Utilizing Time Quotes

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Yes Yes when God created love he didn't help most when God created dogs He didn't help dogs when God created plants that was average when God created hate we had a standard utility when God created me He created me when God created the monkey He was asleep when He created the giraffe He was drunk when He created narcotics He was high and when He created suicide He was low when He created you lying in bed He knew what He was doing He was drunk and He was high and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time He made some mistakes but when He created you lying in bed He came all over His Blessed Universe.
Charles Bukowski
Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.
Jack London (The Sea Wolf)
But then he told himself: What does it really mean to be useful? Today's world, just as it is, contains the sum of the utility of all people of all times. Which implies: The highest morality consists in being useless.
Milan Kundera (Immortality)
Sometimes when I meet old friends, it reminds me how quickly time passes. And it makes me wonder if we've utilized our time properly or not. Proper utilization of time is so important. While we have this body, and especially this amazing human brain, I think every minute is something precious. Our day-to-day existence is very much alive with hope, although there is no guarantee of our future. There is no guarantee that tomorrow at this time we will be here. But we are working for that purely on the basis of hope. So, we need to make the best use of our time. I believe that the proper utilization of time is this: if you can, serve other people, other sentient beings. If not, at least refrain from harming them. I think that is the whole basis of my philosophy. So, let us reflect what is truly of value in life, what gives meaning to our lives, and set our priorities on the basis of that. The purpose of our life needs to be positive. We weren't born with the purpose of causing trouble, harming others. For our life to be of value, I think we must develop basic good human qualities—warmth, kindness, compassion. Then our life becomes meaningful and more peaceful—happier.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Art of Happiness)
The utilization of productive assets is what investing is about.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information and a broader range of feelings, utilize more resources, take better care of themselves, and make deeper changes.” Allies in Healing by Laura Davis
Laura Hough (Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child)
People think of education as something that they can finish. And what’s more, when they finish, it’s a rite of passage. You’re finished with school. You’re no more a child, and therefore anything that reminds you of school - reading books, having ideas, asking questions - that’s kid’s stuff. Now you’re an adult, you don’t do that sort of thing any more. You have everybody looking forward to no longer learning, and you make them ashamed afterward of going back to learning. If you have a system of education using computers, then anyone, any age, can learn by himself, can continue to be interested. If you enjoy learning, there’s no reason why you should stop at a given age. People don’t stop things they enjoy doing just because they reach a certain age. What’s exciting is the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there’s now a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it’s time to die, there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There’s only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least you can do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it.
Isaac Asimov
It doesn't happen like this! Everybody, you put him in a death trap, he pulls something outta his utility belt and he's away. Same bat time, same bat channel.
Neil Gaiman (Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?)
In his blackest hours, Stone doubted the utility of all thought, and all intelligence. There were times he envied the laboratory rats he worked with; their brains were so simple. Certainly, they did not have the intelligence to destroy themselves; that was a peculiar invention of man.
Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain (Andromeda, #1))
Anytime you have chance to meet with old friends, greet them sincerely. This is one easy way to build relationship by utilizing unexpected moments.
Toba Beta (Master of Stupidity)
When the human species figures out how to efficiently utilize capital, many of the problems that have haunted us for a long time will cease to exist.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.
Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments)
Some 80 percent of the fibers of the vagus nerve (which connects the brain with many internal organs) are afferent; that is, they run from the body into the brain.6 This means that we can directly train our arousal system by the way we breathe, chant, and move, a principle that has been utilized since time immemorial in places like China and India, and in every religious practice that I know of, but that is suspiciously eyed as “alternative” in mainstream culture.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
What was once a home she had taken apart one piece at a time, one day...She sold her belongings for money to buy food.  First the luxuries: a small statue, a picture.  Then the items with more utility: a lamp, a kettle.  Clothes left the closet at a rate of a garment a day…she burned everything in the basement first; then everything in the attic.  It lasted weeks, not months.  Though tempted, she left the roof alone.  She stripped the second floor, and the stairs.  She extracted every possible calorie from the kitchen.  she wasn’t working alone, because neighbourhood pirates simultaneously stole anything of value outside: door and window frames, fencing, stucco.  They pillaged her yard.  Breaking in was a boundary her neigbours had not yet crossed.  But the animals had.  Rats and mice and other vermin found the cracks without much effort.  Like her, they sought warmth and scraps of food.  With great reluctance, she roasted the ones she could catch.  She spent her nights fighting off the ones that escaped.
John Payton Foden (Magenta)
Remember the first time we kissed? he said. At the party. And I said I didn’t think the utility room was a good place to be kissing and we left. You know I went up to my room and waited for you, right? I mean for hours. And at first I really thought you would come. It was probably the most wretched I ever felt in my life, this kind of ecstatic wretchedness that in a way I was practically enjoying. Because even if you did come upstairs, what then? The house was full of people, it’s not like anything was going to happen. But every time I thought of going back down again I would imagine hearing you on the stairs, and I couldn’t leave, I mean I physically couldn’t. Anyway, how I felt then, knowing that you were close by and feeling completely paralyzed by it, this phone call was similar. If I told you where my car was right now, I don’t think I’d be able to leave, I think I would have to stay here just in case you changed your mind about everything. You know, I still have that impulse to be available to you. You'll notice I didn't buy anything in the supermarket.
Sally Rooney (Conversations with Friends)
So you make this deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.' Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction. A rain dance even more so. I thought I might finally have offended Loyd past the point of no return, like stealing the lobster from frozen foods that time, to get myself fired. But Loyd was just thinking. After a minute he said, 'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to cause them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance.' In balance.' Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with us.' And what is the deal?' I asked. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.' Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?' Exactly like that. 'Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one.
Barbara Kingsolver
Self discipline, punctuality and time management are very important - for life is short, and every resource you have must be well utilized so that you find enlightenment and liberation - your ultimate goal.
Dada J.P. Vaswani
To speak in nature's language, we must prioritize bio-based structural materials; biopolymers. Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. We're already utilizing them in products, pharma, and even in fashion. But to deploy them on the architectural scale, we need to invest in design and construction technologies that emulate their heirarchical properties by engineering real time chemical formation.
Neri Oxman
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead." Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise... There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now?" How can we go on without him?" In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, mo matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
One additional unit of income can do a hundred times as much to the benefit the extreme poor as it can to benefit you or I [earning the typical US wage of $28,000 or ‎£18,000 per year]. [I]t's not often you have two options, one of which is a hundred times better than the other. Imagine a happy hour where you could either buy yourself a beet for $5 or buy someone else a beer for 5¢. If that were the case, we'd probably be pretty generous – next round's on me! But that's effectively the situation we're in all the time. It's like a 99% off sale, or buy one, get ninety-nine free. It might be the most amazing deal you'll see in your life.
William MacAskill (Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference)
In a world where news of inhumanity bombards our sensibilities, where grasping for things goes so far beyond our needs, where time is squandered in busyness, it is a pleasure and a privilege to pause for a look at handiwork, to see beauty amidst utility, and to know that craft traditions begun so long ago serve us today.
John Wilson
I’m the son of a crime boss. Anything can disappear. This is an accepted fact, not that I’ve utilized that privilege. My father would be overjoyed if I did. But when it comes to her, I’ve learned that logic means nothing, and she wins every time.
V. Theia (Manhattan Muse (From Manhattan #8))
The tongue of a woodpecker can extend more than three times the length of its bill. When not in use, it retracts into the skull and its cartilage-like structure continues past the jaw to wrap around the bird’s head and then curve down to its nostril. In addition to digging out grubs from a tree, the long tongue protects the woodpecker’s brain. When the bird smashes its beak repeatedly into tree bark, the force exerted on its head is ten times what would kill a human. But its bizarre tongue and supporting structure act as a cushion, shielding the brain from shock.1 There is no reason you actually need to know any of this. It is information that has no real utility for your life, just as it had none for Leonardo. But I thought maybe, after reading this book, that you, like Leonardo, who one day put “Describe the tongue of the woodpecker” on one of his eclectic and oddly inspiring to-do lists, would want to know. Just out of curiosity. Pure curiosity.
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo Da Vinci)
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life.
Michel de Montaigne
But the world can’t comprehend a woman being that strong. We’re supposed to buckle and break, like the only time we can possibly have any strength is if there’s someone with a dick standing by our side. It’s like a penis is a prerequisite for an opinion, so if I don’t have one myself, I’ve got to be utilizing someone else’s in order to have any say-so in my own fucking life.
J.M. Darhower (Menace (Scarlet Scars, #1))
Every Assassin knew that real black often stood out in the dark, because the night in the city is usually never full black, and that gray or dark green merge much better. But they wore black anyway, because style trumps utility every time.
Terry Pratchett (Making Money (Discworld, #36; Moist Von Lipwig, #2))
It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]
John Adams (A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America)
Every innovation—technological, sociological, or otherwise—begins as a crusade, organizes itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world. What goes forgotten, though, is that those who partake in this system undergo a similar transformation: people begin as comrades and fellow citizens, then become labor resources and assets, and then, as their utility shifts or degrades, transmute into liabilities, and thus must be appropriately managed.
Robert Jackson Bennett (Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1))
a spider and a fly i heard a spider and a fly arguing wait said the fly do not eat me i serve a great purpose in the world you will have to show me said the spider i scurry around gutters and sewers and garbage cans said the fly and gather up the germs of typhoid influenza and pneumonia on my feet and wings then i carry these germs into households of men and give them diseases all the people who have lived the right sort of life recover from the diseases and the old soaks who have weakened their systems with liquor and iniquity succumb it is my mission to help rid the world of these wicked persons i am a vessel of righteousness scattering seeds of justice and serving the noblest uses it is true said the spider that you are more useful in a plodding material sort of way than i am but i do not serve the utilitarian deities i serve the gods of beauty look at the gossamer webs i weave they float in the sun like filaments of song if you get what i mean i do not work at anything i play all the time i am busy with the stuff of enchantment and the materials of fairyland my works transcend utility i am the artist a creator and demi god it is ridiculous to suppose that i should be denied the food i need in order to continue to create beauty i tell you plainly mister fly it is all damned nonsense for that food to rear up on its hind legs and say it should not be eaten you have convinced me said the fly say no more and shutting all his eyes he prepared himself for dinner and yet he said i could have made out a case for myself too if i had had a better line of talk of course you could said the spider clutching a sirloin from him but the end would have been just the same if neither of us had spoken at all boss i am afraid that what the spider said is true and it gives me to think furiously upon the futility of literature archy
Don Marquis (Archy and Mehitabel)
Every moment, if properly utilized, has the potential to transcend space and time.
Haresh Sippy
Multi-lateralism's dilemma: that the inclusion of more actors increases the legitimacy of a process or organization at the same time as it decreases its efficiency and utility.
Richard N. Haass (Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America's House in Order)
Be careful... any time you find yourself defining the "winner" as someone other than the agent who is currently smiling from on top of a giant heap of utility.
Eliezer Yudkowsky
O the ultimate evil in the temporal world is deeper than any specific evil, such as hatred, or suffering, or death! The ultimate evil is that Time is perpetual perishing, and being actual involves elimination. The nature of evil may be epitomized, therefore, in two simple but horrible and holy propositions: 'Things fade' and 'Alternatives exclude.' Such is His mystery: that beauty requires contrast, and that discord is fundamental to the creation of new intensities of feeling. Ultimate wisdom, I have come to perceive, lies in the perception that the solemnity and grandeur of the universe rise through the slow process of unification in which the diversities of existence are utilized, and nothing, 'nothing' is lost.
John Gardner (Grendel)
Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgment of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term "extermination camp," and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: "to lie on the bottom.
Primo Levi (If This Is a Man / The Truce)
It is my firm belief that magick can be utilized at almost any time if performed through one’s psychic faculties and willpower, as long as one has a firm understanding of the elements necessary.
Mat Auryn (Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation (Mat Auryn's Psychic Witch, 1))
Why then seek to complete in a few decades what took the other nations of the world thousands of years? Why, in your hurry to subdue and utilize nature, squander her splendid gifts? You have opportunities such as mankind has never had before, and may never have again.
James Bryce
I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some particular part of the past, and the danger of not getting back in time for your orals.
John Lewis Gaddis (The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past)
By combining supply chains, we maximize space utilized per vehicle, we streamline routes, we remove waste from the system, we do more in less time, and we provide superior value to the businesses in the network.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
So he must use what time he has creating now for the future and utilize the past only to help the future, not as a razor strop for guilts and fears that inhibit his very being. Or like it said at the end of a labor song I liked a lot when I was a kid: what I mean is, take it easy, but take it.
Charles Mingus (Beneath the Underdog)
Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgment of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term “extermination camp,” and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: “to lie on the bottom.
Primo Levi (Survival in Auschwitz)
As they walked, Tehol spoke. ‘…the assumption is the foundation stone of Letherii society, perhaps all societies the world over. The notion of inequity, my friends. For from inequity derives the concept of value, whether measured by money or the countless other means of gauging human worth. Simply put, there resides in all of us the unchallenged belief that the poor and the starving are in some way deserving of their fate. In other words, there will always be poor people. A truism to grant structure to the continual task of comparison, the establishment through observation of not our mutual similarities, but our essential differences. ‘I know what you’re thinking, to which I have no choice but to challenge you both. Like this. Imagine walking down this street, doling out coins by the thousands. Until everyone here is in possession of vast wealth. A solution? No, you say, because among these suddenly rich folk there will be perhaps a majority who will prove wasteful, profligate and foolish, and before long they will be poor once again. Besides, if wealth were distributed in such a fashion, the coins themselves would lose all value—they would cease being useful. And without such utility, the entire social structure we love so dearly would collapse. ‘Ah, but to that I say, so what? There are other ways of measuring self-worth. To which you both heatedly reply: with no value applicable to labour, all sense of worth vanishes! And in answer to that I simply smile and shake my head. Labour and its product become the negotiable commodities. But wait, you object, then value sneaks in after all! Because a man who makes bricks cannot be equated with, say, a man who paints portraits. Material is inherently value-laden, on the basis of our need to assert comparison—but ah, was I not challenging the very assumption that one must proceed with such intricate structures of value? ‘And so you ask, what’s your point, Tehol? To which I reply with a shrug. Did I say my discourse was a valuable means of using this time? I did not. No, you assumed it was. Thus proving my point!’ ‘I’m sorry, master,’ Bugg said, ‘but what was that point again?’ ‘I forget. But we’ve arrived. Behold, gentlemen, the poor.
