Shiny Objects Quotes

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.

Adrian was easily distractible by wacky topics and shiny objects.

Sometimes you think you've found love, when it's really just one of those objects that are shiny in a certain light--a trophy, say, or a ring, or a diamond, even. Glass shards, maybe. You've got to be careful, you do. The shine can blind you. The edges can cut you in way you never imagined. It is up to you to allow that or not.

If we feel we do not focus enough on our actual needs, we like to know the traps of our fake priorities and find out how to identify and avoid them. By stopping trendy causes and averting shiny object syndrome, we eschew misallocation of time and energy. If we take responsibility for our actions, we can avoid creating a culture of blame-shifting or missing out on valuable chances for better insight. (“Step on the gas”)

I've found that all weak people share a basic obsession - they fixate on the idea of satisfaction. Anywhere you go men and women are like crows drawn by shiny objects. For some folks, the shiny objects are other people, and you'd be better off developing a drug habit.

Perfection is a distraction—another shiny object taking your attention away from your real priorities.

Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine-addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation. To make matters worse, the prefrontal cortex has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new—the proverbial shiny objects

I'm a cat. You're a shiny object.

Andrew said nothing for a while, then, "You're more a raccoon than a fox." Neil stared. "What?" "A raccoon," Andrew said, and mimed holding a ball in front of his face. "Exy is the shiny object of your sad little world. You know you're being hunted and you know the hounds are closing in, but you won't let go to save yourself. You once told me you don't understand why a person would actively try to die, but here you are. I guess that was another lie.

The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock. But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else. The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side. Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As though the clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully. All of this takes hours. The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actual paper pages that turn. There is a silver dragon that curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress, awaiting an absent prince. Teapots that pour into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small dogs. An entire game of chess is played. At the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is the juggler. Dress in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver balls that correspond to each hour. As the clock chimes, another ball joins the rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern. After midnight, the clock begins once more to fold in upon itself. The face lightens and the cloud returns. The number of juggled balls decreases until the juggler himself vanishes. By noon it is a clock again, and no longer a dream.

Fish like shiny things, stupid people like shiny things, and the late Nebular Romular Ichibar IV liked shiny things. He burned to death when he flew too close to a bright star, which ironically got swallowed up by the least shiny object in the universe—a black hole.

We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other’s clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury.

I couldn't stop thinking about him. He was an attractive nuisance, a shiny object.

Justin, please, you're annoying the nice man.” Justin blinked at the dumbstruck object of his attention as the breeze puffed a lock of shiny dark hair across the man's brow. “Nice man, please tell me your name so I know who to dream about tonight.

Don’t get distracted by shiny objects

We inculcate in our children the sensibilities of raccoons, a fascination with shiny objects and an appetite for garbage, and then carp about 'the texting generation' as if thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds who couldn't boil an egg are capable of creating a culture. They grow on what we feed them. It has never been otherwise. The only thing that changes is the food.

Whatever it is we are trying to find out about the strangers in our midst is not robust. The “truth” about Amanda Knox or Jerry Sandusky or KSM is not some hard and shiny object that can be extracted if only we dig deep enough and look hard enough. The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly, it will crumple under our feet. And from that follows a second cautionary note: we need to accept that the search to understand a stranger has real limits. We will never know the whole truth. We have to be satisfied with something short of that. The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility. How many of the crises and controversies I have described would have been prevented had we taken those lessons to heart?

When we ask ourselves how America became the world’s greatest jailer, it is natural to focus on bright, shiny objects: national campaigns, federal legislation, executive orders from the Oval Office. But we should train our eyes, also, on more mundane decisions and directives, many of which took place on the local level. Which agency director did a public official enlist in response to citizen complaints about used syringes in back alleys? Such small choices, made daily, over time, in every corner of our nation, are the bricks that built our prison nation.

There's a parable here somewhere, about the difference between journalism and history. What might appear to be "the story" in the present moment may actually be a distraction from it, a shiny object preventing us from seeing the truth of what is really going on beneath the surface of our attention, what will most deeply affect people's lives in time.

As Logan opened the door to the bar and stepped inside, he immediately searched through and found the shiny object he was currently chasing. Right there, in that moment, Logan knew that somehow, this time, everything was going to be different.

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the sheer amount of traffic a woman’s body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators and more, between the legs, from behind, in the mouth. Men love to put things inside women, don’t they?

Tactics without strategy leads to the “bright shiny object syndrome.

John. He’s a nightmare. Never before have I met someone who suffers more acutely from SOS: Shiny Object Syndrome. He’s so scattered that it’s like working with confetti.

The best marketers are farmers, not hunters. Plant, tend, plow, fertilize, weed, repeat. Let someone else race around after shiny objects.

Hermes was always moving, even when he stood still. Think of him as a god with ADHD on a double espresso in a room full of shiny objects. Some

the prefrontal cortex has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new—the proverbial shiny objects we use to entice infants, puppies, and kittens.

