Tweak Growing Up On Quotes

It's like if the music is loud enough I won't be able to listen to my own thoughts.

they say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. the problem with being human isn't really so temporary.

Isn't that the greatest gift in the world-just not to care?

And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside - accepting my weaknesses and strengths - not trying to be anyone else. 'Cause that never works, does it? So my challenge is to be authentic. An I believe I am today. I believe I am.

I feel so completely crazy sometimes. I don't know which way I'm facing. All I can do is just shove all this shit to the side and try to move forward.

I feel just, you know, defeated.

I always get so overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly. I can't do a job and not put everything I have into it. I need to be the best employee, the best co-worker, the best whatever. I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.

We only have this one moment: NOW.

None of them seem as crazy obsessive about everything as I am. It's strange 'cause I had the same feeling in high school that I have here. It's like, well, it just seems so easy for everyone else and so difficult for me. I turn from these extremes of feeling on top of the fucking world - to feeling so despondent. They don't have to struggle like I do - or maybe that's just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else's outsides. But I swear to God, I just seem to wrestle with everything more than anyone else.

I don't want you to worry about protecting my feelings or your father's or anybody's. When you were little you always tried to make everyone ahppy. Then it was like one day you just exploded.

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit.

They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. he problem with being humas isn't really so temporary

And that feeling is there, inside me - being small, with all the confusion and worry and longing - but also the peace and safety. And now I'm here, giving that feeling to Lucy. She is an angel - light and sweet and delicate and lovely. That is so there in her. But it's also in Spencer, in my dad lying with me as a child on the futon, It's even in me. Sure, I buried it. I buried and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is still there, inside - it must be.

The dark is settling in. The sky glows yellow- pale- anemic from the city lights. The Tenderloin at night is a real horror show. Every 3 feet someone is accosting you with a plea for a handout or the offer of drug or sex. The men and women wander the streets and alleys with a threatening, violont want. Takers looking to take, hustlers looking to hustle, all trying to satisfy a craving that is parpatually unsatisfiable. And tonight I'm one of them.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. There is something at the back of my eyes- a pressure building, building, building - hot like the flames of seven candles, which no amount of breath can extinguish. I imagine drinking glasses of water. One, two, three four, five, six, seven. I dive into the clearest pool. I drown myself in the coarse, dry sand. I swallow handfuls of crushed white salt, but the flames burn still - brighter, hotter, deeper. Sweat runs in delicate patterns down my back, over my crooked spine and jutting hips. I scratch at the wounds these last weeks have left, but I can't break free of them. The flies gather and vultures circle overhead. The fire eats away my flesh. The fire spreads. The fire runs through my veins. The fire courses beneath my muscles - my tendons - the marrow of my bones. I sit rocking on the street corner. No, I can't keep doing this. I just can't.

Now is now. There is nothing but now... This, right here, is all there is.

In a way it's like too serene or whatever - too empty. I feel that familiar feeling of being a dark smudge on this otherwise pristine white canvas. There's just no way to blend in out here.

I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.

The thing is, though, every time I think I’m just gonna give up—that I can’t possibly do it, that I’m just going to curl up alone somewhere and waste away, well, I always keep trying. I mean, for some reason I manage to make it through another day and then another day after that.

Isn't that the greatest gift in the world - just not to care? I feel so grateful for it.

Again, fix the outsides and maybe my insides won't be such a dark place.

Now is now... There is nothing but now and I try to hold on to that. The past is gone, the future hasn't happened yet. This, right here, is all there is.

I guess I just struggle with belonging to any organization. I always feel like I should be able to do it on my own. My ego tells me I'm better than all this... I want to rebel against it, though of course, I don't really have any options.