Steven Erikson (Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5))
Supermodels were invented to sell shit to people,” Vivi said. “What’s the point of being a direct blood relative of one if I don’t occasionally utilize her for profit?
Krystal Sutherland (House of Hollow: The haunting New York Times bestseller)
Success is determined by how best you can utilize your time
Sunday Adelaja
Time utilization and effectiveness is a major marker for success
Sunday Adelaja
It was hard to get ahead when your energy and time were dedicated to keeping a roof over your head and the utilities on.
Grace Greene (Beach Rental (Emerald Isle, NC #1))
The day is 24 hours; 6 hours we sleep, so you have left 18 hours. So don’t ever give me this thing "I’m working 12 hours so I don’t have time to exercise and to work out." Or "I don’t have time to study another language" and all these kind of things. 18 hours; so utilize the 18 hours, that’s what I’ve always believed in, and I feel like that’s the only way you can get ahead.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Utilize    A noxious puff-word. Since it does nothing that good old use doesn’t do, its extra letters and syllables don’t make a writer seem smarter; rather, using utilize makes you seem either like a pompous twit or like someone so insecure that she’ll use pointlessly big words in an attempt to look sophisticated. The same is true for the noun utilization, for vehicle as used for car, for residence as used for house, for presently, at present, at this time, and at the present time as used for now, and so on. What’s worth remembering about puff-words is something that good writing teachers spend a lot of time drumming into undergrads: “formal writing” does not mean gratuitously fancy writing; it means clean, clear, maximally considerate writing.
David Foster Wallace
Even when she had to make some one a present of the kind called 'useful,' when she had to give an armchair or some table-silver or a walking-stick, she would choose 'antiques,' as though their long desuetude had effaced from them any semblance of utility and fitted them rather to instruct us in the lives of the men of other days than to serve the common requirements of our own.
Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
For a Siddhar yogi, time is precious. It is important to utilize every moment to evolve into ever higher states of consciousness. We understand stagnancy as decay and for growth, we constantly discard the old to welcome change as the new. We tap into the magical abilities to evolve. "Every saint was a sinner in the past" maxim holds true. In the intensity of our yogic pursuit we evolve quickly. By evolving, we know that is the greatest gift of a lifetime we could ever receive- to be angelic as a being of consciousness. Consciousness is ever evolving and dynamic in transforming.
Nandhiji (Mastery of Consciousness: Awaken the Inner Prophet: Liberate Yourself with Yogic Wisdom.)
Although we met on a dating application that has basically transferred the human mating experience onto a plasma screen that you hold in your hand,that fact does not make us desperate,lonely,or insufficient in any way.We are just two normal twenty- something utilizing the unusual means of our times to reach out and connect with others in a world suddenly made lonely by hyper-connectibity.
Seth King (The Summer Remains (The Summer Remains, #1))
All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But others remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next. To others she seems rather an evil but an irresistible enchantress: enticing, demanding payment and betraying her lover at the last. Some have seen her in a test tube, and some in a poet’s dream: some before the altar, others in the slime. The extreme pragmatists have even sought her in the kitchen; declaring that she may best be recognized by her utility. Last stage of all, the philosophic sceptic has comforted an unsuccessful courtship by assuring himself that his mistress is not really there.
Evelyn Underhill (Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness)
In simple straightforward terms Dan, you might say that he structured the material in terms of the ongoing situation to tangibilitate the utilization potential of this one to one instructional medium in such a meaningful learning experience that these kids won’t forget it for a hell of a long time, how's that Whiteback.
William Gaddis (J R)
Things accumulated in purses. Unless they were deliberately unloaded and all contents examined for utility occasionally, one could find oneself transporting around in one's daily life three lipstick cases with just a crumb of lipstick left, an old eyebrow pencil sharpener without a blade, pieces of defunct watch, odd earrings, handkerchiefs (three crumpled, one uncrumpled), two grubby powder puffs, bent hairpins, patterns of ribbon to be matched, a cigarette lighter without fuel (and two with fuel), a spark plug, some papers of Bex and a sprinkling of loose white aspirin, eleven train tickets (the return half of which had not been given up), four tram tickets, cinema and theatre stubs, seven pence three farthings in loose change and the mandatory throat lozenge stuck to the lining. At least, those had been the extra contents of Phyrne's bag the last time Dot had turned it out.
Kerry Greenwood (Murder in Montparnasse (Phryne Fisher, #12))
This is, perhaps, the utility of poets and artists. But let us now consider the pleasure they procure. Well then, this pleasure usually stems from the fact that they know how to hide, to dissimulate their usefulness, that they do not turn into professors or moralists. That they limit themselves to transmitting to you their own emotion, their surprise, their wonder, their sense of the unexpected, the fatal, even of the tragic in daily reality. That they do not propose for you to change it but only to see it - and this, in the same conditions of quiet, security, tranquility, comfort, equilibrium - evidently factitious - which you are enjoying then, at the same time.
Francis Ponge (Soap (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics))
Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply to such objections as this—that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every occasion on which anything has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments.
John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism)
Fear of this uncertainty motivates people to spin their wheels for days considering all the possible outcomes, calculating them in a spreadsheet using utility cost analysis or some other fancy method that even the guy who invented it doesn't use. But all that analysis just keeps you on the sidelines. Often you're better off flipping a coin and moving in any clear direction. Once you start moving, you get new data regardless of where you're trying to go. And the new data makes the next decision and the next better than staying on the sidelines desperately trying to predict the future without that time machine.
Berkun, Scott (The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work)
To give you an idea of my state of mind I can not do better than compare it to one of those rooms we see nowadays in which are collected and mingled the furniture of all times and countries. Our age has no impress of its own. We have impressed the seal of our time neither on our houses nor our gardens, nor on anything that is ours. On the street may be seen men who have their beards trimmed as in the time of Henry III, others who are clean-shaven, others who have their hair arranged as in the time of Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the gothic, the style of the Renaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. In short, we have every century except our own—a thing which has never been seen at any other epoch: eclecticism is our taste; we take everything we find, this for beauty, that for utility, another for antiquity, still another for its ugliness even, so that we live surrounded by debris, as if the end of the world were at hand.
Alfred de Musset (The Confession of a Child of the Century)
The author indicts "our culture's rush toward efficiency, speed, quantification, and distraction" and counters with the value of "the time and attention required to find the best words and images and then hold them together in ways that illuminate. This, she diagnoses, "is now wildly countercultural. It is inefficient. Its value is not readily quantifiable. Its utility is intangible.
Cherie Harder
In the new transportation system, car interiors will be like living rooms or meeting rooms. Since cars will be autonomous, passengers will be able to utilize the trip time to work, converse, socialize, write, be artistic or whatever else. Mayflower-Plymouth is making it happen.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
This time, something different happens, though. It’s the daydreaming that does it. I’m doing the usual thing—imagining in tiny detail the entire course of the relationship, from first kiss, to bed, to moving in together, to getting married (in the past I have even organized the track listing of the party tapes), to how pretty she’ll look when she’s pregnant, to names of children—until suddenly I realize that there’s nothing left to actually, like, happen. I’ve done it all, lived through the whole relationship in my head. I’ve watched the film on fast-forward; I know the whole plot, the ending, all the good bit. Now I’ve got to rewind and watch it all over again in real time, and where’s the fun in that? And fucking … when’s it all going to fucking stop? I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get them about once a quarter, along with the utilities bills. More than that, even, during British Summer Time. I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
Cooper: You're a scientist, Brand. Brand: So listen to me when I say that love isn't something that we invented. It's... observable, powerful. It has to mean something. Cooper: Love has meaning, yes. Social utility, social bonding, child rearing... Brand: We love people who have died. Where's the social utility in that? Cooper: None. Brand: Maybe it means something more - something we can't yet understand. Maybe it's some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can't consciously perceive. I'm drawn across the universe to someone I haven't seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it
Jonathan Nolan Christopher Nolan (Interstellar: The Complete Screenplay With Selected Storyboards)
We spend so much time trying to change others – in part – because we do not deeply believe in and embrace ourselves as we already are. And so more often than not we do not learn to trust and utilize our gifts and power whole-heartedly enough to pursue and fulfill our own passions, purpose and possibilities.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
Mechanized warfare still left room for human qualities to play an important part in the issue. ‘Automatic warfare’ cancels them out, except in a passive form. Archidamus is at last being justified. Courage, skill and patriotism become shrinking assets. The most virile nation might not be able to withstand another, inferior to it in all natural qualities, if the latter had some decisively superior technical appliance. (...)The advent of ‘automatic warfare’ should make plain the absurdity of warfare as a means of deciding nations’ claims to superiority. It blows away romantic vapourings about the heroic virtues of war, utilized by aggressive and ambitious leaders to generate a military spirit among their people. They can no longer claim that war is any test of a people’s fitness, or even of its national strength. Science has undermined the foundations of nationalism, at the very time when the spirit of nationalism is most rampant.
B.H. Liddell Hart (The Revolution in Warfare. (Praeger Security International))
A diagnosis is comforting because it provides a framework—a community, a lineage—and, if luck is afoot, a treatment or cure. A diagnosis says that I am crazy, but in a particular way: one that has been experienced and recorded not just in modern times, but also by the ancient Egyptians, who described a condition similar to schizophrenia in the Book of Hearts, and attributed psychosis to the dangerous influence of poison in the heart and uterus. The ancient Egyptians understood the importance of sighting patterns of behavior. Uterus, hysteria; heart, a looseness of association. They saw the utility of giving those patterns names.
Esmé Weijun Wang (The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays)
Looking back on the fifty years since I first became aware of its flaws, the word that summarizes my feelings about Neoclassical economics today is that it is, as Marx once described the proto-Neoclassical Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘dull’ [...] Its vision of capitalism at its best is a system manifesting the harmony of equilibrium, where everyone is paid their just return (their ‘marginal product’), growth is occurring smoothly at a rate that maximizes social utility through time, and everyone is motivated by consumption – rather than accumulation and power – because, to quote Say, ‘the producers, though they have all of them the air of demanding money for their goods, do in reality demand merchandise for their merchandise’ [...] What a bland picture of the complex, changing world in which we live!
Steve Keen (The New Economics: A Manifesto)
Every little thing now has to be about maximising your potential, and perfecting yourself, and honing yourself, and getting the best deal out of your life, and out of your body, and out of your precious fucking time. Everything’s a corporate retreat now. Everything has utility. You want to get fucked up and just escape your own existence for once, just check out of your life for a while, like every other human being who has ever lived? No. Even a fucking acid trip has to be a means to an end. It has to be about team-building. It has to be about trust and wellness and creativity. It has to be about your authentic journey towards physical and psychological perfection. It has to be about you asserting the integrity of your choice to do it in the first place. It can’t be a lapse of judgment. There are no lapses of judgment. It can’t be wrong. There are no wrongs. There’s just choice, and choice is neutral, and we’re neutral, and everything is neutral, and everything’s a game, and if you want to win the game then you’re going to have to optimise yourself, and actualise yourself, and utilise yourself, and get the edge, and God forbid that you should have an actual human experience of frailty, or mortality, or limitation, or humanity, or of the fucking onward march of time--those are just distractions, those are obstacles, they’re defects, they’re inconveniences in the face of our curated, bespoke, freely fucking chosen authentic existence, and sure, we can never quite decide if we’re the consumers of our lives or the products of them, but there’s one thing we are damn sure of, which is that nobody on earth has any right to pass any judgment on us, either way. Freedom in the marketplace! It’s the only thing that matters! It’s the only thing that exists!
Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood)
I'd failed to live up to the expectations of my parents. I had not utilized my education in any real way and I'd given up on my marriage. For the first time, I accepted that I could not meet the expectations of others and make myself happy at the same time. Being true to myself had led me here--onto a wild trail in the middle of the night--not into a nine-to-five and the creation of my own family. I hated myself for not being able to conform happily. I hated myself for trying and failing. I loved myself for choosing to do what was right for me, no matter the cost. I forgave myself for trying to please others when I knew it wasn't right for me.
Heather Anish Anderson (Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home)
We talk too much about love, but spend little time practising it. We debate too much about love, but spend little time utilizing it. We sermonize too much about love, but spend little time performing it. We write too much about love, but spend little time exercising it. We read too much about love, but spend little time implementing it.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Actually, the entire ascent of life can be presented as an adaptive radiation in the time dimension. From the beginning of replicating molecules to the formation of membrane-bounded cells, the formation of chromosomes, the origin of nucleated eukaryotes, the formation of multicellular organisms, the rise of endothermy, and the evolution of a large and highly complex central nervous system, each of these steps permitted the utilization of a different set of environmental resources, that is, the occupation of a different adaptive zone.
Ernst W. Mayr (What Evolution Is (Science Masters Series))
Utility is the great idol of the time, for which all powers slave and all talents must pay homage.
Friedrich Schiller
All possessions not at the same time beautiful and useful are an affront to human dignity.