Things are just that—things. They don’t make us who we are. They make us look better on the outside, even when we’re hollow on the inside. They’re an illusion—the shiny objects that distract us from the really important things.

The Magpie Poet The magpie poet lined his poems, with a nest of shiny objects: engagement rings returned by ex-lovers, lipstick and keys found beneath his couch's cushions, even shards of his mom's silver hand mirror, too filled with images to discard. His nest of luminous memories held his yellow eye, his offspring. More importantly, it held him. Each poem he wrote was a pro tem refuge he could hide in, a safe house to rest his head after another sleepless night.

Developers are too wrapped up with technology and trying to solve problems using technology rather than careful thought and design. This leads developers to constantly chase after new “shiny objects,” which are the latest fads in technology.

And did you know that by opening Google in your browser you have access to more information than Bill Clinton had when he was president? Yet, this progress comes at a cost. We are constantly tempted to keep up with Joneses and chase the newest shiny object.

We were sisters. We felt each other's pain. We caused each other's pain. We knew the smell of each other's morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other's clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury. My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.

Want to create a reward you really love? When new ideas or new goals get shiny, put them at the finish line. Don’t try to grow callous to the shiny objects; if anything, let them gleam. Let them be brighter than the noonday sun. Just make sure they point the way to the finish line. No podcast until the book is done.

Sweetheart, be careful. Or be bold. But you can’t have both.

These shiny, freshly bound things seemed like a different class of object, things to be admired from a distance rather than handled and read.

Only two men were needed to carry the shiny white coffin. Any more and they would have been bumping into each other.

Your action doesn’t have to be perfect or grand to help you achieve what you want. It just needs to lead you in the right direction. Time will do the rest. Consistent

A diamond may be forever, but terrorism, promiscuously funded, will be too. Let's make the connection clearly by tracing the path of the diamond. Diamonds start out in the earth, and eventually that earth is part of a country, like Sierra Leone, Angola, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In those countries, desperate battles for control have been going on for decades, and the armies that fight the battles finance their ambitions with diamonds. Villagers are forced to mine the diamonds by ruthless rebels who maintain order through terror: by raping women and hacking off the limbs of the children, something, by the way, you never see in the De Beers ads. The rebels then smuggle the diamonds into neighboring dictatorships in exchange for guns and cash. There the diamonds are sold to the highest bidder--whether they be terrorists or "legitimate" dealers--and finally they're laundered in Europe, shipped to America, and end up in jewelry stores where they're purchased by men and given to women in exchange for oral sex. In the feminized world we live in, it's practically national policy that women are more evolved that men--but if that's so, how come they're still so impressed by shiny objects?

You have got to have some skill set to match your desires or else you’re not going to be able to capitalize on the opportunities in front of you. Too often we want to go after the shiny objects before we’ve built up truly valuable skills. We need a bigger focus on buckling down and becoming great at something, because what science tells us is that the more proficient you become at something, the more passionate you become about it.

You only do what is in accordance with your self-image. If you consider yourself shy, you won’t be able to start a conversation with a stranger. If you consider yourself a slow learner, you won’t think of applying to the top college.

When children grow up with time alone with their thoughts, they feel a certain ground under their feet. Their imaginations bring them comfort. If children always have something outside of themselves to respond to, they don’t build up this resource. So it is not surprising that today young people become anxious if they are alone without a device. They are likely to say they are bored. From the youngest ages they have been diverted by structured play and the shiny objects of digital culture. Shiny

The art world is largely mistrustful of shiny things and, on some level, even fearful of them. But if sophistication is the ability to put a smile on one’s existential desperation, then the fear of a glossy sheen is actually the fear that the surface is the content. Fear of sheen is the fear that surface equals depth, that banality equals beauty, that shiny objects are merely transient concretizations of the image economy, and proof that Warhol was correct—a fact that still seems to enrage a surprising number of theoreticians

I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.

So it was that the Red Tower put into production its new, more terrible and perplexing, line of unique novelty items. Among the objects and constructions now manufactured were several of an almost innocent nature. These included tiny, delicate cameos that were heavier than their size would suggest, far heavier, and lockets whose shiny outer surface flipped open to reveal a black reverberant abyss inside, a deep blackness roaring with echoes. Along the same lines was a series of lifelike replicas of internal organs and physiological structures, many of them evidencing an advanced stages of disease and all of them displeasingly warm and soft to the touch. There was a fake disembodied hand on which fingernails would grow several inches overnight and insistently grew back should one attempt to clip them. Numerous natural objects, mostly bulbous gourds, were designed to produce a long, deafening scream whenever they were picked up or otherwise disturbed in their vegetable stillness. Less scrutable were such things as hardened globs of lava into whose rough, igneous forms were sent a pair of rheumy eyes that perpetually shifted their gaze from side to side like a relentless pendulum. And there was also a humble piece of cement, a fragment broken away from any street or sidewalk, that left a most intractable stain, greasy and green, on whatever surface it was placed. But such fairly simple items were eventually followed, and ultimately replaced, by more articulated objects and constructions. One example of this complex type of novelty item was an ornate music box that, when opened, emitted a brief gurgling or sucking sound in emulation of a dying individual's death rattle. Another product manufactured in great quantity at the Red Tower was a pocket watch in a gold casing which opened to reveal a curious timepiece whose numerals were represented by tiny quivering insects while the circling 'hands' were reptilian tongues, slender and pink. But these examples hardly begin to hint at the range of goods that came from the factory during its novelty phase of production. I should at least mention the exotic carpets woven with intricate abstract patterns that, when focused upon for a certain length of time, composed themselves into fleeting phantasmagoric scenes of a kind which might pass through a fever-stricken or even permanently damaged brain.