But, when I was growing up, the one thing that did help me not to feel so isolated and crazy was reading - especially books by authors who fearlessly examined and exposed their highly imperfect inner lives. Books like "Confessions of a Mask" by Yukio Mishima; "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller; "Try" by Dennis Cooper; and, of course, the works of authors like Bukowski, Salinger, Hesse, Bataille, Iceberg Slim, and Murakami. These writers revealed the things that existed beneath most humans' seemingly secure and confident exteriors. I suddenly realized, after reading their work, that I wasn't unique - that my doubts and fears and insecurities were more universal that I could've ever imagined. Their words gave me strength. They have me permission to start trying to accept my flaws, my darkness, my insanity. They let me know that it was okay not to fit in with everyone else - to be a sensitive person - and that others struggled just like I did. It was such a relief when I finally began to understand this. It was like I could breathe - maybe for the first time.

Still, children seem like empty vessels who pick up on everything and are so affected by their surroundings. I mean, that's what they tell me in therapy and it seems to be true. Stuff I don't consciously remember affects my behavior every day. I see that now

So you think you should just be able to kill yourself and no one should care?... You don't think that your actions are gonna affect other people - the people who love you?

I felt like everyone else had gotten this instruction manual that explained life to them, but somehow I'd just missed it.

There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.

The emptiness in my stomach—the well digging down—the nausea—the aching won’t leave me. It’s profound—consuming. I feel like curling up, serpentine on the floor, crying. I need a thousand pounds of heroin. I need to drown myself in methamphetamine. I need pills, weed, vials of liquid acid. Or maybe—maybe—I just need to get sober.

Sure, I buried it. I buried it and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is there, inside - it must be.

For ninety minutes, I was transported into another life, another reality, another character. Basically, it let me be someone that I wasn't. It allowed me to travel, to be a part of different cultures, different world views, different societies. Plus there are all the elements of movies: music, visuals, writing, and acting. In some ways it is the perfect art form. It is the culmination of all mediums.

It's like that story of the father whose son breaks his leg. The villagers come up and say, 'Your son broke his leg, what bad luck.' but the father replies, 'Good luck, bad luck, who knows?' Then there's a war and all the young men in the village must fight. There is a terrible battle and most everyone is killed - except for the man's son who couldn't fight because he broke his leg. So the villagers come up to him and say, 'What good luck, your son didn't have to fight and now he is alive.' But the father replies, 'Good luck, bad luck, who knows?

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember... as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. I could control the external - at least, to a point. I could buy different clothes, or cut my hair, or whatever. The pit opening up inside me was too frightening to even look at.

Everything is working out, he keeps saying. For the first time, I'm not so sure. I think back to my life sober - working, getting up early to go on bike rides and shit, going to movies. I haven't looked at a newspaper in over two weeks. There could be a new war going on and I'd have no idea. But this is the life I want to live, right? I mean, I'm happier.

Trying is terrifying because I know I will just fail. But I do want things to be different. I do...I am so afraid. I'm afraid to hope again.

They don't have to struggle like I do - or maybe that's just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else's outsides.

Asking for money is a proclamation of your own unfitness for survival. It's saying, 'I am the weak one of the herd.

Hey, man, helping you is how I stay alive. Never forget that.

Somehow that always seemed to happen—we addicts can always find one another. There must be some strange addict radar or something.

And that leaves you with an interesting choice... Do you sacrifice you own happiness and feelings of peace in order to have this relationship, or do you start to get well and choose a real life...?

And I have this, for now. I just wish I could figure out how to keep my fucking mind from going all over the place - dwelling on all the loss and pain and everything I'VE DONE - then jumping off into the future to how impossible it all seems.

The only thing that ever really gives us any genuine satisfaction is caring for other people. It doesn't matter how popular we are or anything. The only thing that actually makes life more fulfilling is our love for others... And the results speak for themselves.

As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.

It's like the world's gravitational pull has just lessened tenfold. Everything trapped in me, rushing in and out like the ocean against a jetty - pounding over and over, trying to crush the breaker wall with each rhythmic explosion - has finally been taken away. I cry for that and I'm not sure what else.