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (Christian & Oriental Philosophy of Art Formerly: "Why Exhibit Works of Art?")
Utilize caution and patience in decision-making because temporary wrong decisions can bring you a lifetime of hurt and pain.
Germany Kent
Be disciplined and prudent in the way you manage your time
Sunday Adelaja
Time is a running factor; once it goes, it cannot be reclaimed
Sunday Adelaja
You have to discover how best you can manage your time to carry out your work effectively
Sunday Adelaja
100 Years Is Enough: Time to Make the Fed a Public Utility
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)
Le temps est un don des dieux, prêté à l'homme pour qu'il en tire parti, pour qu'il en tire un parti utile, ingénieur, au service du progrès de l'humanité.
Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain)
Don't spend time its very precious - utilize it constructively.
Amit Abraham
claims is found in his patent for an “Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy” Number 685,957,that was filed for on March 21, 1901 and granted on November 5, 1901.
Tim R. Swartz (The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla: Time Travel - Alternative Energy and the Secret of Nazi Flying Saucers)
The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information and a broader range of feelings, utilize more resources, take better care of themselves, and make deeper changes.
Laura Davis (Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Is a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse – A Compassionate Guide for Partners on Trust and Intimacy)
Transportation at its best facilitates the efficient flow of resources, the efficient movement of people, and the efficient utilization of time. Thats why we do what we do at Mayflower-Plymouth. It’t just about cars and bicycles. Its about efficiency. Its about the improvement of the human experience. And ultimately its about the evolution of our planetary civilization.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
In nature, capital is never stagnant. Capital exists in service to life - at all times. It's a medium of utility, not a souvineer. The capital in our portfolio should work in the same way.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Investing, The Permaculture Way: Mayflower-Plymouth's 12 Principles of Permaculture Investing)
Those who connect more frequently with their needs and are in constant conversation with their own beings, they can establish a parameter of what kind of workout and effort must be applied, of what amount of energy disposed and to be utilized, it will serve many times as a thermometer for those who listen to their bodies needs and feel what the internal thermostat is saying.
Ana Claudia Antunes (The Tao of Physical and Spiritual)
The utility of money changes over time, and it does so in a fairly predictable way: Starting sometime in your twenties, your health very subtly starts to decline, causing a corresponding decline in your ability to enjoy money. Ability to Enjoy Experiences Based on Health Everyone's health declines with age. Wealth, on the other hand, tends to grow over the years as people save up more and more. But worsening health gradually constrains your enjoyment of that wealth as more and more physical activities become impossible to enjoy, no matter how much money you can afford to spend on them.
Bill Perkins (Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life)
Mum was right, he didn't need these relics of mundanity, but I understood his inclination to hold on to them. I too had shoe boxes of cinema tickets from first dates with Joe and utility bills from flats I no longer lived in. I'd never known why they were important, but they were - they felt like proof of life lived, in case a time came when it was needed, like a driving license or a passport.
Dolly Alderton (Ghosts)
Still, the ground beneath me felt unsteady, as though at any moment it could shake and easily take me to the ground. I stumbled upon what Zen priest and author Susan Murphy calls the koan of the earth. How do we answer the riddle of our times? How do we sift through the shards of our broken culture, our fragmented psyches, and come once again into “our original undividedness and the freedom it bestows, right there in the suffocating fear itself.”90 This was the question at the heart of my despair, ripening in the vessel of my sorrow. What felt different this time was the interior experience of the grief and despair. It was not centered on personal losses—my history, wounds, losses, failures, and disappointments. It was arising from the greater pulse of the earth itself, winding its way through sidewalks and grocery lists, traffic snarls and utility bills. Somewhere in all the demands of modern life, the intimate link between earth and psyche was being reestablished or, more accurately, remembered. The conditioned fantasy of the segregated self was being dismantled, and I was being reunited, through the unexpected grace of fear, despair, and grief, with the body of the earth.
Francis Weller (The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief)
I believe that the proper utilization of time is this: if you can, serve other people, other sentient beings. If not, at least refrain from harming them. I think that is the whole basis of my philosophy.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Art of Happiness: The classic handbook for living well from the world's most-loved spiritual leader)
The key to sustained and profitable growth is to find a repeatable formula that utilizes the most powerful and differentiated strengths in your core and applies them to a series of new "adjacent" markets.
Chris Zook (Profit from the Core: A Return to Growth in Turbulent Times)
Shinobi from the first have been utilized by generals since ancient times with a great emphasis. It is the case that one man and his strategy can destroy tens of thousand of enemies, attain virtue and achievements, or make his way where there is no path. Even if you try to block these men with an iron gate, they can outwit you in such a skilled way, as if guided by a divine power. None could do better than them.
Yoshie Minami (The Secret Traditions of the Shinobi: Hattori Hanzo's Shinobi Hiden and Other Ninja Scrolls)
Usefulness is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don't think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us. We keep pets for the pleasure of looking after them; we voluntarily feed extra mouths and scoop up excrement in little plastic bags, declaring it relaxing. We channel our adoration towards the most helpless citizens of all—babies and children—for reasons that have nothing to do with their future utility. We flourish in caring, on doling out love. The most helpless members of our families and communities are what stick us together. It's how we thrive. Our winters are social glue.
Katherine May (Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times)
There was a man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, “What can we do now? How can we go on without him?
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
The mystery is how a [theory] that is vulnerable to such obvious counterexamples survived for so long. I can explain it only by a weakness of the scholarly mind that I have often observed in myself. I call it theory-induced blindness: once you have accepted a theory and used it as a tool in your thinking, it is extraordinarily difficult to notice its flaws. If you come upon an observation that does not seem to fit the model, you assume that there must be a perfectly good explanation that you are somehow missing. You give the theory the benefit of the doubt, trusting the community of experts who have accepted it. Many scholars have surely thought at one time or another of stories such as [the above examples], and casually noted that these stories did not jibe with utility theory. But they did not pursue the idea to the point of saying, “This theory is seriously wrong because it ignores the fact that utility depends on the history of one’s wealth, not only on present wealth.” As the psychologist Daniel Gilbert observed, disbelieving is hard work, and System 2 is easily tired.
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
What’s exciting is the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there’s now a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it’s time to die, there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There’s only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least you can do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it.
Isaac Asimov
Pure capitalism is great at rewarding the creative utilization of capital by one group of people in service to another according to present gross utility and refined use cases. But pure capitalism does not address the intentional placement of boundaries or the intentional facilitation of productive interactions accounting for net utility and holistic use cases. This is why pure capitalism at times is threatened by or presents threats to a variety of social and ecological ecosystems. And this is why permaculture economics is superior to pure capitalism, as it contains all of the benefits of capitalism plus some benefits that capitalism does not provide .
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Principles of a Permaculture Economy)
In my travels on the surface, I once met a man who wore his religious beliefs like a badge of honor upon the sleeves of his tunic. "I am a Gondsman!" he proudly told me as we sat beside eachother at a tavern bar, I sipping my wind, and he, I fear, partaking a bit too much of his more potent drink. He went on to explain the premise of his religion, his very reason for being, that all things were based in science, in mechanics and in discovery. He even asked if he could take a piece of my flesh, that he might study it to determine why the skin of the drow elf is black. "What element is missing," he wondered, "that makes your race different from your surface kin?" I think that the Gondsman honestly believed his claim that if he could merely find the various elements that comprised the drow skin, he might affect a change in that pigmentation to make the dark elves more akin to their surface relatives. And, given his devotion, almost fanaticism, it seemed to me as if he felt he could affect a change in more than physical appearance. Because, in his view of the world, all things could be so explained and corrected. How could i even begin to enlighten him to the complexity? How could i show him the variations between drow and surface elf in the very view of the world resulting from eons of walking widely disparate roads? To a Gondsman fanatic, everything can be broken down, taken apart and put back together. Even a wizard's magic might be no more than a way of conveying universal energies - and that, too, might one day be replicated. My Gondsman companion promised me that he and his fellow inventor priests would one day replicate every spell in any wizard's repertoire, using natural elements in the proper combinations. But there was no mention of the discipline any wizard must attain as he perfects his craft. There was no mention of the fact that powerful wizardly magic is not given to anyone, but rather, is earned, day by day, year by year and decade by decade. It is a lifelong pursuit with gradual increase in power, as mystical as it is secular. So it is with the warrior. The Gondsman spoke of some weapon called an arquebus, a tubular missile thrower with many times the power of the strongest crossbow. Such a weapon strikes terror into the heart of the true warrior, and not because he fears that he will fall victim to it, or even that he fears it will one day replace him. Such weapons offend because the true warrior understands that while one is learning how to use a sword, one should also be learning why and when to use a sword. To grant the power of a weapon master to anyone at all, without effort, without training and proof that the lessons have taken hold, is to deny the responsibility that comes with such power. Of course, there are wizards and warriors who perfect their craft without learning the level of emotional discipline to accompany it, and certainly there are those who attain great prowess in either profession to the detriment of all the world - Artemis Entreri seems a perfect example - but these individuals are, thankfully, rare, and mostly because their emotional lacking will be revealed early in their careers, and it often brings about a fairly abrupt downfall. But if the Gondsman has his way, if his errant view of paradise should come to fruition, then all the years of training will mean little. Any fool could pick up an arquebus or some other powerful weapon and summarily destroy a skilled warrior. Or any child could utilize a Gondsman's magic machine and replicate a firebal, perhaps, and burn down half a city. When I pointed out some of my fears to the Gondsman, he seemed shocked - not at the devastating possibilities, but rather, at my, as he put it, arrogance. "The inventions of the priests of Gond will make all equal!" he declared. "We will lift up the lowly peasant
R.A. Salvatore (Streams of Silver (Forgotten Realms: The Icewind Dale, #2; Legend of Drizzt, #5))
Women are likely to be able to receive such messages more than others, because in them the intellect is more firmly planted in the body and the inborn will. Many times this means they are, more than others, slaves of utility, but it also means they live more in the moment, less encumbered by concepts and abstractions, have more access to direct perception of things. They can see through many lies and can know people’s intentions before they know what they want themselves.
Bronze Age Pervert (Bronze Age Mindset)
It is only a matter of time before utility smart meter health damage lawsuits start winning in large numbers, and when they do they will have no option but to shut down the known biologically toxic smart meter radio frequency (RF) industry.
Steven Magee
I leaned against the SUV he was working on. “So….” “So?” he asked, looking back down at the tablet. “How rich are we?” He snorted. “Get back to work.” And I was going to do just that, except that Kelly Bennett decided to appear right at that moment. Wearing a deputy’s uniform. Tight green pants with a tan button-up shirt that pulled against his torso. He had a mic clipped near his shoulder and a black utility belt around his waist. He wasn’t carrying a gun, but I barely noticed because at that exact moment, I discovered my legs decided to quit working and I tripped and fell into the side of the SUV. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at me. “Sorry,” I said quickly, using the SUV to pull myself back up. And immediately hit the top of my head on the open hood. “Son of a bitch.” “What are you doing?” Gordo asked slowly. I laughed wildly. “Nothing! It’s nothing. Just… don’t even worry about it.” He turned toward the front of the garage. “Oh no,” he said when he saw who was standing there. “Not this again.” He pointed the tablet at Kelly. “I swear to god, if I find an animal carcass brought here at any point, I will make both your lives a living hell. Do you understand me? I’m getting too old for this shit.” “I can’t believe we have to watch this all over again,” Chris said to Tanner. “It was bad enough the first time. Remember when Robbie figured out that he wanted to put himself all over Kelly?” “Yeah,” Tanner said. “How could I forget? We had to tell Ms. Martin that her side mirror was broken by accident instead of telling her the truth, that Robbie got a weird wolf boner and forgot his own strength.” “Maybe it’ll be like it was with Ox and Joe,” Rico said, tapping a socket wrench against his hand. “Mini muffins, you know? I ate, like, ten of them.” Chris looked scandalized. “You did what? That was one of their mystical moon magic presents! You don’t touch another man’s mystical moon magic present, Rico. They could have killed you, or worse, gotten confused and made you their mate.” He frowned. “Are there werewolf threesomes? That sounds complicated. Too many limbs. I don’t know anything about being a wolf.
T.J. Klune (Heartsong (Green Creek, #3))
One of the most outstanding aspects of Ayurveda is its teaching that nothing is absolute. The utility, value and effect of anything is relative. Hence, the efficacy of its healing is dependent on the receiver, the time and the environment. It
Om Swami (The Wellness Sense: A Practical Guide to Your Physical and Emotional Health Based on Ayurvedic and Yogic Wisdom)
Here in America all pay lip service to the first, optimistic, tendency. Nevertheless, the second group is strongly represented. It appears on the scene everywhere, though for the most part it hides its true nature. Its aim is political and spiritual dominion over the people by a minority, by the circuitous route of control over the means of production. Its proponents have already tried to utilize the weapon of anti-Semitism as well as of hostility to various other groups. They will repeat the attempt in times to come. So far all such tendencies have failed because of the people’s sound political instinct. And so it will remain in the future, if we cling to the rule: Beware of flatterers, especially when they come preaching hatred.