I believe many of us now live as if we value things more than people. In America, we spend more time than ever at work, and we earn more money than any generation in history, but we spend less and less time with our loved ones as a result. Likewise, many of us barely think twice about severing close ties with friends and family to move halfway across the country in pursuit of career advancement. We buy exorbitant houses—the square footage of the average American home has more than doubled in the past generation—but increasingly we use them only to retreat from the world. And even within the home-as-refuge, sealed off from the broader community “out there,” each member of the household can often be found sitting alone in front of his or her own private screen—exchanging time with loved ones for time with a bright, shiny object instead. Now, I’m not saying that any of us—if asked—would claim to value things more than people. Nor would we say that our loved ones aren’t important to us. Of course they are. But many people now live as if achievement, career advancement, money, material possessions, entertainment, and status matter more. Unfortunately, such things don’t confer lasting happiness, nor do they protect us from depression. Loved ones do.

In mid-morning, Qwilleran set out from the barn carrying a baker’s box tied with red plaid ribbon. He said goodbye to the cats, told them where he was going, and estimated when he would return. The more you talk to cats, he believed, the smarter they become. Koko was disturbingly smart. Qwilleran called him a fine fellow and had a great deal of respect for him. Yum Yum was a dainty little female with winning ways and a fondness for laps, the contents of wastebaskets, and small shiny objects she could hide under the rug. He gave them some parting instructions. “Don’t answer the phone. Don’t pull the plug on the refrigerator. Don’t open the door to poll-takers.” They looked at him blankly.

We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other’s clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury. My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the sheer amount of traffic a woman’s body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators and more, between the legs, from behind, in the mouth. Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? Cucumbers and bananas and bottles, a string of pearls, a Magic Marker, a fist. Once a guy wanted to wedge a Walkie-Talkie inside of me. I declined.

I blinked and looked again—but it was still out there, a shiny chrome disc zigzagging around in the sky. My eyes struggled to track the object through a series of increasingly fast, impossibly sharp turns that would have juiced a human being, had there been any aboard. The disc streaked toward the distant horizon, then came to an instantaneous stop just above it. It hovered there motionless over the distant tree line for a few seconds, as if scanning

On the Rules of Perspective A bad trick. Mistake. Dishonesty. These are the views of Braque. Why? Braque rejected perspective. Why? Someone who spends his life drawing profiles will end up believing that man has one eye, Braque felt. Braque wanted to take full possession of objects. He said as much in published interviews. Watching the small shiny planes of the landscape recede out of his grasp filled Braque with loss so he smashed them. Nature morte, said Braque.

the shadows caressed the folds. I tried to see how light that was reflected from one object subtly colored the shadows of another object. I noticed how the glint of a lustrous spot on a shiny surface moved when I tilted my head. When I looked at a distant tree and a near one, I tried to visualize the lines of perspective. When I saw an eddy of water, I compared it to a ringlet of hair. When I couldn’t understand a math concept, I did the best I was able to visualize it. When I saw people at a supper, I studied the relationship of their motions to their emotions.

So it was that the Red Tower put into production its terrible and perplexing line of unique novelty items. Among the objects and constructions now manufactured were several of an almost innocent nature. These included tiny, delicate cameos that were heavier than their size would suggest, far heavier, and lockets whose shiny outer surface flipped open to reveal a black reverberant abyss inside, a deep blackness roaring with echoes. Along the same lines was a series of lifelike replicas of internal organs and physiological structures, many of them evidencing an advanced stage of disease and all of them displeasingly warm and soft to the touch. There was a fake disembodied hand on which fingernails would grow several inches overnight, every night like clockwork. Numerous natural objects, mostly bulbous gourds, were designed to produce a long deafening scream whenever they were picked up or otherwise disturbed in their vegetable stillness. Less scrutable were such things as hardened globs of lava into whose rough igneous forms were set a pair of rheumy eyes that perpetually shifted their gaze from side to side like a relentless pendulum. And there was also a humble piece of cement, a fragment broken away from any street or sidewalk, that left a most intractable stain, greasy and green, on whatever surface it was placed. But such fairly simple items were eventually followed, and ultimately replaced, by more articulated objects and constructions. One example of this complex type of novelty item was an ornate music box that, when opened, emitted a brief gurgling or sucking sound in emulation of a dying individual's death rattle. Another product manufactured in great quantity at the Red Tower was a pocket watch in gold casing which opened to reveal a curious timepiece whose numerals were represented by tiny quivering insects while the circling "hands" were reptilian tongues, slender and pink. But these examples hardly begin to hint at the range of goods that came from the factory during its novelty phase of production. I should at least mention the exotic carpets woven with intricate abstract patterns that, when focused upon for a certain length of time, composed themselves into fleeting phantasmagoric scenes of the kind which might pass through a fever-stricken or even permanently damaged brain.

