least, the urging of our emotions. This inner life is why each person is unique and precious. When one dies, an entire library of both experience and imaginings is extinguished.

In order for the reader to believe the lies I'll tell, first I need to build a normal, everyday, believable environment ... Say, a scenario or, rather, a set design. And then, gradually, we could say surreptitiously, I introduce later the fact or facts that could never happen in real life.

Skill Proficiency Once you have the proper mindset and maintain good situational awareness, the next step is to ensure you have the proper skills or “tools” to protect yourself in a combat situation. When striving to improve skill proficiency it is important to choose the best skills and techniques that are simple, effective, easy to perform and can realistically apply to a real-life scenario. Then you must practice these techniques repeatedly until they become second nature. This will maximize the chances that you will respond immediately in a high-stress situation. The central focus of this manual is to help you build skill proficiency.

Practicing poverty and living your fears and the worst-case scenarios in your real life are fruitful long-term acts.

The Very Difference Between Game Design & 3D Game Development You Always Want to Know Getting into the gaming industry is a dream for many people. In addition to the fact that this area is always relevant, dynamic, alive and impenetrable for problems inherent in other areas, it will become a real paradise for those who love games. Turning your hobby into work is probably the best thing that can happen in your career. What is Game Designing? A 3D Game Designer is a creative person who dreams up the overall design of a video game. Game design is a large field, drawing from the fields of computer science/programming, creative writing, and graphic design. Game designers take the creative lead in imagining and bringing to life video game worlds. Game designers discuss the following issues: • the target audience; • genre; • main plot; • alternative scenarios; • maps; • levels; • characters; • game process; • user interface; • rules and restrictions; • the primary and secondary goals, etc Without this information, further work on the game is impossible. Once the concept has been chosen, the game designers work closely with the artists and developers to ensure that the overall picture of the game is harmonized and that the implementation is in line with the original ideas. As such, the skills of a game designer are drawn from the fields of computer science and programming, creative writing and graphic design. Game designers take the creative lead in imagining and bringing to life video game stories, characters, gameplay, rules, interfaces, dialogue and environments. A game designer's role on a game development outsourcing team differs from the specialized roles of graphic designers and programmers. Graphic designers and game programmers have specific tasks to accomplish in the division of labor that goes into creating a video game, international students can major in those specific disciplines if desired. The game designer generates ideas and concepts for games. They define the layout and overall functionality of the Game Animation Studio. In short, they are responsible for creating the vision for the game. These geniuses produce innovative ideas for games. Game designers should have a knack for extraordinary and creative vision so that their game may survive in the competitive market. The field of game design is always in need of artists of all types who may be drawn to multiple art forms, original game design and computer animation. The game designer is the artist who uses his/her talents to bring the characters and plot to life. Who is a Game Development? Games developers use their creative talent and skills to create the games that keep us glued to the screen for hours and even days or make us play them by erasing every other thought from our minds. They are responsible for turning the vision into a reality, i.e., they convert the ideas or design into the actual game. Thus, they convert all the layouts and sketches into the actual product. It may involve concept generation, design, build, test and release. While you create a game, it is important to think about the game mechanics, rewards, player engagement and level design. 3D Game development involves bringing these ideas to life. Developers take games from the conceptual phase, through *development*, and into reality. The Game Development Services side of games typically involves the programming, coding, rendering, engineering, and testing of the game (and all of its elements: sound, levels, characters, and other assets, etc.). Here are the following stages of 3D Game Development Service, and the best ways of learning game development (step by step). • High Concept • Pitch • Concept • Game Design Document • Prototype • Production • Design • Level Creation • Programming