Albert Einstein (Essays in Humanism)
There's folly in her stride that's the rumor justified by lies I've seen her up close beneath the sheets and sometime during the summer she was mine for a few sweet months in the fall and parts of December ((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. ))) I found her looking through a window the same window I'd been looking through She smiled and her eyes never faltered this folly was a crime ((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” ))) She had an identity I could identify with something my fingertips could caress in the night ((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other. What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. ))) Have you heard the argument? This displacement of men and women and women and men the minds we all have the beliefs we all share Slipping inside of us thoughts and religions and bodies all bare ((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,” he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. ))) When she left she kissed with eyes open I knew this because I'd done the same Sometimes we saw eye to eye like that Very briefly, she considered an apotheosis a synthesis a rendering of her folly into solidarity ((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. ))) Experiencing the subsequent sunrise inhaling and drinking breaking mirrors and regurgitating just to start again all in all I was just another gash in the bark ((( Plato once said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. ))) Leaving town and throwing shit out the window drinking boroughs and borrowing spare change I glimpsed the rear view mirror stole a glimpse really I've believed in looking back for a while it helps to have one last view a reminder in case one ever decides to rebel in the event the self regresses and makes the declaration of devastation once more ((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. )))
Dave Matthes (Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories)
The time is coming when it will hardly be possible to write a book of philosophy as it has been done for so long: "Ah! the old style.... " The search for new means of philosophical expression was begun by Nietzsche and must be pursued today in relation to the renewal of certain other arts, such as the theater or the cinema. In this context, we can now raise the question of the utilization of the history of philosophy. It seems to us that the history of philosophy should play a role roughly analogous to that of collage in painting.
Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition)
Each year, humanity died a little more. ChronoCom’s charter was to fight that decline, yet things had never gotten better. Every year, there was a little less power to utilize. People went hungry a little longer. Lived lives a little harder. They were losing this war.
Wesley Chu (Time Salvager (Time Salvager, #1))
[The Real Thing] But when it came time to Patton to lay down his vocals, Wallace was surprised to hear that Patton had opted to utilize a peculiar singing voice. Wallace: "He was singing really nasally and also, his pitch on record was not as good as I knew it could be. I was just like, 'Why don't you just hit the notes?' And he goes, 'No man, this is my style.' Because he'd sing the song on tape, and he'd do this amazing, really full voice. I'm like, 'That's the voice! Get that on the darn tape!' He was like, 'No man, I don't want to do it'.
Greg Prato (The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion)
I inadvertently had a very high dose of environmental transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) when commissioning a very high powered utility electronic power plant and I can assure you that it can do very strange things to your thinking and the effects last a very long time!
Steven Magee (Solar Radiation, Global Warming and Human Disease)
Every little thing now has to be about maximising your potential, and perfecting yourself, and honing yourself, and getting the best deal out of your life, and out of your body, and out of your precious fucking time. Everything’s a corporate retreat now. Everything has utility.
Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood)
It is a refinement of Jeremy Bentham’s formulation of utilitarianism, the idea that all humans tend to gravitate toward what make them happy, and to stay away from what hurts them. On that account, trekonomics could be seen as the highest form of utilitarianism. The Federation is organized in such a way that every one of its citizens gets a chance to maximize his or her own utility. Since almost nothing is scarce, the necessity to make choices on budgeting and spending is removed from everyday life. The only thing that one really needs to decide upon is how to balance the goal of bettering oneself vis-à-vis the injunction to better humanity. In other words, the biggest challenge for every Federation citizen resides in how to allocate his or her talents, time, and capacity for empathy, and how to best contribute to the common wealth.
Manu Saadia (Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek)
people in management positions, even very senior management positions, are often completely wrong about the fortunes of their own companies. More important, in making these misjudgments, they almost always err on the side of excessive optimism. They think their businesses are in much better shape than they actually are. Jerry’s rig utilization chart at Global Marine and our own CFO’s boasts about Joe DiMaggio only underscored this lesson for me at the time. And, three decades and over 1,400 meetings with other executives later, I can say this tendency is as pronounced as ever.
Scott Fearon (Dead Companies Walking: How a Hedge Fund Manager Finds Opportunity in Unexpected Places)
He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man’s love when you have removed his self-love. There was a man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, “What can we do now? How can we go on without him?
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
To achieve SEAL-worthy success, you must: • establish your set point, turning a deep sense of values and purpose into a touchstone that will keep your feet in the sand and your eyes on the goal • develop front-sight focus so nothing can derail you on your way to victory • bulletproof your mission to inoculate your efforts against failure • do today what others won’t so you can achieve tomorrow what others can’t • get mentally and emotionally tough, and eliminate the “quit” option from your subconscious • break things and remake them, improving them through innovation and adaptation • build your intuition to utilize the full range of your innate wisdom and intelligence • think offense, all the time, to surprise your competition and dominate the field • train for life to develop mastery of your physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual selves Though many of the
Mark Divine (The WAY OF THE SEAL UPDATED AND EXPANDED EDITION: Think Like an Elite Warrior to Lead and Succeed)
In a future society, in which class antagonism will have ceased, in which there will no longer be any classes, use will no longer be determined by the minimum time of production; but the time of social production devoted to different articles will be determined by the degree of their social utility.
Karl Marx (The Poverty of Philosophy)
There is new research being conducted having to do with starving cancer cells through fasting. Cancer cells can only utilize glucose, and not glycogen or ketone bodies. Moreover, cancer cells are 20–30 times less efficient at glucose utilization than normal cells. Cancer cells are real sugar addicts.
Richard Nikoley (Free The Animal: Lose Weight & Fat With The Paleo Diet (aka The Caveman Diet) V2 - NEWLY EXPANDED & UPDATED)
If something does not directly differentiate you from your competition and drive business value creation, see if there is an AWS building block that can take care of it for you. There probably is. Then use that building block instead of wasting your time and effort recreating something that is a utility.
Jonathan Allen (Reaching Cloud Velocity: A Leader's Guide to Success in the AWS Cloud)
You are alive! True magic involves the reduction of properties to simplicity – making them transmutable so that they can be utilized in fresh directions, bearing fruit many times. Know deliberation, self-consciousness and concentration to be antithetical to magic, and sycophancy to be a way of making stupid.
Austin Osman Spare (Book of Pleasure in Plain English)
Did I develop my own set of random assumptions by utilizing the very little information available to me? For example, Leo Vodnik had held a magazine titled Construction Engineering Australia. Men are ten times more likely than women to die at work. Is that all it took for me to predict a “workplace accident” as his cause of death? Ethan Chang had his arm in a cast. Was it his injury that made me choose “assault,” together with the fact that injury and violence is a leading cause of death for young adult men? I know I watched Kayla Halfpenny at the airport and saw her knock over her drink and then her phone. Was it my observation of the sweet girl’s clumsiness together with the fact that road traffic injuries are one of the leading causes of death among young adults that led me to say “car accident”? Did I simply make random choices? Is that what led me to pancreatic cancer, the most feared cancer, for the vibrant woman who reminded me of my friend Jill, and breast cancer for the pregnant woman? Did I temporarily believe I was Madame Mae? I must have been thinking of my mother, because I kept saying “fate won’t be fought.” Had I somehow become a strange alchemy of the two of us? Both of us, after all, specialized in predictions.
Liane Moriarty (Here One Moment)
All living things need an atmosphere around them, a secret circle of darkness. If this veil is taken from them, if people condemn a religion, an art, a genius to orbit like a star without an atmosphere, then we should no longer wonder about their rapid decay and the way they become hard and barren. That is the way it is now with all great things which never succeed without some delusion. But every people, indeed every person, who wishes to become mature needs such an enveloping delusion, such a protecting and veiling cloud. But today people generally despise becoming mature, because they honour history more than living. Indeed, people exult over the fact that now 'science is beginning to rule over living'. It is possible that people will attain that goal but it is certain that a life so governed is not worth much, because it is much less living and it establishes a life for the future far less than does the previous life governed not by knowledge but by instinct and powerful illusory images. But, as stated, it is clearly not to be the era of fully developed and mature people, of harmonious personalities, but the era of common work which is as useful as possible. That, however, amounts only to the fact that people are to be trained for the purposes of the time, in order to get to work with their hands as promptly as possible. They are to labour in the factories of the universal utilities before they are mature, that is, so that they really no longer become mature, because this would be a luxury, which would deprive the 'labour market' of a lot of power.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Untimely Meditations)
People accept the facts which come to them through existing channels. They like to hear new things in accustomed ways. They have neither the time nor the inclination to search for facts that are not readily available to them. The expert, therefore, must advise first upon the form of action desirable for his client and secondly must utilize the established mediums of communication, in order to present to the public a point of view. This is true whether it is that of a majority or minority, old or new personality, institution or group which desires to change by modification or intensification the store of knowledge and the opinion of the public.
Edward L. Bernays (Crystallizing Public Opinion)
Some writers, even some poets, become famous public figures, but writers as such have no social status, in the way that doctors and lawyers, whether famous or obscure, have. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the so-called fine arts have lost the social utility they once had. Since the invention of printing and the spread of literacy, verse no longer has a utility value as a mnemonic, a devise by which knowledge and culture were handed on from one generation to the next, and, since the invention of the camera, the draughtsman and painter are no longer needed to provide visual documentation; they have, consequently, become “pure” arts, that is to say, gratuitous activities. Secondly, in a society governed by the values appropriate to Labor (capitalist America may well be more completely governed by these than communist Russia) the gratuitous is no longer regarded – most earlier cultures thought differently – as sacred, because, to Man the Laborer, leisure is not sacred but a respite from laboring, a time for relaxation and the pleasures of consumption. In so far such a society thinks about the gratuitous at all, it is suspicious of it – artists do not labor, therefore, they are probably parasitic idlers – or, at best, regards it as trivial – to write poetry or paint pictures is a harmless private hobby.
W.H. Auden (The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays)
There is part of the Manuscript that has never been found. There were eight insights with the original text, but one more insight, the Ninth, was mentioned there. Many people have been searching for it.” “Do you know where it is?” “No, not really.” “Then how are you going to find it?” Wil smiled. “The same way Jose found the original eight. The same way you found the first two, and then ran into me. If one can connect and build up enough energy, then coincidental events begin to happen consistently.” “Tell me how to do that,” I said. “Which insight is it?” Will looked at me as if assessing my level of understanding. “How to connect is not just one insight; it’s all of them. Remember in the Second Insight where it describes how explorers would be sent out into the world utilizing the scientific method to discover the meaning of human life on this planet? But they would not return right away?” “Yes.” “Well, the remainder of the insights represent the answers finally coming back. But they aren’t just coming from institutional science. The answers I’m talking about are coming from many different areas of inquiry. The findings of physics, psychology, mysticism, and religion are all coming together into a new synthesis based on a perception of the coincidences. “We’re learning the details of what the coincidences mean, how they work, and as we do we’re constructing a whole new view of life, insight by insight.” “Then I want to hear about each insight,” I said. “Can you explain them to me before you go?” “I’ve found it doesn’t work that way. You must discover each one of them in a different way.” “How?” “It just happens. It wouldn’t work for me to just tell you. You might have the information about each of them but you wouldn’t have the insights. You have to discover them in the course of your own life.” We stared at each other in silence. Wil smiled. Talking with him made me feel incredibly alive. “Why are you going after the Ninth Insight now?” I asked. “It’s the right time. I have been a guide here and I know the terrain and I understand all eight insights. When I was at my window over the alley, thinking of Jose, I had already decided to go north one more time. The Ninth Insight is out there. I know it. And I’m not getting any younger. Besides, I’ve envisioned myself finding it and achieving what it says. I know it is the most important of the insights. It puts all the others into perspective and gives us the true purpose of life.” He paused suddenly, looking serious. “I would have left thirty minutes earlier but I had this nagging feeling that I had forgotten something.” He paused again. “That’s precisely when you showed up.
James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy (Celestine Prophecy, #1))
We’ve been through so much together I’ve seen you grow into someone you thought you’d never be I’ve seen you endure challenges most will never see Mocked by your peers for being from a different culture Feeling deserted, you searched for ways to adapt and become accepted You resorted to fitting in instead of making a stand for your true self You’ve made countless mistakes in pursuit of acceptance To me, it was undeniable you were meant to be a misfit You dove into finding your talents and utilizing them Unapologetically, you began making your mark during your middle school years Discovering your skills as a runner made a way for you to flee from the norm Racing hard and your pace in this life Hurdle after hurdle, you never stopped jumping and running towards the finish line You lost focus numerous times running someone else’s race, matching their suicidal pace, but over time you opened your eyes and ran your race in your lane You used failures as your stepping stone to climb up to where you are now and where you’re going I love you, I love you even when you hate you Thank you for staying true to you, never justifying your flaws and running away from your consequences You’ve taught me so much. I’m proud of you I love you so much. Thank you for being a friend, an example, a brother Thank you for being the man you are now. I love you, man in the mirror
Pierre Alex Jeanty (Unspoken Feelings of a Gentleman)
Gross rental income (including utilities fee) –  Mortgage payment (including principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) – Cost of utilities –  Vacancy allowance (10 percent of gross rents) –  Maintenance and CapEx (estimated at 1 percent of the property’s value, divided by 12 for monthly cost) –  Property management (10 percent of gross rents) Cash flow
Scott Trench (First-Time Home Buyer: The Complete Playbook to Avoiding Rookie Mistakes)
I thought if I knew more my problem would be simplified, and maybe I should complete my formal education. But since I’ve been working for Robey I have reached the conclusion that I couldn’t utilize even ten percent of what I already knew. I’ll give you an example. I read about King Arthur’s Round Table when I was a kid, but what am I ever going to do about it? My heart was touched by sacrifice and pure attempts, so what should I do? Or take the Gospels. How are you supposed to put them to use? Why, they’re not utilizable! And then you go and pile on top of that more advice and information. Anything that just adds information that you can’t use is plain dangerous. Anyway, there’s too much of everything of this kind, that’s come home to me, too much history and culture to keep track of, too many details, too much news, too much example, too much influence, too many guys who tell you to be as they are, and all this hugeness, abundance, turbulence, Niagara Falls torrent. Which who is supposed to interpret? Me? I haven’t got that much head to master it all. I get carried away. It doesn’t give my feelings enough of a chance if I have to store up and become like an encyclopedia. Why, just as a question of time spent in getting prepared for life, look! a man could spend forty, fifty, sixty years like that inside the walls of his own being. And all great experience would only take place within the walls of his being. And all high conversation would take place within those walls. And all achievement would stay within those walls. And all glamour too. And even hate, monstrousness, enviousness, murder, would be inside them. This would be only a terrible, hideous dream about existing. It’s better to dig ditches and hit other guys with your shovel than die in the walls.