And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside - accepting my weaknesses and strengths - not trying to be anyone else. 'Cause that never works, does it? So my challenge is to be authentic.

I buried it and buried it and turned away from everything light and sweet and delicate and lovely and became so scared and scarred and burdened and fucked up. But that goodness is there, inside---it must be. “Every day, in every way, It’s getting better and better…” I let those words fall, wanting---wanting so bad to believe them.

The sun's still keeping the sky somewhat colored, even though it's already gone down beyond the horizon. There are strips of patterned pinks and oranges layered up like sideways colored bars. A Los Angeles sunset, made beautiful by a screen of haze, pollution, and trash. It says a lot about this city. It says a lot about the people who live here.

Still, for all the therapy I had, none of it ever really fixed that feeling of torn-apartness inside of me. I learned how to express myself, that was all. And, for whatever reason, identifying the root cause of my problem - like fear of abandonment or something - didn't change a goddamn thing. I could see quite clearly why I acted a certain way, but that wouldn't make me any different. I sought out craziness. I was attracted to it. No therapy could take that away.

...I realize that the times I have known some sort of inner peace in my life, those have always been times when I focused on helping others more than myself... babysitting, cooking dinner for my family, cleaning up the house, talking to a friend on the phone and just listening to them vent about something or other without offering an opinion or judging. Those have been the moments when I get to stop obsessing about myself and really feel a sense of liberation. 'Freedom from the bondage of self...

What can you say about hospitals? No matter how upscale they are, the air is always saturated with disinfectant and an underlying stench of chemicals. Most of the patients' doors are closed, but a few of them are open. The beds are mostly occupied by elderly men and women with brown splotchy age marks all over. They're hooked up to tubes and wires and things... They appear to be sleeping - or lost. It's hard for me to look at them. It's as though all the emptiness inside of all of us - regret about our past and fear about our future - has been physically manifested in these withering bodies.

I turn my back to Logan, and he slides the zipper down slowly. He pushes my hair over my shoulder and presses his lips to my shoulder, making me go all quivery on the inside. “What made you come here?” I ask. He shrugs. “I didn’t want to sleep without you.” He tweaks my nose as he starts to unbutton his shirt. He hangs it over the back of a chair, shaking the wrinkles out of it. The racks holding the clothes my mom sent over are still in the corner. “You know,” he says. “I was talking with Henry downstairs. Did you know his wife is so ill she’s in a nursing home?” I gasp. I had no idea. “Is she all right?” I ask. “He goes there every night to sleep because he says he can’t sleep without her.” He smiles and tips my chin up. “I want us to be like them when we grow up.” He grins. “I think we already are them,” I say. It’s true. We are. I am not sure I could live without Logan at this point.

It happened so fast - so abruptly. An innocence I'd clung to was lost in that instant.

Even just saying I’m sorry feels so meaningless—like I’m trying to put a Band-Aid on a shotgun wound.

Hopefully, once they’d spoken to Grace, she’d have more to ask and the calls would necessitate themselves.  Roper turned into the street with the shelter on it and pulled the handbrake up without pressing the button. It clicked angrily and Jamie resisted the urge to tell him that it wasn’t good for the car. They got out and she breathed through her nose again.  The air was marginally fresher.  Her watch told her it was half past twelve and the smell of soup coming out of the shelter, as well as the growing line of homeless people, told her that it was nearly lunchtime.  The door was closed and another piece of paper had been stuck over the last one. It read ‘Hot food for all. 1pm.’  The people outside were lined up neatly, hugging the right-hand rail and stretching down onto the pavement and along the street. Jamie did a quick headcount down and got to twenty-two before Roper moved in front of her and she lost the number.  He looked back, dipped his head towards the door, and she went after him.  A guy with a shaggy beard and a lined face wearing two coats opened his mouth to tell them there was a line, and then had his sixth-sense tweaked and clammed up.  Roper gave him a glance and then pulled the door open and headed inside.  The room was much the same as it was before — except it was now empty of bodies and a dozen or so folding chairs had been set out for people to sit and eat. The camp table at the back that the coffee still had been on was now mostly filled by a big soup heater. It looked like it was older than Jamie was and the caked droplets of a thousand broths stained the side.