By D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review "Historical fiction readers are in for a treat with When I Was Better, a love story set in Hungary and Canada which follows the journey of István and Teréza, who flee the Nazi and Soviet invasions and the Hungarian Revolution to finally make their home in Winnipeg in the 1960s. Maps and a cast of characters portend an attention to details that history buffs will appreciate, but the lively chapter headings that begin with "This is What Dying Feels Like" are the real draw, promising inviting scenarios that compel readers to learn more about the characters' lives and influences. Few other books about immigrant experience hold the descriptive power of When I Was Better: "Her world had transformed into a place of gestures and facial expressions, making her feel more vigilant now than she had ever been under Communism. No one understood her but Zolti. Already she ached for her language and the family she left behind." Rita Bozi's ability to capture not just the history and milieu of the times, but the life and passions of those who live it is a sterling example of what sets an extraordinary read apart from a mundane narration of circumstance and history. Her ability to depict the everyday experiences and insights of her protagonist bonds reader to the subject in an intimate manner that brings not just the era, but the psychology of its participants to life through inner reflection, influence and experience, and even dialogue: “Four lengths of sausage, please?” Teréza watched as the man pulled two small lengths from the hook and wrapped them in course paper. “I beg your pardon, sir, but would you kindly add in two more lengths?” “We got an aristocrat here? If you take four lengths, what d’you imagine the workers are gonna eat at the end of the day?” The account of a seven-year separation, Budapest and Winnipeg cultures and contrasts, and refugee experiences brings history to life through the eyes of its beholders. That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. This saying applies especially strongly to When I Was Better 's powerful story, highly recommended for historical fiction readers and library collections interested in powerfully compelling writing packed with insights: “Why is it so agonizing to be truthful?” István asked, not expecting an answer. “It depends on what truth you’re about to reveal. And how you expect it to be received. If you’re expecting an execution, you have two choices. Die for what you believe in or lie to save your life.” “So in the end, it all comes down to values.” István reached for the martini, took another sip. Bela smiled. “Without truth, there’s no real connection. The truth hurts, but love eventually heals what hurts.”" "With sharp insight and the gifts of a natural, Bozi's novel brilliantly chronicles the plight of an entire generation of Hungarians through the intimate portrait of two lovers tested by the political and personal betrayals that ripped through the heart of the twentieth century.

In testimonial meetings, new converts stress the contrast between their previous lives of sin and their new lives as Christians. The most moving stories are ones describing severe conditions of depravity and hopelessness — drug addiction, crime, suicidal depression, and other scenarios of desperation. If you were raised a Christian, you were led to believe that this is how your life would be without Christ. The world is an evil place that will eat you up. Even Christians with little life experience talk with fear about life outside the fold, about how horribly depressing or meaningless life would be. The group reinforces these imagined situations, making them seem more real and frightening.

History shows that epidemics have been the great resetter of countries’ economy and social fabric. Why should it be different with COVID-19? A seminal paper on the long-term economic consequences of major pandemics throughout history shows that significant macroeconomic after-effects can persist for as long as 40 years, substantially depressing real rates of return.[18] This is in contrast to wars that have the opposite effect: they destroy capital while pandemics do not – wars trigger higher real interest rates, implying greater economic activity, while pandemics trigger lower real rates, implying sluggish economic activity. In addition, consumers tend to react to the shock by increasing their savings, either because of new precautionary concerns, or simply to replace the wealth lost during the epidemic. On the labour side, there will be gains at the expense of capital since real wages tend to rise after pandemics. As far back as the Black Death that ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351 (and that suppressed 40% of Europe’s population in just a few years), workers discovered for the first time in their life that the power to change things was in their hands. Barely a year after the epidemic had subsided, textile workers in Saint-Omer (a small city in northern France) demanded and received successive wage rises. Two years later, many workers’ guilds negotiated shorter hours and higher pay, sometimes as much as a third more than their pre-plague level. Similar but less extreme examples of other pandemics point to the same conclusion: labour gains in power to the detriment of capital. Nowadays, this phenomenon may be exacerbated by the ageing of much of the population around the world (Africa and India are notable exceptions), but such a scenario today risks being radically altered by the rise of automation,

Ask yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen if I get rid of this item? Most of the time, our fear of letting go is completely unfounded. When we stop and think about worst-case scenarios, we usually find that it’s really not that bad at all.

Let’s have a glance at Strong’s theory. Okay, the 2nd Earl of Essex, a former court favorite, had been the leader of the failed rebellion against the crown. In Strong’s strange-fantastic scenario, the pregnant Lady Essex, hoping to prevent the beheading of her husband following his arrest, had with great speed commissioned this sexy full-length portrait of herself and sent it to Elizabeth as a plea to spare her husband’s life. Strong made no attempt to explain why Lady Essex, who was famously despised by Elizabeth, would have thought it wise to paint herself as the Virgin Queen’s pregnant twin—the two women didn’t even look alike in real life. We are asked to believe that Lady Essex decided to co-opt the queen’s symbol of the goddess Diana in a nearly nude portrait in which the deer, presumably representing her husband Essex, was being crowned by the queen?