And yet Carter was spot-on when he told the American people, In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. . . . This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.40

The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock. But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else. The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side. Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As though the clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully. All of this takes hours. The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where the numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actual paper pages that turn. There is a silver dragon that curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress, awaiting an absent prince. Teapots that pour into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small dogs. An entire game of chess is played. At the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is the juggler. Dressed in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver balls that correspond to each hour. As the clock chimes, another ball joins the rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern. After midnight the clock begins once more to fold in upon itself. The face lightens and the clouds return. The number of juggled balls decreases until the juggler himself vanishes. By noon it is a clock again, and no longer a dream. A

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen —the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly— I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. —It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip —if you could call it a lip— grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels—until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

It is often said that the separation of the present reality from transcendence, so commonplace today, is pernicious in that it undermines the universe of fixed values. Because life on Earth is the only thing that exists, because it is only in this life that we can seek fulfillment, the only kind of happiness that can be offered to us is purely carnal. Heavens have not revealed anything to us; there are no signs that would indicate the need to devote ourselves to some higher, nonmaterial goals. We furnish our lives ever more comfortably; we build ever more beautiful buildings; we invent ever more ephemeral trends, dances, one-season stars; we enjoy ourselves. Entertainment derived from a nineteenth-century funfair is today becoming an industry underpinned by an ever more perfect technology. We are celebrating a cult of machines—which are replacing us at work, in the kitchen, in the field—as if we were pursuing the idealized ambience of the royal court (with its bustling yet idle courtiers) and wished to extend it across the whole world. In fifty years, or at most a hundred, four to five billion people will become such courtiers. At the same time, a feeling of emptiness, superficiality, and sham sets in, one that is particularly dominant in civilizations that have left the majority of primitive troubles, such as hunger and poverty, behind them. Surrounded by underwater-lit swimming pools and chrome and plastic surfaces, we are suddenly struck by the thought that the last remaining beggar, having accepted his fate willingly, thus turning it into an ascetic act, was incomparably richer than man is today, with his mind fed TV nonsense and his stomach feasting on delicatessen from exotic lands. The beggar believed in eternal happiness, the arrival of which he awaited during his short-term dwelling in this vale of tears, looking as he did into the vast transcendence ahead of him. Free time is now becoming a space that needs to be filled in, but it is actually a vacuum, because dreams can be divided into those that can be realized immediately—which is when they stop being dreams—and those that cannot be realized by any means. Our own body, with its youth, is the last remaining god on the ever-emptying altars; no one else needs to be obeyed and served. Unless something changes, our numerous Western intellectuals say, man is going to drown in the hedonism of consumption. If only it was accompanied by some deep pleasure! Yet there is none: submerged into this slavish comfort, man is more and more bored and empty. Through inertia, the obsession with the accumulation of money and shiny objects is still with us, yet even those wonders of civilization turn out to be of no use. Nothing shows him what to do, what to aim for, what to dream about, what hope to have. What is man left with then? The fear of old age and illness and the pills that restore mental balance—which he is losing, inbeing irrevocably separated from transcendence.

Also noticeable when staring at her eyes is the shiny liquid quality that Leonardo was able to achieve with his oils. Just to the right of each pupil is a tiny spot of luster, showing the sparkling glint from the sunlight coming from the front left. The same use of luster can be seen on her curls. This perfect glint of luster—the white sparkle caused by a light hitting a smooth and shiny surface—was another of Leonardo’s signature marks. It is a phenomenon we see every day but do not often contemplate closely. Unlike reflected light, which “partakes of the color of the object,” Leonardo wrote, a spot of luster “is always white,” and it moves when the viewer moves. Look at the lustrous glimmer of the curls of Ginevra de’ Benci, then imagine walking around her. As Leonardo knew, those spots of luster would shift and “appear in as many different places on the surface as different positions are taken by the eye.”68