Many early-stage platform startups think of themselves as software companies. This is a mistake. Software companies are more likely to focus strictly on the features they’re creating and less on the community that’s using those features. The thinking is often that if you create a bunch of killer features, users will materialize, and growth and success will follow. If you just tweak this feature and move that button, suddenly you’ll get growth. This view isn’t wrong, per se. Optimization is important for any software business. But for a platform, even one built with software, the ultimate killer feature is its network value. In fact, the more successful a platform is, the less its feature set matters. As your platform grows, you give up a lot of control in exchange for better economics and more value.

Isn't that the greatest gift in the world - just not to care? I feel so grateful for it. That's nothing I ever knew sober.

I don't know. I mean, what else is there to do? People might say I'm wasting my life, but it's all relative. If I was a lawyer, I'd go to fucking law school - but I'm not. I'm a drug addict and so, what do I do? Use, right?

It was that simple. I just forgot for a second how bad things had been. A disease of amnesia, right?

After studying all the hidden data - the stuff that Facebook doesn't release to the public - the company's scientists reached a definite conclusion. They wrote: 'Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness,' and 'if left unchecked,' the site would continue to pump its users with 'more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention and increase time on the platform.' A separate internal Facebook team ...independently reached the same conclusions. They found that 64 percent of all the people joining extremist groups were finding their way to them because Facebook's algorithms were directly recommending them. This meant that across the world, people were seeing in their Facebook feeds racist, fascist and even Nazi groups next to the words: 'Groups You Should Join.' They warned that in Germany one-third of all the political groups on the site were extremist. Facebook's own team was blunt, concluding: 'Our recommendation systems grow the problem.' After carefully analysing all the options, Facebook's scientists concluded there was one solution: they said Facebook would have to abandon its current business model. Because their growth was so tied up with toxic outcomes, the company should abandon attempts at growth. The only way out was for the company to adopt a strategy that was 'anti-growth' - deliberately shrink, and choose to be a less wealthy company that wasn't wrecking the world. Once Facebook was shown - in plain language, by their own people - what they were doing, how did the company's executives respond? According to the Journal's in-depth reporting, they mocked the research, calling it an 'Eat Your Veggies' approach. They introduced some minor tweaks, but dismissed most of the recommendations.

With all the homeless folk in SF, the fact that these woods remain unmolested is sort of a mystery.

As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are—what others say is irrelevant.

I don't know. I mean, what else is there to do? People might say I'm wasting my life, but it's all relative. If I was a lawyer, I'd go to fucking law school--but I'm not. I'm a drug addict and so what do I do? Use right? Use until the wheels fall off

I felt like everyone else had gotten this instruction manual that explained life to them, but somehow I’d just missed it. They all seemed to know exactly what they were doing while I didn’t have a clue. That is, until I found drugs and alcohol. Then it was like my world suddenly went from black-and-white to Technicolor.

I shudder when I imagine getting old. Up until a few months ago, I didn’t even have hope of surviving past my twenties. Now that I want to live again, all this sickness and decay makes me feel humble and even slightly humiliated. How could I have so willingly thrown my life away when all these people are fighting desperately, every day, to save theirs?

Is it going to be hard to stop?” “Let’s just say”—he smiles—“I’m very aware of the time and when the next shot is due. Now some of that is the pain—but some of it is just my addict getting a taste of being high again and I’ve missed that. You may not think you miss it—but guaranteed, somewhere in you, your addict is there—still alive—biding his time until he can get you where he wants you again. He will never be gone completely and he’ll use any opportunity to bring you back.