Those stories seemed like foolish risk-taking scenarios I could successfully avoid by never going outside. No, I would watch the horrible pieces on women who had been assaulted and left for dead. First-person accounts of people being attacked by strangers or stabbed by boy-friends. This is the ultimate narcissistic white-girl game. I would picture how I would handle the attack differently. Or the same. Inev-itably, I'd think about my own death, which next to staring at your face in a magnifying mirror is probably the worst thing you can do for yourself. The ambulance-chasing aspect combined with the Monday-morning quarterbacking of it all is the luxury afforded to those of us left untouched by trauma. Sometimes I would use these tragedy-porn shows to unlock deep feelings or cut through the numbness. I would read terrible stories to punish myself for my lucky life. Some real deep Irish Catholic shit. Either way, it was all gross and all bad for my health.

A mix of local news, world news, and shocking headlines coupled with experience and real life scenarios coated with imagination and intimate thoughts... the ones you can't say aloud = BOOKS

Here’s an example from the test Marty and his students developed to distinguish optimists from pessimists: Imagine: You can’t get all the work done that others expect of you. Now imagine one major cause for this event. What leaps to mind? After you read that hypothetical scenario, you write down your response, and then, after you’re offered more scenarios, your responses are rated for how temporary (versus permanent) and how specific (versus pervasive) they are. If you’re a pessimist, you might say, I screw up everything. Or: I’m a loser. These explanations are all permanent; there’s not much you can do to change them. They’re also pervasive; they’re likely to influence lots of life situations, not just your job performance. Permanent and pervasive explanations for adversity turn minor complications into major catastrophes. They make it seem logical to give up. If, on the other hand, you’re an optimist, you might say, I mismanaged my time. Or: I didn’t work efficiently because of distractions. These explanations are all temporary and specific; their “fixability” motivates you to start clearing them away as problems. Using this test, Marty confirmed that, compared to optimists, pessimists are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. What’s more, optimists fare better in domains not directly related to mental health. For instance, optimistic undergraduates tend to earn higher grades and are less likely to drop out of school. Optimistic young adults stay healthier throughout middle age and, ultimately, live longer than pessimists. Optimists are more satisfied with their marriages. A one-year field study of MetLife insurance agents found that optimists are twice as likely to stay in their jobs, and that they sell about 25 percent more insurance than their pessimistic colleagues. Likewise, studies of salespeople in telecommunications, real estate, office products, car sales, banking, and other industries have shown that optimists outsell pessimists by 20 to 40 percent.

time. Up in the air, above the situation, he asks if it is really the end of the world if he doesn’t get the job. The answer is ‘No, it isn’t’ and although it is very disappointing, he can deal with the disappointment and consequences because he is an adult Human and not a Chimp or child. He also knows logically that he may still be able to do something about the situation and must not allow the Chimp to think catastrophically. Step 5: He now goes into Human mode and asks himself, ‘What can I do about the situation?’ He answers: ‘I can choose the emotions I want and I can choose to act like an adult. Being emotional isn’t going to help anything, least of all me. I can’t think of anything practical to do at this point in time – this I must accept. I can choose to accept the situation rather than keep on saying “what if” or “this shouldn’t have happened” or even worse, “life should be fair”.’ Step 6: Eddie decides to put his Human in charge and decides to actively change his emotional approach to the situation. On a practical point he considers his options to either wait in the hope that another bus appears or to go home and phone the interview organiser. Step 7: Despite his disappointment he might manage a smile and be thankful that the sun will still rise tomorrow. He remains focused on the solution and not the problem. Of course, you may want to react differently or deal with the situation differently if you were in his position. It is just an example of how it might go. Clearly there are endless possibilities. The main point is that he has decided to act as a Human and not as a Chimp and to choose positive emotions despite the setback. Choice despite seriousness The scenario above was not so serious but what happens if a real crisis occurs? Imagine a young man who has had an accident on a motorbike and has been left paralysed from the waist down. Sadly this is not an uncommon event. How does he deal with this type of crisis? This time when he gets up into the helicopter and tries to gain perspective the answer is not so good. His whole life has just changed and not for the better. It would be totally unreasonable for anyone to say to him get a perspective and smile. He will need to go through a grieving process. All of us respond differently to the same situation, so there are no rights or wrongs when responding to a severe crisis. It is about understanding your response and making choices about how you want to manage it. The simple steps described are helpful for minor crises and immediate and transient stress but they need modifying