My morning schedule saw me first in Cannan’s office, conferring with my advisor, but our meeting was interrupted within minutes by Narian, who entered without knocking and whose eyes were colder than I had seen them in a long time. “I thought you intended to control them,” he stated, walking toward the captain’s desk and standing directly beside the chair in which I sat.” He slammed a lengthy piece of parchment down on the wood surface, an unusual amount of tension in his movements. I glanced toward the open door and caught sight of Rava. She stood with one hand resting against the frame, her calculating eyes evaluating the scene while she awaited orders. Cannan’s gaze went to the parchment, but he did not reach for it, scanning its contents from a distance. Then he looked at Narian, unruffled. “I can think of a dozen or more men capable of this.” “But you know who is responsible.” Cannan sat back, assessing his opposition. “I don’t know with certainty any more than you do. In the absence of definitive proof of guilt on behalf of my son and his friends, I suggest you and your fellows develop a sense of humor.” Then the captain’s tone changed, becoming more forbidding. “I can prevent an uprising, Narian. This, you’ll have to get used to.” Not wanting to be in the dark, I snatched up the parchment in question. My mouth opened in shock and dismay as I silently read its contents, the men waiting for me to finish. On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

The idea that John Lasseter pitched was called “Toy Story.” It sprang from a belief, which he and Jobs shared, that products have an essence to them, a purpose for which they were made. If the object were to have feelings, these would be based on its desire to fulfill its essence. The purpose of a glass, for example, is to hold water; if it had feelings, it would be happy when full and sad when empty. The essence of a computer screen is to interface with a human. The essence of a unicycle is to be ridden in a circus. As for toys, their purpose is to be played with by kids, and thus their existential fear is of being discarded or upstaged by newer toys. So a buddy movie pairing an old favorite toy with a shiny new one would have an essential drama to it, especially when the action revolved around the toys’ being separated from their kid. The original treatment began, “Everyone has had the traumatic childhood experience of losing a toy. Our story takes the toy’s point of view as he loses and tries to regain the single thing most important to him: to be played with by children. This is the reason for the existence of all toys. It is the emotional foundation of their existence.

It takes the better part of those months for Herr Thiessen to complete the clock. He works on little else, though the sum of money involved makes the arrangement more than manageable. Weeks are spent on the design and the mechanics. He hires an assistant to complete some of the basic woodwork, but he takes care of all the details himself. Herr Thiessen loves details and he loves a challenge. He balances the entire design on that one specific word Mr. Barris used. Dreamlike. The finished clock is resplendent. At first glance it is simply a clock, a rather large black clock with a white face and a silver pendulum. Well crafted, obviously, with intricately carved woodwork edges and a perfectly painted face, but just a clock. But that is before it is wound. Before it begins to tick, the pendulum swinging steadily and evenly. Then, then it becomes something else. The changes are slow. First, the color changes in the face, shifts from white to grey, and then there are clouds that float across it, disappearing when they reach the opposite side. Meanwhile, bits of the body of the clock expand and contract, like pieces of a puzzle. As thought clock is falling apart, slowly and gracefully. All of this takes hours. The face of the clock becomes a darker grey, and then black, with twinkling stars where the numbers had been previously. The body of the clock, which has been methodically turning itself inside out and expanding, is now entirely subtle shades of white and grey. And it is not just pieces, it is figures and objects, perfectly carved flowers and planets and tiny books with actually paper pages that turn. There is a silver dragon curls around part of the now visible clockwork, a tiny princess in a carved tower who paces in distress awaiting an absent prince. Teapots that our into teacups and minuscule curls of steam that rise from them as the seconds tick. Wrapped presents open. Small cats chase small dogs. An entire game of chess is played. At the center, where a cuckoo bird would live in a more traditional timepiece, is the juggler. Dressed in harlequin style with a grey mask, he juggles shiny silver balls that correspond to each hour. As the hour chimes, another ball joins the rest until at midnight he juggles twelve balls in a complex pattern. After midnight the clock begins once more to fold in upon itself. The face lightens and the colds return. The number of juggled balls decreases until the juggler himself vanishes. By noon it is a clock again, and no longer a dream.

She took out a charcoal stick and began to sketch-- on the workbench itself. Of course the moon wouldn't come to her in songs or poems or crystals or whatever... she felt the most centered, the most tranquil, when she was painting or drawing. Lost in her own world or in new ones she imagined. She shouldn't have made a chart; she should have drawn a circle, with the moons going from waxing to waning all the way around... She hummed to herself a little, the way she always did when she painted. Her hair began to glow. A little shading here, a few light strokes in the middle of the full moon for the face that Rapunzel saw there... Circles and shadows and crosshatching... She worked extra hard on the profile of the fatter waxing crescent, where the moon would be now. She knew what it looked like as she felt her hand shape it. Her power surged; her hair began to sparkle. She looked around frantically for something to release her magic on. The first thing she saw was her tea, so she grabbed the red clay cup and wrapped the end of a braid around it. Just like with Pascal, sparks sprayed off her hair and over the object. When they faded they revealed... ... a heavy, crude clay cup. Rapunzel started to slump in disappointment-- and then noticed something. Where the hair had touched the sides, the cup was now shiny black, like onyx or obsidian.