Saul Bellow
Or maybe it’s a ploy to get more sex.” She gave him a look that curled his chopsticks. “Maybe it’s working,” she said. “Maybe I’ll slip into something more comfortable,” he said. “Not that Batman mask again.” “Aw, c’mon, you can wear the utility belt.” She thought about it. “Okay, but no stopping in the middle and shouting, ‘Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.’ 
Harlan Coben (One False Move (Myron Bolitar, #5))
The Eight Guiding Principles to Living a Spiritually Reliable Life: 1) I am committed to Divine higher guidance and I understand that I co-create my life with the Divine. 2) I am willing to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 3) I operate from a high level intention to serve. 4) My contribution to the world is an up level and I ask myself: How can I serve, rather than what can I get? 5) I take time to breathe, get calm and quiet my mind in order to hear God’s whispers. 6) I hear, feel, see and sense Divine guidance as it arrives. 7) I show up where God needs me next, and in doing so, this allows my life to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 8) I know that I am always connected to the Divine without interruption and there is no place God is not.
Richard Seaman (Spiritual Reliability - Learning to Become God's Employee)
Even his own mother had passed during childbirth, so to a young man who couldn’t possibly know any better, the gift of a lonesome life was always to be valued over the death of living otherwise. That sentiment was etched so deeply in his heart that it took Eamon years of painful adjustment to understand that nobody really cared enough about him to wish him any sort of hereditary mortal harm, and though that gave him some solace from his childhood anxieties, it also made him feel somehow more insignificant. There were times when he wished he was the center of some grand conspiracy, if only to feel like the focus of something other than a handful of utility bills at the end of the month. Times when he wished that somebody would pay enough attention to hate him. Anything really.
Jonathan Edward Durham (Winterset Hollow)
You're not paying attention to me, are you?" "Eh? What's that? Sorry, love, I didn't hear you. Wasn't paying attention. I had my eyes on your perfectly formed arse." Catherine fixed him with a glare worthy of a Scottish schoolmaster. "This is serious business Jamie. If you've to pass for a Highlander, you've got to get the kilt just so," "Bah! You're a hoydenish vixen. You just want to ogle my knees." "Nonsense. I'm sure you'll find the ah... freedom and... utility very appealing once you try it on." "You mean you think I'll like the feel of the family jewels waving free?" Blushing, she spread both great kilts on the ground. "One lays down on it like so. Oh stop grinning, Jamie, and do try." She was so earnest and eager in her lesson that he hadn't the heart to tell her he'd worn a kilt a time or two before.
Judith James (Highland Rebel)
The UCLA historian Christopher Ehret has applied this linguistic approach to determining the sequence in which domestic plants and animals became utilized by the people of each African language family. By a method termed glotto-chronology, based on calculations of how rapidly words tend to change over historical time, comparative linguistics can even yield estimated dates for domestications or crop arrivals.
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies)
The difference between successful people and those who are not is not a matter of how often they fail. Instead, it is a matter of how many times they try. Successful people fail just as often, perhaps more so because they keep picking themselves up again and again. They keep trying new things until at last they find something that works. They push past the negative attitudes and depression that comes with failure.
LaRae Quy (Mental Toughness for Women Leaders: 52 Tips To Recognize and Utilize Your Greatest Strengths)
Prior to modern times, the term 'Islamic' (Islami in Arabic) was almost never used to define the provenance, status, or substance of things. There was no such thing as 'Islamic art', 'Islamic economics', or even 'Islamic law.' ... The encounter with the modern West, however, ultimately changed the status of 'Islamic.' Inasmuch as the rise of the West converted the achievements of Darwin, Descartes, and Hegel from mere English, French, or German achievements into explicitly 'Western' ones, it also engendered the need for a parallel convention for demarcating the non-Western 'other.' The Western provenance of the modern neologism 'Islamic' is perhaps best revealed in its tendency to connote geography and ethnicity. 'Islamic', in other words, connotes not simply that which is related to or a product of Islam as a religion but that which relates to a particularly non-European people in a non-European part of the world. In this capacity, it carries both a descriptive and a prescriptive force... For no modern Muslim nor non-Muslim would include the likes of such Arab Christians as Michel Aflaq or San' Allah Ibrahim among the 'thinkers of Islam.' Rather, in Western parlance, the modern 'Islamic' began as an instrument to demarcate the boundary between the west and a particular set of 'others.' In Muslim hands, it would go on to evolve into a full-blown signifier of normative Islam and a tool for delineating the boundary between it and Islam. Its added utility, moreover, as a mechanism for elevating the achievements of Muslims to the level of a civilization rivaling that of Europe rendered it all the more irresistible and gained for it universal acceptance throughout the Muslim world.
Sherman A. Jackson (Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection)
The Sumerians considered themselves destined to “clothe and feed” such gods, because they viewed themselves as the servants, in a sense, of what we would call instinctive forces, “elicited” by the “environment.” Such forces can be reasonably regarded as the Sumerians regarded them—as deities inhabiting a “supracelestial place,” extant prior to the dawn of humanity. Erotic attraction, for example—a powerful god—has a developmental history that predates the emergence of humanity, is associated with relatively “innate” releasing “stimuli” (those that characterize erotic beauty), is of terrible power, and has an existence “transcending” that of any individual who is currently “possessed.” Pan, the Greek god of nature, produced/represented fear (produced “panic”); Ares or the Roman Mars, warlike fury and aggression. We no longer personify such “instincts,” except for the purposes of literary embellishment, so we don't think of them “existing” in a “place” (like heaven, for example). But the idea that such instincts inhabit a space—and that wars occur in that space—is a metaphor of exceeding power and explanatory utility. Transpersonal motive forces do wage war with one another over vast spans of time; are each forced to come to terms with their powerful “opponents” in the intrapsychic hierarchy. The battles between the different “ways of life” (or different philosophies) that eternally characterize human societies can usefully be visualized as combat undertaken by different standards of value (and, therefore, by different hierarchies of motivation). The “forces” involved in such wars do not die, as they are “immortal”: the human beings acting as “pawns of the gods” during such times are not so fortunate.
Jordan B. Peterson (Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief)
As was foreshadowed in Paragraphs 1 and 4, Cantor, and Dedekind's near-simultaneous appearance in math is more or less the Newton + Leibniz thing all over again, a sure sign that the Time Was Right for (Infinity)-type sets. Just as striking is the Escherian way the two men's work dovetails. Cantor is able to define and ground the concepts of 'infinite set' and 'transfinite number,' and to establish rigorous techniques for combining and comparing different types of (Infinity)s, which is just where Dedekind's def. of irrationals needs shoring up. Pro quo, the schnitt technique demonstrates that actually-infinite sets can have real utility in analysis. That, in other words, as sensuously and cognitively abstract as they must remain, (Infinity)s can nevertheless function in math as practical abstractions rather than as just weird paradoxical flights of fancy.
David Foster Wallace (Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity)
Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
Beyond 60% utilization, the average response time doubles. By 80%, it has tripled. As disk I/O latency is often the bounding resource for an application, increasing the average latency by double or higher can have a significant negative effect on application performance. This is why disk utilization can become a problem well before it reaches 100%, as it is a queueing system where requests (typically) cannot be interrupted and must wait their turn.
Brendan Gregg (Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud)
Every innovation—technological, sociological, or otherwise—begins as a crusade, organizes itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world. What goes forgotten, though, is that those who partake in this system undergo a similar transformation: people begin as comrades and fellow citizens, then become labor resources and assets, and then, as their utility shifts or degrades, transmute into liabilities, and thus must be appropriately managed. This is a fact of nature just as much as the currents of the winds and the seas. The flow of force and matter is a system, with laws and maturation patterns. We should harbor no guilt for complying with those laws—even if they sometimes require a little inhumanity. —TRIBUNO CANDIANO, LETTER TO THE COMPANY CANDIANO CHIEF OFFICER’S ASSEMBLY
Robert Jackson Bennett (Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1))
Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgment of utility.
Primo Levi (Survival in Auschwitz)
The two friends went on and on toward the sierra, at times keeping the highway, at times. deviating from it. Whenever they passed through a town or a hamlet, the slow peal of bells tolling the death-knell announced to our hero that the Angel of Death was not losing his time; that his arm reached to every part of the world, and that, though Gil felt it now weighing upon his breast like a mountain of ice, none the less did it scatter ruin and desolation over the entire surface of the earth. As they went, the Angel of Death related many strange and wonderful things to his protege. The foe of history, he took pleasure in scoffing at its pretended utility, in disproof of which he narrated many facts as they had actually occurred, and not as they are recorded on monuments and in chronicles. The abysses of the past opened before the entranced imagination of Gil Gil, revealing to him facts of transcendent importance concerning the fate of man and of empires, disclosing to him the great mystery of the origin of life and the no less great and terrible mystery of the end to which we, wrongly called mortals, are progressing, and causing him, finally, to comprehend, by the light of this sublime philosophy, the laws which preside at the evolution of cosmic matter, and its various manifestations in those ephemeral and transitory forms which are called minerals, plants,animals, stars, constellations, nebula, and worlds. ("The Friend Of The Death")
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (Ghostly By Gaslight)
None of these men will bring about your death any time sooner, but rather they will teach you how to die. None of them will shorten your lifespan, but each will add the wisdom of his years to yours. In other words, there is nothing dangerous about talking to these people and it won’t cost you a penny. Take from them as much as you wish. It’s up to you to squeeze the most you can from their wisdom. What bliss, what a glorious old age awaits the man who has offered himself as a mate to these intellects! He will have mentors and colleagues from whom he may seek advice on the smallest of matters, companions ever ready with counsel for his daily life, from whom he may hear truth without judgment, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself. They say ‘you can’t choose your parents,’ that they have been given to us by chance; but the good news is we can choose to be the sons of whomever we desire. There are many respectable fathers scattered across the centuries to choose from. Select a genius and make yourself their adopted son. You could even inherit their name and make claim to be a true descendant and then go forth and share this wealth of knowledge with others. These men will show you the way to immortality, and raise you to heights from which no man can be cast down. This is the only way to extend mortality – truly, by transforming time into immortality. Honors, statues and all other mighty monuments to man’s ambition carved in stone will crumble but the wisdom of the past is indestructible. Age cannot wither nor destroy philosophy which serves all generations. Its vitality is strengthened by each new generation’s contribution to it. The Philosopher alone is unfettered by the confines of humanity. He lives forever, like a god. He embraces memory, utilizes the present and anticipates with relish what is to come. He makes his time on Earth longer by merging past, present and future into one.
Seneca (Stoic Six Pack 2 (Illustrated): Consolations From A Stoic, On The Shortness of Life and More)
Societies sometimes smear Wisdom and her natural, symmetrical beauty. She is at times caked beneath the extreme makeup of dirty politics and yellow journalism. At times she may appear to be the red, far-right extremist to a majority that has drifted too far left - and at other times, the blue, far-left extremist to a majority that has drifted too far right. 'She' is Wisdom, a beacon in the center of hope and a lighthouse to be utilized. She is truth that must be washed by the sea of Love.
Criss Jami
The development of speech and the development of consciousness (not of reason, but of reason becoming self-conscious) go hand in hand. Let it be further accepted that it is not only speech that serves as a bridge between man and man, but also the looks, the pressure and the gestures; our becoming conscious of our sense impressions, our power of being able to fix them, and as it were to locate them outside of ourselves, has increased in proportion as the necessity has increased for communicating them to others by means of signs. The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always more acutely self-conscious; it is only as a social animal that man has learned to become conscious of himself, - he is doing so still, and doing so more and more. - As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness does not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him; that, as follows therefrom, it is only in relation to communal and gregarious utility that it is finely developed; and that consequently each of us, in spite of the best intention of understanding himself as individually as possible, and of "knowing himself," will always just call into consciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his "averageness"; - that our thought itself is continuously as it were outvoted by the character of consciousness - by the imperious "genius of the species" therein - and is translated back into the perspective of the herd.
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
I. Utilize the "two-minute rule" to avoid persistent interruptions. The two-minute rule specifies that you have to give someone an uninterrupted two minutes to explain their thinking before jumping in with your own. This ensures that everyone has time to fully crystallize and communicate their thoughts without worrying they will be misunderstood or drowned out by a louder voice. j. Watch out for assertive "fast talkers." Fast talkers are people who articulately and assertively say things faster than they can be assessed as a way of pushing their agenda past other people's examination or objections. Fast talking can be especially effective when it's used against people worried about appearing stupid. Don't be one of those people. Recognize that it's your responsibility to make sense of things and don't move on until you do. If you're feeling pressured, say something like "Sorry for being stupid, but I'm going to need to slow you down so I can make sense of what you're saying." Then ask your questions. All of them. p367
Ray Dalio (Principles: Life and Work)
studies are beginning to show that our ability to appreciate the intrinsic value of generosity, sharing and selflessness is central to maximizing our well-being. MAKING HOMO ECONOMICUS HAPPY When this theory is applied to people, Becker argues that we become Homo economicus in a very specific way: Everyone is a producer of his or her own happiness. We obtain our own utility, to use his language, “through the productive activity of combining purchased market goods and services with some of the house hold’s own time.