WHITE SOLIDARITY White solidarity is the unspoken agreement among whites to protect white advantage and not cause another white person to feel racial discomfort by confronting them when they say or do something racially problematic. Educational researcher Christine Sleeter describes this solidarity as white “racial bonding.” She observes that when whites interact, they affirm “a common stance on race-related issues, legitimating particular interpretations of groups of color, and drawing conspiratorial we-they boundaries.”10 White solidarity requires both silence about anything that exposes the advantages of the white position and tacit agreement to remain racially united in the protection of white supremacy. To break white solidarity is to break rank. We see white solidarity at the dinner table, at parties, and in work settings. Many of us can relate to the big family dinner at which Uncle Bob says something racially offensive. Everyone cringes but no one challenges him because nobody wants to ruin the dinner. Or the party where someone tells a racist joke but we keep silent because we don’t want to be accused of being too politically correct and be told to lighten up. In the workplace, we avoid naming racism for the same reasons, in addition to wanting to be seen as a team player and to avoid anything that may jeopardize our career advancement. All these familiar scenarios are examples of white solidarity. (Why speaking up about racism would ruin the ambiance or threaten our career advancement is something we might want to talk about.) The very real consequences of breaking white solidarity play a fundamental role in maintaining white supremacy. We do indeed risk censure and other penalties from our fellow whites. We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. In my own life, these penalties have worked as a form of social coercion. Seeking to avoid conflict and wanting to be liked, I have chosen silence all too often. Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player. Notice that within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. I can justify my silence by telling myself that at least I am not the one who made the joke and that therefore I am not at fault. But my silence is not benign because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it. Each uninterrupted joke furthers the circulation of racism through the culture, and the ability for the joke to circulate depends on my complicity. People of color certainly experience white solidarity as a form of racism, wherein we fail to hold each other accountable, to challenge racism when we see it, or to support people of color in the struggle for racial justice.

PART THREE Often the person we judge most harshly is ourself. Every day, we criticize our decisions, our actions, even our private thoughts. We worry the tone of an e-mail we sent to a colleague might be misconstrued. We lambaste our lack of self-control as we throw away the empty ice-cream container. We regret rushing a friend off the phone instead of listening patiently to their troubles. We wish we had told a family member what they meant to us before they died. We all carry the weight of secret regrets—the strangers we see on the street, our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, even our loved ones. And we are all forced to constantly make moral choices. Some of these decisions are small. Others are life-altering. These judgments seem easy to form on paper: You check a box and move on. In a real-life scenario, it’s never as simple. The options haunt you. Days, weeks, even years later you think about the people affected by your actions. You question your choices. And you wonder when, not if, the repercussions will come. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Wednesday, December 19 DR.

Dear reader, I guess there’s a chance – just the tiniest chance – that I might hunt you down. Beforehand I’d always let such a frivolous impulse fade but these days – and I am not proud of this – the pictures lurking in the corners of my mind are gaining in colour, detail and intensity. I fight them, I really do, but the scenario seems to have a life of its own, slowly taking shape and maybe dreaming of the day it gets unleashed into the real world. Becomes flesh and blood, if you like. And despite my very best efforts at restraint, I’m afraid I’ve already started... planning. You know, plotting a bit. Gathering details about your movements and habits. That sort of thing. And if I’m pushed, I might admit to lingering on the finer points of your demise, perhaps even gorging on the sight of your stricken face as I finally take centre stage in your life. You see, I guess I’m just tired of your lack of appreciation. Let’s face it, I’m not exactly the first name on your Christmas card list. I’m still waiting for you to swing by for a cuppa and a few kind words. Hey, a simple email would have been enough. Don’t you know how precious a bit of encouragement can be? And here’s the rub: for as long as I can remember I have been on my knees in front of you only to be treated like the invisible man. You’ve repeatedly ignored my imploring face and open arms, although occasionally you’ve stopped and dallied, causing my heart to skitter wildly. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to be noticed. It’s so... nourishing. After all, a flower can’t bloom in the dark. But then it dawns on me that you’re not committed to our fledgling relationship. In fact, it’s just a flirtation and soon you’ll be skipping on your merry way. Whatever trifling affection you have shown, it’s clear you’ll never bang the drum for little old me. And don’t think I don’t know about the others. The ones you fawn over. Just tell me – why are you so in thrall with their rampant mediocrity? Hell, maybe they’ve somehow infected you, skewed your take on things and made you unable to sort the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps I should offer condolences but the fact remains that kneeling before you with my heart in my hands only seems to result in you jumping into bed with them. Do you not understand how much love I’ve lavished on you? Call me tetchy, but some days you simply seem unworthy of my great sacrifice. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. All is not lost. For here we are again meeting as equals and this time I know I have your attention. I can only hope you have lost the desire to bait me, or God forbid, spit in my face. So help me. Accept my tender embrace. Or one day, dear reader, you might find the invisible man taking shape right in front of your disbelieving eyes. And you’d only have yourself to blame.