When my best friend came to say goodbye the day before I went into exile—we embraced thinking we would never see each other again because I would never be allowed to return to Romania and she would never be able to leave the country—we couldn't bear to let go of each other. She walked out of the door three times and returned each time. Only after the third time did she leave me, walking straight down the street. I could see her pale jacket getting smaller and smaller and, in a strange way, brighter and brighter the more distant it became. I don't know if it was the winter sunshine of that February day, or the tears making my eyes glisten, or perhaps her jacket was made of some shiny fabric, but one thing I know for sure: as I watched her walk away her back glittered like a silver spoon. In this way, intuitively, I was able to put our parting into words. And that is also the best description of that moment. But what does a silver spoon have to do with a jacket? Nothing at all. Nor does it have anything to do with parting. Yet as a poetic image the spoon and the jacket need one another. That is why I am mistrustful of language. I know from my own experience that to be accurate, language must always usurp something that doesn't belong to it. I keep asking myself what makes verbal images such thieves, why the most apt comparison appropriates qualities that don't belong to it. To get closer to reality we need to catch the imagination unawares. Only when one perception plunders another, when an object snatches material that belongs to another and starts to exploit it—only when things that in reality are mutually exclusive become plausible in a sentence can the sentence hold its own against reality. I am happy when I succeed in doing that.

There are many shiny objects out there, and if we focus on those (or on impressing the VCs who are focused on them) to the neglect of usefulness, we might find ourselves in a situation similar to that of only a few years ago, when we built Flash intros on every site just because we could.

There’s no way of knowing in advance what will get into your work. One collects all the shiny objects that catch the fancy—a great array of them. Some of them you think are utterly useless. I have a large collection of curios of that kind, and every once in a while I need one of them.

The term “flying saucer” seems to have been coined by accident. Arnold told reporters that the nine objects he saw were flat and shiny like a pie pan and that they looked like a little fish flipping in the sun.

On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

Men are different,” Sophie retorted. “You can see that easily enough, Charlotte. Women may love one man, but men simply love the person they see before them. That old chestnut, absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t work for men. They are like children with toys: They move on to the next shiny object if you take the old one out of their hands.

More dangerously, our practiced whimsy, our ability to cast aside the objects of our desire we impulsively collect, extends to metaphysical yearning as well. The whole culture, a country populated by people, like magpies, on the hunt for the next shiny alternative to whatever it is that occupies their sweaty grip at present.

Thin mimetic desires abound. They’re peddled to us every minute of the day. We can nip at them, maybe even sink our teeth into them, but they won’t take us where we want to go. Our choice is between living an unintentionally mimetic life or doing the hard work of cultivating thick desires. The latter may require us to suffer from the fear of missing out on the shiny mimetic objects that surround us.

the giant flashing neon sign that screamed something was up and instead focused solely on the very, very shiny object of its desire that was being assembled in the middle of the room.

Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. The cool kids of the 1960s invited the old man who had been cool before they knew cool was cool to join them in a musical romp that nobody took particularly seriously. Crosby enjoys himself. He has nothing at stake, since he’s not the star who has to carry the film. He’s very casual, and appears to be ad-libbing all his lines in the old Road tradition with a touch of W. C. Fields’s colorful vocabulary thrown in: “You gentlemen find my raiment repulsive?” he asks Sinatra and Martin when they object to his character’s lack of chic flash in clothing. Crosby plays a clever con man who disguises himself as square, and his outfits reflect a conservative vibe in the eyes of the cats who are looking him over. The inquiry leads into a number, “Style,” in which Sinatra and Martin put Crosby behind closet doors for a series of humorous outfit changes, to try to spruce him up. Crosby comes out in a plaid suit with knickers and then in yellow pants and an orange-striped shirt. Martin and Sinatra keep on singing—and hoping—while Crosby models a fez. He finally emerges with a straw hat, a cane, and a boutonniere in his tuxedo lapel, looking like a dude. In his own low-key way, taking his spot in the center, right between the other two, Crosby joins in the song and begins to take musical charge. Sinatra is clearly digging Crosby, the older man he always wanted to emulate.*17 Both Sinatra and Martin are perfectly willing to let Crosby be the focus. He’s earned it. He’s the original that the other two wanted to become. He was there when Sinatra and Martin were still kids. He’s Bing Crosby! The three men begin to do a kind of old man’s strut, singing and dancing perfectly together (“…his hat got a little more shiny…”). The audience is looking at the three dominant male singers of the era from 1940 to 1977. They’re having fun, showing everyone exactly not only what makes a pro, not only what makes a star, but what makes a legend. Three great talents, singing and dancing about style, which they’ve all clearly got plenty of: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin in Robin and the 7 Hoods

Anticipated rewards are frequently disappointing. Even the best experiences are impermanent. These two facts can create a chronic sense that something is missing, something is wanting. This pushes us to keep seeking the next shiny object, the next experience.