Raj Patel (The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy)
We are always coming into being. If our beings are subject to chances and choices, then there are numerous potential permutations for each one of us. We are capable of many things, and of those tasks within the scope of our innate reach, we will probably only realize a small percentage of successes. It is crucially important that we make the best decisions we can and efficiently utilize our allotted time to make the most out of our lives. While we do not control every aspect of our ultimate destiny, we can certainly waste our life on frivolities. Alternatively, we can work resolutely with passion and purpose and by doing so place a premium value upon a life that is otherwise utterly absurd. Human beings can use thoughts to direct free will in order to exert control over our personal attitude and behavior, monitor what we say and how we behave, and determine whom we associate with and whom we avoid. Human free will allows us deliberately to determine what subjects we wish to study and what theories we desire actively to integrate into our lives.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
The richer we get in a consumer society, the more acutely we become aware of how many grades of value--of both leisure and labor--we have climbed. The higher we are on the pyramid, the less likely we are to give up time to simple idleness and to apparently nonproductive pursuits. The joy of listening to the neighborhood finch is easily overshadowed by stereophonic recordings of "Bird Songs of the World," the walk through the park downgraded by preparations for a packaged bird-watching tour into the jungle. It becomes difficult to economize time when all commitments are for the long run. Staffan Linder points out that there is a strong tendency for us to over-commit to the future, so that when the future becomes present, we seem to be conscious all the time of having an acute scarcity, simply because we have committed ourselves to about thirty hours a day instead of twenty-four. In addition to the mere fact that time has competitive uses and high marginal utility in an affluent society, this overcommitment creates a sense of pressure and harriedness.
Ivan Illich (Tools for Conviviality)
Two of the casters contained salt and pepper, but what went into the third caster is unknown. It is generally presumed to have been dried mustard, but that is really because no one can think of anything more likely. “No satisfactory alternative has ever been suggested” is how the food historian Gerard Brett has put it. In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that mustard was ever desired or utilized in such ready fashion by diners at any time in history. Probably for this reason, by Mr. Marsham’s day the third caster was rapidly disappearing
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
After hovering in the ethereal world of mathematics and geometry, economics was forced to crash-land and take its place in the real world of political debate. Do economists wish to pursue the Good Society in the spirit of the social contract tradition which started some time in ancient Greece, reasserted itself in Europe with J.-J.Rousseau and found its apotheosis in John Rawls? Or do they wish for a social contract which effectively rules the State out as anything other than a provider of order and security—a tradition which began with Thomas Hobbes and culminated in Robert Nozick’s theory? Or, indeed can economists think of something in between? Thus economics is back into the mire courtesy of Arrow’s third theorem, which dispels any hopes of a Rational Society springing from some form of advanced utility maximisation. Economics can no longer escape the political, philosophical debates which resonate across the humanities—from literature to sociology and from politics to moral philosophy. This is a good thing. At last, economics can become interesting again after a century of continuous pedantry.
Yanis Varoufakis (Foundations of Economics: A beginner's companion)
The Austrian born Von Hayek has long been under the control of David Rockefeller, and Von Hayek theories have been fairly widely accepted in the United States for some time, especially in “conservative” circles. According to Von Hayek, a future United States economic platform must be based on (a) urban black markets, (b) small Hong Kong type industries utilizing sweatshop labor, (c) the tourist trade, (d) free enterprise zones where speculators can operate unhindered and where the drug trade can flourish, (e) the end of all industrial activity and (f) closing down of all nuclear energy plants.
John Coleman (The Conspirator's Hierarchy: The Committee of 300)
Benefits of the Master Cleanse Detox Diet and How to Conserve a Healthy Cleansing The Master Detox in 14 days , also referred to as lemonade diet regime, is not new and has been known for decades. It demands drinking only lemonade made from fresh squeezed lemons and normal water, maple syrup, along with cayenne pepper. So there is no strong food during the detoxification course of action. Typically, any lemonade diet regime will last for 10 to 14 times and is known to be very efffective regarding colon cleansing. It's good in dissolving built-up wastes in our intestinal tracts. Besides colon detox, master cleanse diet plan can also be used for rapid weight loss. In 2007, the gifted singer/actress Beyonce Knowles used soda and pop diet pertaining to 14 days and lost Twenty-two lb or 9 kilograms. She made it happen for her part in the video Dreamgirls. As a result, this diet plan received huge advertising attention. Remember that weight loss utilizing master cleanse detox diet is not a long term remedy. After the clean, you should return to a healthy as well as well-balanced diet which consists of plenty of fruits and also fresh vegetables and occasional in included fats as well as sweets. That is how you have a long-lasting and healthful detox. Hence the key to long-term wholesome detoxification is always to focus on receiving plenty of exercise and having a well-balanced eating habits high in fruit and vegetables and low throughout added fatty acids and sugars. Some of the great things about Master Cleanse Detoxification Diet are usually: - Waste food, plague and phlegm that developed and caught up in our digestive tract tracts might be expelled. : Can result in weight loss but should followed healthy way of life after detox otherwise you're sure to gain it back in time.
bdx
What’s occurring now, with the fourth wave of feminism crashing, is that many female artists are using occult images, ritual gestures, and witch iconography to not only connect to the divine, but to continue to make space for themselves in a field which is still dominated by men. They’re utilizing herbs, candles, ceremonial garb, and goddess imagery, and mashing it up with digital treatments and modern technology. As such, they’re turning themselves into witches: women who create things and shift perception, who trust their intuition, and who have the power to change the world. Their work is spiritual and political at the same time.
Kristen J. Sollee (Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive)
Possessed of many of those royal qualities for which he was termed by his subjects the August, Philip might be termed the Ulysses, as Richard was indisputably the Achilles, of the Crusade. The King of France was sagacious, wise, deliberate in council, steady and calm in action, seeing clearly, and steadily pursuing, the measures most for the interest of his kingdom—dignified and royal in his deportment, brave in person, but a politician rather than a warrior. The Crusade would have been no choice of his own; but the spirit was contagious, and the expedition was enforced upon him by the church, and by the unanimous wish of his nobility. In any other situation, or in a milder age, his character might have stood higher than that of the adventurous Coeur de Lion. But in the Crusade, itself an undertaking wholly irrational, sound reason was the quality of all others least estimated, and the chivalric valour which both the age and the enterprise demanded was considered as debased if mingled with the least touch of discretion. So that the merit of Philip, compared with that of his haughty rival, showed like the clear but minute flame of a lamp placed near the glare of a huge, blazing torch, which, not possessing half the utility, makes ten times more impression on the eye.
Walter Scott (The Talisman)
Taking on a mortgage to buy a house is the classic definition of “good debt.” But don’t be so sure. The easy availability of mortgage loans tempts far too many into buying houses they don’t need or that are far more expensive than prudent. Shamefully, this overspending is often encouraged by real estate agents and mortgage brokers. If your goal is financial independence, it is also to hold as little debt as possible. This means you’ll seek the least house to meet your needs rather than the most house you can technically afford. Remember, the more house you buy, the greater its cost. Not just in higher mortgage payments, but also in higher real estate taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and repairs, landscaping, remodeling, furnishing, and opportunity costs on all the money tied up as you build equity. To name a few. More house also means more stuff to maintain and fill it. The more and greater things you allow in your life, the more of your time, money, and life energy they demand. Houses are an expensive indulgence, not an investment. That’s OK if and when the time for such an indulgence comes. I’ve owned them myself. But don’t let yourself be blinded by the idea that owning one is necessary, always financially sound, and automatically justifies taking on this “good debt.
J.L. Collins (The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life)
...[W]hen's it all going to f***ing stop? I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? Because I get them about once a quarter, along with the utilities bills. More than that, even… I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have s*** for brains. I know what's wrong with Laura. What's wrong with Laura is that I'll never see her for the first or second or third time again. I'll never spend two or three days in a sweat trying to remember what she looks like, never again will I get to a pub half an hour early to meet her staring at the same article in a magazine and looking at my watch every thirty seconds, never again will thinking about her set something off in me like "Let's Get it On" sets something off in me. And sure, I love her and like her and have good conversations, nice sex and intense rows with her, and she looks after me and worries about me and arranges the Groucho for me, but what does all that count for, when someone with bare arms, a nice smile, and a pair of Doc Martens comes into the shop and says she wants to interview me? Nothing, that's what, but maybe it should count for a bit more.
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
And yet, because I am without a doubt mortal, I have the troubling desire to do good, to please, to communicate my warmth, to still be very beautiful sometimes to inspire a taste for beauty. I know that these times are not fertile in grace...I am afraid tomorrow the grace of woman...may be recognized as a public utility & be socialized to the point of becoming a banal article, a bazaar object like in '93 & that one will find types of tender or amusing women with millions of copies like the creations of the big...fashion stores where it is always the same thing. I want to affirm the superiority of the god over that of the organizer of concerts for the poor.
Rachilde (The Juggler)
Lake Natron resided in northern Tanzania near an active volcano known as Ol Doinyo Lengai. It was part of the reason the lake had such unique characteristics. The mud had a curious dark grey color over where Jack had been set up for observation, and he noted that there was now an odd-looking mound of it to the right of one of the flamingo’s nests. He zoomed in further and further, peering at it, and then realized what he was actually seeing. The dragon had crouched down beside the nests and blended into the mud. From snout to tail, Jack calculated it had to be twelve to fourteen feet long. Its wings were folded against its back, which had small spines running down the length to a spiky tail. It had a fin with three prongs along the base of the skull and webbed feet tipped with sharp black talons. He estimated the dragon was about the size of a large hyena. It peered up at its prey with beady red eyes, its black forked tongue darting out every few seconds. Its shoulder muscles bunched and its hind legs tensed. Then it pounced. The dark grey dragon leapt onto one of flamingoes atop its nest and seized it by the throat. The bird squawked in distress and immediately beat its wings, trying to free itself. The others around them took to the skies in panic. The dragon slammed it into the mud and closed its jaws around the animal’s throat, blood spilling everywhere. The flamingo yelped out its last breaths and then finally stilled. The dragon dropped the limp carcass and sniffed the eggs before beginning to swallow them whole one at a time. “Holy shit,” Jack muttered. “Have we got a visual?” “Oh, yeah. Based on the size, the natives and the conservationists were right to be concerned. It can probably wipe out a serious number of wildlife in a short amount of time based on what I’m seeing. There’s only a handful of fauna that can survive in these conditions and it could make mincemeat out of them.” “Alright, so what’s the plan?” “They told me it’s very agile, which is why their attempts to capture it haven’t worked. I’m going to see if it responds to any of the usual stimuli. So far, they said it doesn’t appear to be aggressive.” “Copy that. Be careful, cowboy.” “Ten-four.” Jack glanced down at his utility belt and opened the pocket on his left side, withdrawing a thin silver whistle. He put it to his lips and blew for several seconds. Much like a dog whistle, Jack couldn’t hear anything. But the dragon’s head creaked around and those beady red eyes locked onto him. Jack lowered the whistle and licked his dry lips. “If I were in a movie, this would be the part where I said, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’” The dragon roared, its grey wings extending out from its body, and then flew straight at him.
Kyoko M. (Of Claws & Inferno (Of Cinder & Bone, #5))
All index-number systems, so far as they are intended to have a greater significance for monetary theory than that of mere playing with figures, are based upon the idea of measuring the utility of a certain quantity of money. The object is to determine whether a gramme of gold is more or less useful to-day than it was at a certain time in the past. As far as objective use-value is concerned, such an investigation may perhaps yield results. We may assume the fiction, if we like, that, say, a loaf of bread is always of the same utility in the objective sense, always comprises the same food value. It is not necessary for us to enter at all into the question of whether this is permissible or not.
Ludwig von Mises (The Theory of Money and Credit)
Returning to my yarn stash, I select a pair of ebony needles and a lustrous ball of handspun alpaca. Then I quickly cast on to create a light, resilient fabric. We don’t have much time before the students get back, which means the gauge has to be right the first time around. When you’re weaving or knitting enchanted fabrics, gauge is critical. Gauge—the relative density of the fabric—determines the degree to which a magical object can utilize or redirect fields of energy. But magic often requires a mix of skill and sacrifice. It’s not enough to knit a pattern without making a mistake: you also have to give up something of yourself. A heart shroud is a complex spell, filled with twisty cables mimicking the structure of the human heart.
Jonna Gjevre (Arcanos Unraveled)
There aren't many classrooms in the school basement. Most of the space is for storage and utilities. As far as student use goes, the darkroom is down there, along with yearbook and the school paper. Places that either don't require much light or are used by students so happy to be there that they don't care. The only illumination comes from the fluorescents overhead and what filters in from the hallway through the glass upper half of the doors. It usually takes me about ten minutes in French to lose my focus completely. This time,it took less.We were learning the past imperfect tense, which, as well as being completely incomprehensible in practice, in theory describes a state where every action was either left incomplete, unfulfilled, or repeated over and over.
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
The city houses are certainly of great splendor and conveniency to a gentleman...But perhaps he will not reap much less utility and consolation from the country house; where time will be passed in seeing and adorning his own possessions, and by industry, and the art of agriculture, improving his estate; where also by the exercise which in a villa is commonly taken, on foot and horseback, the body will more easily preserve its strength and health; and finally, where the mind, fatigued by the agitations of the city, will be greatly restored and comforted, and be able to quietly attend to the studies of letters and contemplation. Hence it was the ancient sages commonly used to retire to such like places; where...they could easily attain to as much happiness as can be attained here below.