Forget the arduous, intellectualized number crunching and data grinding that gurus say you have to go through to get strategy right. Forget the scenario planning, yearlong studies, and hundred-plus-page reports. They’re time-consuming and expensive, and you just don’t need them. In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.

In a groundbreaking study, Judith Smetana presented children as young as two and a half with simple, everyday scenarios. In some of the stories children broke a preschool rule—they didn’t put their clothes in the cubby or they talked at naptime. In others, they caused real physical or psychological harm to another child, by hitting, teasing, or stealing a snack. Smetana asked the children how bad the transgressions were, and whether they deserved punishment. But, most important, she asked whether the actions would be OK if the rules were different or if they took place in a school with different rules. Would it be OK to talk at naptime if the teachers all said so? Would it be OK to hit another child if the teachers all said so? Even the youngest children differentiated between rules and harm. Children thought that breaking rules and causing harm were both bad, but that causing harm was a lot worse. They also said that the rules could be changed or might not apply at a different school, but they insisted that causing harm would always be wrong, no matter what the rules said or where you were. Children made similar judgments about actual incidents that had happened in the preschool, not just hypothetical cases. And when you looked at the natural interactions in the playground you saw much the same pattern. Children reacted differently to harm and rulebreaking. Children in the Virgin Islands, South Korea, and Colombia behaved like American children. Poignantly, even abused children thought that hurting someone was intrinsically wrong. These children had seen their own parents cause harm, but they knew how much it hurt, and thought it was wrong.

One of the defining elements of the human animal is its capacity for abstract visualization. Other creatures are better than us at smelling, biting, hunting, running. We alone can create whole universes in our heads based on nothing more than thought. This is the basis of language, math, science, everything that defines human civilization. It is something monkeys and dolphins will never have. When evolutionary theorists seek to explain how this capacity for abstract thought arose, the story often goes like this Our ancestors, beset by all sorts of deadly horrors in the African savannah, needed some way to anticipate risks before the moment those risks jumped out of the bushes, red in tooth and claw. So began the slow process by which the neural networks in our head, under pressure from the ruthless mechanism of natural selection, created the means to model risk before the risk manifested itself. What would happen if I went to forage for berries in that field and a lion appeared? Would I be able to make it to the protection of that outcropping? How many berries would I be able to get? How hungry am I? Is it worth the risk? Out of these habits of mind grew the whole mental apparatus by which we play out life scenarios as a game within our mind, before putting life and limb on the line in a true sense. The relationship between board games and real life is in some ways close.

Whatever the reason, I would like to point out that in all those scenarios the perceived threat was a product of your thoughts. The traffic was real, but it was your own beliefs, values, and expectations that made the situation into one that you found stressful.

In real life, the salad you ate for dinner so that you wouldn’t look like a pig gives you gas, and then you rip an SBD in the car on the way to the epic doorstep scene you’ve been envisioning in your head all night. He looks at you, you look at him...you both know who tainted the precious air in the car, and screaming, the one who smelt it dealt it just isn’t going to cut it in that scenario.

Stoicism suggests that one should try to maintain the following balance: an awareness that the things we are worried about could and very likely might happen – that life will contain moments of tragedy and sharp turns – and that we should be prepared for these moments, both mentally and practically, in any way we can. However, equally important is recognizing that many of these sorts of catastrophic moments, can’t be known nor controlled nor predicted and thus, after a point, worrying has none. Once one has done everything that is rationally and realistically preventative, they should work to revert their attention back to the present, leaving all additional concern about the future, for the future. Awareness and rational preparation have value to the future at low cost to the present. But worrying about what one cannot know nor control of the future has no value to either and comes at the cost of the present. Following the Stoic way of thinking to potentially help counter this unnecessary anxiety and bring our attention and enjoyment back to the present, we can remind ourselves that in the future, things might not be ok, but if they might not be, then they are now. Or at least better than the future version we are worried about. If we are worried that things will only get worse, then things are as good as they’ll ever be right now. And how foolish it would be to ruin what might be ok now out of concern of things potentially not being so later if one cannot know or do anything further to prevent it? And better yet, if one is wrong about what they’re fearful, then things will only get better. And there is even less reason to worry. Moreover, we tend to assume the worst. We tend to worry not only about things going wrong but the worst cases of things going wrong, paired with a sense that in the face of such cases, we would be broken and ruined, beyond repair. However, how often is this actually true? Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” Epictetus similarly wrote, “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.” In all likeliness, there is someone somewhere right now living some version of a seemingly worst-case scenario for many of us, living with no phone, computer, TV, and a great many other things, unaware of this video and perhaps a huge portion of the happenings of the world. And he or she is likely just as happy or unhappy as many of us right now. We are adaptable creatures, wired to adjust our worries to our circumstances, as well as our abilities to remain ok in the face of them. And it is perhaps of great use to consider and meditate on this idea frequently and with confidence. That even if some version of nearly worst-case, we would likely still be some form of ok. The ingredients of your being that have gotten you where you are, that have given you what you’ve experienced, will still remain. To paraphrase Roman statesman, and philosopher Cicero, while one still breathes, one still has hope. At least in some form.