It’s not important to protect an idea. It’s important to protect the time it takes to make it real. You need a system to keep you—and your team—aimed at your goal when the world seems determined to throw shiny objects at you. The system I use is made up of three simple parts. One: Set inspiring and measurable goals. Two: Make sure you and your team are always making progress toward that desired end state. No matter how many other things are on your plate. And three: Set a cadence that makes sure the group both remembers what they are trying to accomplish and holds each other accountable.

Glints or kicks can be diminished by repositioning a shiny object or by applying washable dulling spray or even soap.

Fae have this thing for light. And shiny objects.

Theft seems to be a persistent personality trait. Rossini was inspired to write an opera in the early 1800s called La Gazza Ladra—The Thieving Magpie—and people who have an unusual preoccupation with shiny objects are said to have “magpie syndrome.” This thieving reputation may be part folktale, but the birds do occasionally swipe things, often for no obvious purpose. When a magpie was caught stealing a customer’s car keys at a garage in Littleborough, England, it made the Manchester Evening News, and also in Britain, The Telegraph reported in 2008 that a magpie had snatched a woman’s $5,000 platinum engagement ring from her windowsill while she was in the shower—luckily, her husband-to-be found it tucked safely in the bird’s nest in a nearby oak tree, albeit three years later! One of the most intriguing behaviors of wild magpies involves their apparent habit of holding impromptu funerals. Sometimes, when a magpie finds a dead comrade, it will begin squawking at full volume, calling in all other magpies in the area, which join in an intense racket as they gather around the body. At some point, they all go quiet; there follows a period of contemplation, during which time different individuals will sometimes gently probe or preen the carcass, before each bird silently takes its leave, one by one.

Commenting on the future of poetry and art in a democratic society, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that he was not worried about a lapse into safe realism so much as a flight into unanchored fantasy. "I fear that the productions of democratic poets may often be surcharged with immense and incoherent imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and strange creations; and that the fantastic beings of their brain may sometimes make us regret the world of reality."We are surrounded now by the realization of Tocqueville's predictions: gleaming, bulbous golden arches;impossibly smooth backlit billboards; squishy cartoon characters roaming fantastically fake theme parks.When I was growing up, these strange creations awakened something in me that I've since come to think of as deep longing for the seductions of fake; I wanted to disappear into shiny, perfect, unreal objects.

Worship me tomorrow. Fuck me tonight.

This was also concerning. When most people said they had a slight problem, it meant they’d done something like burn the toast. For Erica, it was most likely something far worse. For example, a missile attack. A kid my age really shouldn’t have known what an incoming missile looked like. But sadly, I had seen one more times than I’d seen Star Wars. And so I instantly recognized the shiny silver object racing toward us outside my window.

We often conflate wonder with curiosity. Yes, both provide helpful antidotes to apathy, but in different ways. Wonder is personal in a way curiosity is not. You can be curious dispassionately. You can question dispassionately. You cannot wonder dispassionately. Curiosity is restive, always threatening to chase the next shiny object that pops into view. Not wonder. Wonder lingers. Wonder is curiosity reclined, feet up, drink in hand. Wonder never chased a shiny object. Wonder never killed a cat.

I scanned the sidewalks, the streets, and the building entrances, my eyes skimming over people and objects, letting my mind and my intuition do the work of looking for the break in the pattern, the thing that jumps out. I’d learned a while ago that trying too hard screws with your attention. You focus on a bright, shiny object and realize too late that it’s a handbag when what you’re actually looking for is a gun.

Makers often focus on the shiny object—the product they’re building—and forget about the rest of the journey until they’re almost ready to deliver it to the customer. But customers see it all, experience it all. They’re the ones taking the journey, step-by-step. And they can easily stumble and fall when a step is missing or misaligned.

Ruby pointed towards the descending object. “The landing lights are very shiny.” Claude’s voice, trembling with anxiety, added, “I hope their probes are very tiny.

You’ll find that understanding the fundamentals of human behavior is a much better use of your time and effort than chasing the next shiny object. The best part? Principles open doors to understanding all else. Yes, these fundamentals will also give you a strong playbook to find any and all shiny objects.

once basic needs are met there’s no additional happiness with additional purchases.

We toss out 140 million cell phones each year, use 1 million brown-paper bags each hour (yes, hour), expend 1 million plastic cups on commercial airplanes every six hours, and run through 2 million petroleum-based plastic bottles every five minutes.

Recent research by Ed Diener, a leading happiness researcher, found that positive and negative affect, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction all level off when household income reaches $40,000–$60,000 per year.14 This is additional evidence that more money does not necessarily mean greater happiness.

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

This suggests that happiness is a by-product of helping others rather than the result of its pursuit.

listen to what funny man and actor Jim Carrey had to say about fame and fortune: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.