Andrea Palladio
If someone publishes an essay, or tells a joke, or performs a play that forwards a problematic idea the U.S. government generally wouldn't try to stop that person from doing so. Even if they could. If the expression doesn't involve national security the government generally doesn't give a shit. But, if enough vocal consumers are personally offended, they can silence that artist just as effectively. They can petition advertisers and marginalize the artist's reception and economically remove that individual from whatever platform he or she happens to utilize simply because there are no expression based platforms that don't have an economic underpinning. It's one of those situations where the practical manifestation is the opposite of the technical intention. As Americans we tend to look down on European countries that impose legal limitations on speech. Yet as long as speakers in those countries stay within the specified boundaries discourse is allowed relatively unfettered, even when it's unpopular. In the U.S., there are absolutely no speech boundaries imposed by the government. So the citizenry creates its own limitations based on the arbitrary values of whichever activist group is most successful at inflicting its worldview upon an economically fragile public sphere. As a consequence, the United States is a safe space for those who want to criticize the government, but a dangerous place for those who want to advance unpopular thoughts about any other subject that could be deemed insulting or discomforting. Some would argue that this trade off is worth it. Time may prove otherwise.
Chuck Klosterman (But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past)
If you look at the estate planning industry today, the basic strategy begins with identifying the number of heirs. Why? To divide the estate up amongst as many heirs as possible, utilizing all the gift and transfer techniques. One of the first rules of war is to “divide and conquer.” And so, if I'm dividing the assets up, I'm setting that family up for failure. Our findings show that in all too many situations, traditional planning has done more to destroy families than taxes will ever do. Traditional estate planning operates around the four D's: Divide the assets, defer those assets downstream as far as possible, then dump them on what most times are the ill-prepared heirs, and watch those ultimately dissipate. It's been said that only two percent of family wealth ever makes it past the third generation. So I think that's all you need to know about the effectiveness of traditional estate planning.
Dan Sullivan (Unique Process Advisors)
In explaining the way that trivial, if diverting, pursuits like Guitar Hero provide an easy alternative to meaningful work, Horning draws on the writing of political theorist Jon Elster. In his 1986 book An Introduction to Karl Marx, Elster used a simple example to illustrate the psychic difference between the hard work of developing talent and the easy work of consuming stuff: Compare playing the piano with eating lamb chops. The first time one practices the piano it is difficult, even painfully so. By contrast, most people enjoy lamb chops the first time they eat them. Over time, however, these patterns are reversed. Playing the piano becomes increasingly more rewarding, whereas the taste for lamb chops becomes satiated and jaded with repeated, frequent consumption. Elster then made a broader point: Activities of self-realization are subject to increasing marginal utility: They become more enjoyable the more one has already engaged in them. Exactly the opposite is true of consumption. To derive sustained pleasure from consumption, diversity is essential. Diversity, on the other hand, is an obstacle to successful self-realization, as it prevents one from getting into the later and more rewarding stages. “Consumerism,” comments Horning, “keeps us well supplied with stuff and seems to enrich our identities by allowing us to become familiar with a wide range of phenomena—a process that the internet has accelerated immeasurably. . . . But this comes at the expense with developing any sense of mastery of anything, eroding over time the sense that mastery is possible, or worth pursuing.” Distraction is the permanent end state of the perfected consumer, not least because distraction is a state that is eminently programmable. To buy a guitar is to open possibilities. To buy Guitar Hero is to close them. A
Nicholas Carr (Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations)
So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry; to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.
Benjamin Franklin (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.
Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)
Finally, the inner accessibility and reflectiveness of theoretical knowledge which cannot basically be withheld from anybody, as can certain emotions and volitions, has a consequence that directly offsets its practical results. In the first place, it is precisely because of their general accessibility that factors quite independent of personal capacities decide on the factual utilization of knowledge. This leads to the enormous preponderance of the most unintelligent 'educated' person over the cleverest proletarian. The apparent equality with which educational materials are available to everyone interested in them is, in reality, a sheer mockery. The same is true of the other freedoms accorded by the liberal doctrines which, though they certainly do not hamper the individual from gaining goods of any kind, do however disregard the fact that only those already privileged in some way or another have the possibility of acquiring them. For just as the substance of education - in spite of, or because of it general availability - can ultimately be acquired only through individual activity, so it gives rise to the most intangible and thus the most unassailable aristocracy, to a distinction between high and low which can be abolished neither (as can socioeconomic differences) by a decree or a revolution. Thus it was appropriate for Jesus to say to the rich youth: 'Give away your goods to the poor', but not for him to say: 'Give your education to the underprivileged'. There is no advantage that appears to those in inferior positions to be so despised, and before which they feel so deprived and helpless, as the advantage of education. For this reason, attempts to achieve practical equality very often and in so many variations scorn intellectual education. This is true of Buddha, the Cynics, certain currents in Christianity, down to Robespierre's 'nous n'avons pas besoin de savants'. In speech and writing - which, viewed abstractly, are a manifestation of its communal nature - makes possible its accumulation, and, especially, its concentration so that, in this respect, the gulf between high and low is persistently widened. The intellectually gifted or the materially independent person will have all the more chances for standing out from the masses the larger and more concentrated are the available educational materials. Just as the proletarian today has many comforts and cultural enjoyments that were formerly denied to him, while at the same time - particularly if we look back over several centuries and millennia - the gulf between his way of life and that of the higher strata has certainly become much deeper, so, similarly, the rise in the general level of knowledge as a whole does not by any means bring about a general levelling, but rather its opposite.
Georg Simmel (The Philosophy of Money)
The principles of Jiu Jitsu can be applied to every endeavor in life. You have stay calm when you are in bad situations. You need to cover and conceal your intent with other maneuvers. You need to utilize the simplest and most efficient methods. You need to prioritize your focus of effort. You need to train until you trust yourself to move intuitively, without having to think. You need to move at the right time. You have to defend critical areas. You should not attack your enemy’s strongpoints. You must utilize leverage. You cannot let your emotions drive your decisions. You have to establish a good base foundation to build upon. You cannot be overly aggressive, but you can’t just allow things to happen. When you make a move, you have to believe in what you are doing. You have to be mentally strong. You have to keep an open mind. You have to continuously learn new techniques while always reinforcing the fundamentals. You have to adapt your plan if circumstances change.
Rickson Gracie (Breathe: A Life in Flow)
As Wheeler explained at the time, “Nature at the quantum level is not a machine that goes its inexorable way. Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening.” Posing an example, he set up a fascinating mind-experiment. Utilizing the fact that a strong mass or gravity warps space-time, he imagined a small, distant light source like a quasar, whose bits of light must traverse the vicinity of a foreground massive galaxy en route to our eyes. If the geometry is correct—if the distant quasar, the intermediate massive galaxy, and our Earth are all on a perfectly straight line—each photon’s path will be warped to pass either above or below that galaxy. (The photon cannot go straight through the foreground galaxy because the galaxy’s mass has altered the actual geometry of space-time so that the shortest “highway” from the quasar to Earth is no longer a seemingly straight line. In any case, the material in the foreground galaxy would block the quasar’s light from penetrating it, even if it tried to travel that way.) Then it will continue for billions of more years before reaching our telescopes here on Earth (see Figure 8-4). If they really had a 50/50 chance of taking either route, which path did each photon traverse? Wheeler’s conclusion: The event, billions of years ago, didn’t really happen until we observe it today. Only now will a particular photon pass above or below the foreground galaxy billions of years ago. In other words, the past isn’t something that has already irrevocably occurred. Rather, long-ago events depend on the present observer. Until they’re observed at this moment, the events didn’t really unfold, but lurked in a blurry probabilistic state, all ready to become an actual “past” occurrence only upon our current observation. This astonishing possibility is called retrocausality.
Robert Lanza (Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death)
The fact that early languages, no matter how many there are, utilize the same streams implies that the brain doesn't have a native language. The brain can only reflect the fact that a set of neural circuits was built and activated for a certain period of time. Nor does the brain care if those neural circuits map onto things that the rest of the world calls languages or dialects. It really cares only about what activates those circuits. Thus, the brain patters that typify language use across skill levels can be mapped. Brain imaging technology monitors the intensity of oxygen use around the brain - higher oxygen use represents higher energy use by cells burning glucose. The deeply engrained language circuits will create dim MRI images, because they are working efficiently, requiring less glucose overall. More recently acquired languages, as well as those used less frequently, would make neural circuits shine more brightly, because they require more brain cells, thus more glucose.
Michael Erard (Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners)
We were talking about this yesterday," he said. "I held that life was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.
Jack London (The Sea Wolf By Jack London)
The three main mediaeval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism. Realism, as the word is used in connection with the mediaeval controversy over universals, is the Platonic doctrine that universals or abstract entities have being independently of the mind; the mind may discover them but cannot create them. Logicism, represented by Frege, Russell, Whitehead, Church, and Carnap, condones the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities known and unknown, specifiable and unspecifiable, indiscriminately. Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made. Intuitionism, espoused in modern times in one form or another by Poincaré, Brouwer, Weyl, and others, countenances the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities only when those entities are capable of being cooked up individually from ingredients specified in advance. As Fraenkel has put it, logicism holds that classes are discovered while intuitionism holds that they are invented—a fair statement indeed of the old opposition between realism and conceptualism. This opposition is no mere quibble; it makes an essential difference in the amount of classical mathematics to which one is willing to subscribe. Logicists, or realists, are able on their assumptions to get Cantor’s ascending orders of infinity; intuitionists are compelled to stop with the lowest order of infinity, and, as an indirect consequence, to abandon even some of the classical laws of real numbers. The modern controversy between logicism and intuitionism arose, in fact, from disagreements over infinity. Formalism, associated with the name of Hilbert, echoes intuitionism in deploring the logicist’s unbridled recourse to universals. But formalism also finds intuitionism unsatisfactory. This could happen for either of two opposite reasons. The formalist might, like the logicist, object to the crippling of classical mathematics; or he might, like the nominalists of old, object to admitting abstract entities at all, even in the restrained sense of mind-made entities. The upshot is the same: the formalist keeps classical mathematics as a play of insignificant notations. This play of notations can still be of utility—whatever utility it has already shown itself to have as a crutch for physicists and technologists. But utility need not imply significance, in any literal linguistic sense. Nor need the marked success of mathematicians in spinning out theorems, and in finding objective bases for agreement with one another’s results, imply significance. For an adequate basis for agreement among mathematicians can be found simply in the rules which govern the manipulation of the notations—these syntactical rules being, unlike the notations themselves, quite significant and intelligible.
Willard Van Orman Quine
The process of a creative argument is a silent and lonely one, requiring investigation and guesses, the following up of clues in that labyrinth of thought till their utility or their falsity has been proved. The most that a striving mind can do at such a time is to keep sight of some main purpose or tendency-some perpetual recognition of its objective. If in addition the thinker has to keep eternally and consciously within his purview a lot of other subjects bearing on his main idea, each with its own attendant distractions and divergences, his argument would to a listener seem but a jumble of undigested facts, deductions, and imaginings. Moreover, it would leave in the mind of the latter a belief that the speaker is without real conviction at all; a mere groper in the dark. If, on the other hand, the man thinking out his problem tries to hear in mind his friend’s understanding-with an eye to his ultimate approval and acceptance of his argument and condescension-he is apt to limit himself to commonplace and acceptable truths.
Bram Stoker (Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving)
As regards space, the modern view is that it is neither a substance, as Newton maintained, and as Leucippus and Democritus ought to have said, nor an adjective of extended bodies, as Descartes thought, but a system of relations, as Leibniz held. It is not by any means clear whether this view is compatible with the existence of the void. Perhaps, as a matter of abstract logic, it can be reconciled with the void. We might say that, between any two things, there is a certain greater or smaller distance, and that distance does not imply the existence of intermediate things. Such a point of view, however, would be impossible to utilize in modern physics. Since Einstein, distance is between events, not between things, and involves time as well as space. It is essentially a causal conception, and in modern physics there is no action at a distance. All this, however, is based upon empirical rather than logical grounds. Moreover the modern view cannot be stated except in terms of differential equations, and would therefore be unintelligible to the philosophers of antiquity.
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
This resulted in a model of the macroeconomy as consisting of a single consumer, who lives for ever, consuming the output of the economy, which is a single good produced in a single firm, which he owns and in which he is the only employee, which pays him both profits equivalent to the marginal product of capital and a wage equivalent to the marginal product of labor, to which he decides how much labor to supply by solving a utility function that maximizes his utility over an infinite time horizon, which he rationally expects and therefore correctly predicts. The economy would always be in equilibrium except for the impact of unexpected ‘technology shocks’ that change the firm’s productive capabilities (or his consumption preferences) and thus temporarily cause the single capitalist/worker/consumer to alter his working hours. Any reduction in working hours is a voluntary act, so the representative agent is never involuntarily unemployed, he’s just taking more leisure. And there are no banks, no debt, and indeed no money in this model. You think I’m joking? I wish I was.
Steve Keen (Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?)
Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
Everything is difficult at first—the bow is hard to draw and the naginata is awkward to flail. Whatever the weapon, you learn to draw a strong bow as your strength increases for the task, and a sword becomes easier to swing as you become attuned to it through training. The discipline of the sword is not predicated on swiftness in the strike. I will explain this next in the Water Scroll. The basic principle to remember in this Way is that the long sword is employed in open areas and the short sword in confined spaces. In my school, victory must be attainable equally with both long and short weapons. That is why I have no established length for the swords we use. The Way of my school is to win no matter what. The time when it is better to utilize two swords instead of one becomes evident when fighting single-handedly against multiple foes or when you are battling in an enclosed space. I will refrain from explaining this in detail here. Suffice to say, you need to understand ten thousand things by knowing just one thing well. When you practice the Way of combat strategy, let nothing go unseen. Reflect on this closely.