Now that Spencer has pointed it out, I realize that the times I have known some sort of inner peace in my life, those have always been times when I focused on helping others more than myself. Volunteering at Jasper and Daisy’s school, babysitting, cooking dinner for my family, cleaning up the house, talking to a friend on the phone and just listening to them vent about something or other without offering an opinion or judging. Those have been the moments when I get to stop obsessing about myself and really feel a sense of liberation. “Freedom from the bondage of self,” that’s what they call it in twelve-step language. I never really understood that before, but now I do.

I want to be good, do good, be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. But there’s also this part of me that is so dissatisfied with everything. If I’m not living on the verge of death, I feel like I’m not really living.

Spencer has told me to always pray in the affirmative, as though the prayer has already been answered. I should say, “Thank you, God, for helping me be kind and patient.” As opposed to, “Please, God, help me be patient.” Affirmative prayer reinforces that you have already received the guidance, therefore you are able to focus on the solution. Saying that I need help just reinforces the problem—helping me wallow in it.

Before you cross the street, take my hand, Life is what happens to you While you’re busy making other plans…

They say suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Well, the problem of being human isn’t really so temporary and sometimes a permanent solution seems like the best possible way out.

John Lennon says that “living is easy with eyes closed.” I want to close my eyes. I want to close my eyes so badly.

When I was little, especially when I visited my mom in L.A., the only escape I had was watching movies. It was the one thing that could take me out of myself—let me forget the world I lived in.

There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone—even people I don’t really care about. It’s always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can’t hurt me that way—no one can. That’s why I have no references. But, of course, there’s always the hope that my new employer won’t check them out.

Nic, the only thing that ever really gives us any genuine satisfaction is caring for other people. It doesn’t matter how popular we are or anything. The only thing that actually makes life more fulfilling is our love for others.

I’m trying to work on a children’s book and a screenplay about zombies that take over a drug rehab. These writing projects usually go nowhere, but it feels like I always have to be working on something. Writing gives me a purpose. I think in some ways it has helped keep me alive. Without it I’m not sure I would ever have enough hope to get sober—to make that decision to live.

Trying is terrifying...I'm afraid to hope again.

Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone-even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way-no one can.

I appreciate Spencer, Michelle, my family, my job, but it's like there are two different people battling inside me. I want to be good, do good, be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. But there's also this part of me that is so dissatisfied with everything. If I'm not living on the verge of death, I feel like I'm not really living.

I want to be good, do good, be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. But there's also this part of me that is so dissatisfied with everything. If I'm not living on the verge of death, I feel like I'm not really living.

I always get overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly. I can't do a job and not put everything I have into it. I need to be the best employee, the best coworker, the best whatever. I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen.

Being sober isn’t just about not using. Being sober is about the joy a life of clarity and living by spiritual principles can bring. There is nothing greater than that. Forget drugs. Forget needles. Forget everything. We are living to experience the undiluted amazement of life on life’s terms.

Even though I never found that antidepressants solved all my problems, they did help some. And even if it is a placebo, the fact that these drugs can make things easier, well, I have to at least give them credit for that. So I don’t feel like it is harmful or wrong or anything to experiment with psychiatric drugs—under a doctor’s supervision, of course.

Basically I’ve just really been trusting in the process here. I want it to work. I want to change and I actually have hope that it might be possible. A lot of this is due to some of the more intense alternative therapies they offer here, like Somatic Experiencing. Through these sessions I’ve been able to recall events from my childhood that I had completely suppressed from my memory.

It seems to fit. I feel comfortable in my own skin. I feel like I’m able to claim my own person. At least I’m making a start. I’m learning to stand on my own.

There’s a big tuxedo cat who probably hates the music lying on my lap. He’s basically on top of me all day when I’m working.

The only escape I had was watching movies. It was one thing that could take me out of myself - let me forget the world I lived in

Economic slavery is slavery with velvet chains. They don't rattle but it is almost as impossible to escape. It affects the poor and whole generations grow up in it. I want to tweak the status quo.