It was Oscar Wilde who wrote, “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Wilde was attempting to warn us that no matter how successful we are and how many possessions we accumulate, we will not be satisfied. Our souls hunger instead for meaning—a hunger that money and material possessions cannot satisfy.

Our souls hunger for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.

How we spend our time plays an important role in our happiness. As we saw in chapter 1, happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky suggests that engaging in experiential activities with family members accounts for approximately 50 percent of our well-being.

Consistent disciplines are the paved road to mastery and success. Lack of consistency and discipline is the country road: much slower and less comfortable. And giving up is a wasteland. The

The MBA system isn’t all shiny and perfect. The road to Utopia is far from smooth. It is dotted with speed-breakers. Good schools help in easing some of those road-bumps, but can’t eliminate them totally. The mediocre ones could, in contrast, make these speed-bumps look like mountains. There’s always the very real possibility that the common objectives – getting a good education, a great network and a decent return on investment – could all end up as wishful thinking, if you aren’t careful enough. A

Not all minds are valid cognizers because not all minds know their object non-deceptively. For example, a tree stump at dusk may appear to our eye consciousness as a person, but this mind is not a valid mind and deceives us. Also a child may develop the thought that certain berries are good to eat because they are black and shiny. This thought is similar to a subsequent cognizer but it is not a valid mind because the reason used is not correct. The resulting mind is deceptive and could even lead to the child’s death. If

I was just an object to them, a toy to be played with and discarded when I wasn’t all bright and shiny anymore.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl argued that a life purpose is not some mystical fairy tale, but the reality of every single human being on our planet. What is more, having an understanding of your life’s purpose has life-saving potential. He observed this while being detained in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Similar experiences were recounted by the survivors from USS Indianapolis, a United States heavy cruiser that was sunk at the end of the World War II. The need to maintain radio silence meant nobody in naval command knew about the attack until days afterwards. The survivors had several nights in the water before rescue came. They reported that virtually everybody wanted to give up their struggle for life at one point or another. The effort to stay afloat so long was overwhelming. Some did give up and died. But the rest, when tempted to quit the effort, focused on their reasons to keep fighting. They encouraged each other with thoughts of people who depended on them in their civil lives: spouses, parents, siblings, and kids. If someone had no one to live for, others would tell them about those in their future who would surely need them—their future spouses and kids. They had a reason to survive: wanting to be there for others who needed them. Those sailors became committed to fulfill this, and their commitment was enough to keep them alive. A good reason is a magnificent tool. A reason-powered motivation can save your life in more than one way. We’ve seen how a reliance on emotion-filled inspiration derived from others doesn’t ultimately motivate you at all if your core values are not involved. However, that does not mean that emotions won’t help you. Far from it. Just be aware of the limitations of relying on your emotions to power consistent action. Emotions are elusive in their nature, but as long as they last, they can boost your abilities many-fold. Emotions give you the ability to get fired-up to begin something. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Well begun is half done.” Starting is the action that magically produces progress. Consider things you’ve begun in the past. One moment you were doing nothing, so had exactly zero potential to reach your goal. Then you made a decision that you would do this and a surge of enthusiasm moved you forward. You were in motion; you’d started. An infinite ocean of possibilities had opened in front of you. Any decision to start something will have this effect.

On the 23rd of September 2013, I decided to write every day. Since that time, this discipline has resulted in publishing a couple of books, about 50 blog posts, and a dozen chapters of a novel. Writing itself is rarely fun. There are days (like today) when I need to force myself to sit down and glue myself to the keyboard. I have some quirks that seem to help, like writing on the train while commuting, but generally, it’s tedious work. I put my thoughts on the screen one keystroke after another, minute after minute. I’ve been doing it for about an hour a day for the last fifteen months. And I’m also in the top 25% for income earned by all authors on this planet. Which is not saying much, by the way; the top 5% are the ones making real money. But ask the 75% earning less than me about their writing habits. In most cases, you’ll find that they are less consistent. Ask those who are more successful than me, and you will discover that those earners would consider an hour a day a ridiculously short amount of time to be writing. Knowledge items: • The word consistency means something firm, inflexible, and adamant • Inconsistency is irrational, and it’s a question of attitude • Intention, attitude, and commitment determine your consistency • Your habits define your constitution • The key to personal change is a habit’s streak • Huge steps require huge labor input and are very hard to continue consistently

To truly ignite your creative potential and inner drive, you have to look beyond the motivation of monetary and material goals. It’s not that those motivations are bad; in fact, they’re great. I’m a connoisseur of nice things. But material stuff can’t really recruit your heart, soul, and guts into the fight. That passion has to come from a deeper place. And, even if you acquire the shiny object(s), you won’t capture the real prize—happiness and fulfillment. In my

A telegraph on display in a diver’s living room, therefore, is much more than a shiny object; it is an announcement. It says, If someone had been to this ship’s wheelhouse before me, he would not have left this telegraph behind.