Riorson, you’ll establish your headquarters for Fourth Wing at Athebyne. Wingleaders, assemble your headquarters squads at your own discretion, pulling from any and all riders within your wings. Consider this a test of leadership, as there are no limitations in a real-world scenario. You will receive the updated orders once you reach your selected outposts for this five-day exercise.” He steps back. Athebyne? That’s beyond the wards…that’s where Xaden flew his secretive mission. My gaze seeks out his, but he’s focused on the colonel. “Five whole days? This is going to be so much fun,” Heaton exclaims with terrifying glee, running their hand over the purple flames dyed into their hair. “We’re going to pretend war.” “Yeah,” Imogen adds quietly. “I think we are.” “Just like real life, you squad leaders need to make your choices quickly, then report to the flight field within thirty minutes,” Panchek decrees. “You’re dismissed.

Zev says the shows on Earth are better than anything she’s ever seen. We could make new ones and bring them to the universe. Maybe if the television shows are good enough, people wouldn’t be so interested in watching real-life people kill each other,” she said.

**Understanding the Importance of Oil temperature indicators ** The oil's temperature is one of the most important things to keep an eye on in the world of machinery and motors. Oil temperature indicators play a crucial role in this situation. The purpose of these instruments is to provide data on the oil temperature in real time, ensuring that machines operate within safe limits. These indicators are invaluable in a variety of industrial applications because overheating can result in catastrophic failures, compromised performance, and costly downtime. In mechanical systems, oil serves multiple purposes. It dissipates heat generated during operation, lubricates moving parts, and reduces wear and tear. However, oil can lose its effectiveness if it is heated beyond its ideal temperature range. Most of the time, this causes more wear and friction, which could lead to severe engine damage or failure. As a result, oil temperature indicators are very important tools for any operator or maintenance technician who wants to avoid overheating and the costs that come with it. A display unit, either analog or digital, and a sensor that measures the oil temperature are typically the components of an oil temperature indicator. It is possible to take immediate corrective action when temperatures reach unsafe levels thanks to advanced features like alarms found in many modern indicators. Depending on the application, oil temperature indicators may require different construction and installation methods. These indicators, for instance, need to be durable and able to withstand extreme conditions in high-performance engines. In a similar vein, efficient and long-lasting industrial machinery like turbines, compressors, and hydraulic systems require accurate temperature monitoring. Choosing the right type of oil temperature indicator for a particular application involves considering several factors, including the temperature range, the environment, and the type of oil used. Oil temperature indicators on a regular basis has the potential to significantly improve reliability and performance in industries like manufacturing, construction, and transportation that rely on machinery that runs continuously. By investing in quality oil temperature indicators and utilizing them effectively, companies can avert dangerous overheating scenarios. The readings of the indicators can be used to carry out routine maintenance, ensuring that the equipment runs smoothly and effectively. Oil temperature indicators can provide insight into the overall health of a mechanical system in addition to preventing overheating. Temperature swings that are out of the ordinary may indicate deeper issues that need to be addressed before they become more serious issues. For example, an unexpected rise in oil temperature could indicate a failing pump, an obstruction in the system, or that the oil has degraded and needs replacing. By effectively utilizing oil temperature indicators, operators and maintenance personnel can stay one step ahead of the competition. Regular training sessions on interpreting temperature data, understanding the warning signs, and implementing preventive measures can lead to safer and more efficient operations. In conclusion, Oil temperature indicators are not just accessories but essential tools for monitoring and managing the health of machinery and motors. They aid in the prevention of overheating, extend the service life of equipment, and ultimately save businesses money and time by providing crucial information about oil temperature. The significance of these indicators in preserving optimal performance cannot be overstated as machinery continues to evolve and operate under more demanding conditions.

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