Alexander Bennett (The Complete Musashi: The Book of Five Rings and Other Works)
During those long stretches on the links, as I carried their bags, I watched how the people who had reached professional heights unknown to my father and mother helped one another. They found one another jobs, they invested time and money in one another’s ideas, and they made sure their kids got help getting into the best schools, got the right internships, and ultimately got the best jobs. Before my eyes, I saw proof that success breeds success and, indeed, the rich do get richer. Their web of friends and associates was the most potent club the people I caddied for had in their bags. Poverty, I realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people who could help you make more of yourself. I came to believe that in some very specific ways life, like golf, is a game, and that the people who know the rules, and know them well, play it best and succeed. And the rule in life that has unprecedented power is that the individual who knows the right people, for the right reasons, and utilizes the power of these relationships, can become a member of the “club,” whether he started out as a caddie or not.
Keith Ferrazzi (Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time)
If we do not objectify, and feel instinctively and permanently that words are not the things spoken about, then we could not speak abouth such meaningless subjects as the 'beginning' or the 'end' of time. But, if we are semantically disturbed and objectify, then, of course, since objects have a beginning and an end, so also would 'time' have a 'beggining' and an 'end'. In such pathological fancies the universe must have a 'beginning in time' and so must have been made., and all of our old anthropomorphic and objectified mythologies follow, including the older theories of entropy in physics. But, if 'time' is only a human form of representation and not an object, the universe has no 'beginning in time' and no 'end in time'; in other words, the universe is 'time'-less. The moment we realize, feel permanently, and utilize these realizations and feelings that words are not things, then only do we acquire the semantic freedom to use different forms of representation. We can fit better their structure to the facts at hand, become better adjusted to these facts which are not words, and so evaluate properly m.o (multi-ordinal) realities, which evaluation is important for sanity.
Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics)
Nothing—and I mean really, absolutely nothing—is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilized—more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railroad tracks—and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history. In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time, and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily-spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 88,386 square miles the world has ever known—almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island)
In any case, we should expect that in due time we will be moved into our eternal destiny of creative activity with Jesus and his friends and associates in the “many mansions” of “his Father’s house.” Thus, we should not think of ourselves as destined to be celestial bureaucrats, involved eternally in celestial “administrivia.” That would be only slightly better than being caught in an everlasting church service. No, we should think of our destiny as being absorbed in a tremendously creative team effort, with unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and enjoyment. This is the “eye hath not seen, neither ear heard” that lies before us in the prophetic vision (Isa. 64:4). This Is Shalom When Saint Augustine comes to the very end of his book The City of God, he attempts to address the question of “how the saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies.”15 At first he confesses that he is “at a loss to understand the nature of that employment.” But then he settles upon the word peace to describe it, and develops the idea of peace by reference to the vision of God—utilizing, as we too have done, the rich passage from 1 Corinthians 13. Thus he speaks of our “employment” then as being “the beatific vision.” The eternal blessedness of the city of God is presented as a “perpetual Sabbath.” In words so beautiful that everyone should know them by heart, he says, “There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?” And yet, for all their beauty and goodness, these words do not seem to me to capture the blessed condition of the restoration of all things—of the kingdom come in its utter fullness. Repose, yes. But not as quiescence, passivity, eternal fixity. It is, instead, peace as wholeness, as fullness of function, as the restful but unending creativity involved in a cosmoswide, cooperative pursuit of a created order that continuously approaches but never reaches the limitless goodness and greatness of the triune personality of God, its source. This, surely, is the word of Jesus when he says, “Those who overcome will be welcomed to sit with me on my throne, as I too overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. Those capable of hearing should listen to what the Spirit is saying to my people” (Rev. 3:21
Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God)
Our team’s vision for the facility was a cross between a shooting range and a country club for special forces personnel. Clients would be able to schedule all manner of training courses in advance, and the gear and support personnel would be waiting when they arrived. There’d be seven shooting ranges with high gravel berms to cut down noise and absorb bullets, and we’d carve a grass airstrip, and have a special driving track to practice high-speed chases and real “defensive driving”—the stuff that happens when your convoy is ambushed. There would be a bunkhouse to sleep seventy. And nearby, the main headquarters would have the feel of a hunting lodge, with timber framing and high stone walls, with a large central fireplace where people could gather after a day on the ranges. This was the community I enjoyed; we never intended to send anyone oversees. This chunk of the Tar Heel State was my “Field of Dreams.” I bought thirty-one hundred acres—roughly five square miles of land, plenty of territory to catch even the most wayward bullets—for $900,000. We broke ground in June 1997, and immediately began learning about do-it-yourself entrepreneurship. That land was ugly: Logging the previous year had left a moonscape of tree stumps and tangled roots lorded over by mosquitoes and poisonous creatures. I killed a snake the first twelve times I went to the property. The heat was miserable. While a local construction company carved the shooting ranges and the lake, our small team installed the culverts and forged new roads and planted the Southern pine utility poles to support the electrical wiring. The basic site work was done in about ninety days—and then we had to figure out what to call the place. The leading contender, “Hampton Roads Tactical Shooting Center,” was professional, but pretty uptight. “Tidewater Institute for Tactical Shooting” had legs, but the acronym wouldn’t have helped us much. But then, as we slogged across the property and excavated ditches, an incessant charcoal mud covered our boots and machinery, and we watched as each new hole was swallowed by that relentless peat-stained black water. Blackwater, we agreed, was a name. Meanwhile, within days of being installed, the Southern pine poles had been slashed by massive black bears marking their territory, as the animals had done there since long before the Europeans settled the New World. We were part of this land now, and from that heritage we took our original logo: a bear paw surrounded by the stylized crosshairs of a rifle scope.
Anonymous
Nothing – and I mean, really, absolutely nothing – is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilized – more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines – and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history. In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 88,386 square miles the world has ever known – almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is. And
Bill Bryson (The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain)
Space Rockets as Power Symbols The moon rocket is the climactic expression of the power system: the maximum utilization of the resources of science and technics for the achievement of a relatively miniscule result: the hasty exploration of a barren satellite. Space exploration by manned rockets enlarges and intensifies all the main components of the power system: increased energy, accelerated motion, automation, cyber-nation, instant communication, remote control. Though it has been promoted mainly under military pressure, the most vital result of moon visitation so far turns out to be an unsought and unplanned one-a full view of the beautiful planet we live on, an inviting home for man and for all forms of life. This distant view on television evoked for the first time an active, loving response from many people who had hitherto supposed that modern technics would soon replace Mother Earth with a more perfect, scientifically organized, electronically controlled habitat, and who took for granted that this would be an improvement. Note that the moon rocket is itself necessarily a megastructure: so it naturally calls forth such vulgar imitations as the accompanying bureaucratic obelisk (office building) of similar dimensions, shown here (left). Both forms exhibit the essentially archaic and regressive nature of the science-fiction mind.
Lewis Mumford (The Pentagon of Power (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 2))
We might label this the Hobbesean fallacy: the idea that human beings were primordially individualistic and that they entered into society at a later stage in their development only as a result of a rational calculation that social cooperation was the best way for them to achieve their individual ends. This premise of primordial individualism underpins the understanding of rights contained in the American Declaration of Independence and thus of the democratic political community that springs from it. This premise also underlies contemporary neoclassical economics, which builds its models on the assumption that human beings are rational beings who want to maximize their individual utility or incomes. But it is in fact individualism and not sociability that developed over the course of human history. That individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts. Aristotle was more correct than these early modern liberal theorists when he said that human beings were political by nature. So while an individualistic understanding of human motivation may help to explain the activities of commodity traders and libertarian activists in present-day America, it is not the most helpful way to understand the early evolution of human politics. Everything
Francis Fukuyama (The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution)
them intentionally, effectively, and satisfactorily through your physical expression of life. The Law of Attraction is the first of the Laws that we will offer, for if you do not understand, and are not able to effectively apply, the Law of Attraction, then the second Law, the Science of Deliberate Creation, and the third, the Art of Allowing, cannot be utilized. You must first understand and effectively utilize the first Law in order to understand and utilize the second. And you must be able to understand and utilize the second Law before you will be able to understand and utilize the third. The first Law, the Law of Attraction, says: That which is like unto itself, is drawn. While this may seem like a rather simple statement, it defines the most powerful Law in the Universe—a Law that affects all things at all times. Nothing exists that is unaffected by this powerful Law. The second Law, the Science of Deliberate Creation, says: That which I give thought to and that which I believe or expect—is. In short, you get what you are thinking about, whether you want it or not. A deliberate application of thought is really what the Science of Deliberate Creation is about, for if you do not understand these Laws, and deliberately apply them, then you may very well be creating by default. The third Law, the Art of Allowing, says: I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are. When you are willing to allow others to be as they are, even in their not allowing of you, then you will be an Allower, but it is not likely that you will reach that point until you first come to understand how it is you get what you get. Only when you understand that another cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them in through your thoughts (or through your attention to them), and that circumstances cannot be a part of your experience unless you invite them to you through your thought (or through your observation of them), will you be the Allower that you wanted to be when you came forth into this expression of life. An understanding of these three powerful Universal Laws, and a deliberate application of them, will lead you to the joyous freedom of being able to create your own life experience exactly as you want it to be. Once you understand that all people, circumstances, and events are invited into your experience by you, through your thought, you will begin to live your life as you intended when you made the decision to come forth into this physical body. And so, an understanding of the powerful Law of Attraction, coupled with an intention to Deliberately Create your own life experience, will ultimately lead you to the unparalleled freedom that can only come from a complete understanding and application of the Art of Allowing.
Esther Hicks (The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham)
Shortly before our CFO’s pep talk, another high-level executive at the bank stopped me in the hall to give me what he considered some critical advice. “A lot of smart kids like you come through the bank, and they use it for a stepping stone,” he said. “They stay for a year or two and then they leave. I think that’s a huge mistake. Look at me: I’ve been here forever and I’m happier than anyone I know. This place rewards loyalty, and I’m good at my job because I’ve got my finger right on the pulse of the company. I know everything that’s going on.” A week later, I saw two workmen hauling boxes out of his office. He was a victim of the bank’s first-ever round of layoffs. I’m not trying to put this man down for his faith in the bank or make light of his unemployment. I want to use his story to make another point about failure in business. That chat reinforced something else I was beginning to learn: people in management positions, even very senior management positions, are often completely wrong about the fortunes of their own companies. More important, in making these misjudgments, they almost always err on the side of excessive optimism. They think their businesses are in much better shape than they actually are. Jerry’s rig utilization chart at Global Marine and our own CFO’s boasts about Joe DiMaggio only underscored this lesson for me at the time. And, three decades and over 1,400 meetings with other executives later, I can say this tendency is as pronounced as ever.
Scott Fearon (Dead Companies Walking: How a Hedge Fund Manager Finds Opportunity in Unexpected Places)
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great services to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead." Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead. There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now? How can we go on without him?
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
Letter to the tech giants: When fame and abundance kiss somebody’s feet before that person is wise enough, he or she is very likely to lose track of what’s necessity and what’s luxury. And modern society is filled with examples of such intelligent stupidity – stupidity that is carried out by apparently smart humans. Because being smart is not the same as being wise. The world has enough smartness, but not enough wisdom to bring that smartness into proper productive practice – and I mean productive practice not sophisticated practice – there is a difference. A person smart enough to visualize a Falcon rocket engine can easily pinpoint the locations of various organizations that spread terrorism, yet the person chooses to explore the space further instead of prioritizing the technological advantages to first fix real issues of the human society that inflict harm to the humans every walk of the way. The world is a miserable place not because we have lack of resources, but because those who have an abundance of resources do not have the slightest idea of true human need. The resources needed for colonizing Mars if put to proper practice can fix the world’s global warming issues – it can fix the world’s climate change issues – it can fix the world’s terrorism issues, yet people are more interested in the pompous idea of living in Mars for whatever reason, instead of paying attention to improving human condition on earth. I am not against technological advancement, for I am a scientist, but my soul aches when I see smart people are dumb enough to chase after illusory glory of doing something different and innovative instead of focusing the powers of their soul on cleaning up the misery business on earth. You can, yet you don’t. Why? Smartness without wisdom is stupidity. You are smart – yes indeed – but I am sorry – you are stupid at the same time. How can you dream of having a cheese burger on Mars when your own kind on Earth is suffering! How can you think of taking rich kids into the orbit just so they can admire the beauty of earth from the heavens, when that very earth is infested with the primordial evils of human character! Awaken the human within you my friend, and pay attention. Awaken the human within and let it consume all the miseries from the world that you live in. Say a member of your family falls ill, would you ignore his or her misery completely just because you want to make life more comfortable for others than it already is, or would you first try everything in your capacity in order to heal your loved one! Be wise my friend, for it is not enough to be smart. You are smart – there is no doubt about that – so utilize that smartness for humanity and heal your own kind. Heal your kind with your capacity my friend. It is wailing for healers – not some delusional faith healers, but real tangible healers. Would you not do anything! Would you not give your soul to fix the broken soul of this world! Arise my friend, Awake my friend and work for humanity, not to make it sophisticated, but to make it peaceful first. Remember, humanity first, then everything else. Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.
Abhijit Naskar
I have been so afraid that our friendship will not survive Clare's death. I can sense this in your voice, too, when we talk. . . . When I talk to Mark about this, he tries to console me with Aristotle (I hope you are smiling). Aristotle, he tells me, describes three types of friendship: friendship based on utility, on pleasure, and on virtue (the pursuit of good). The third type is the highest and most stable form. Mark says that we pursue the good, and that sharing new motherhood alone could not possibly replace that. Maybe right now we are confusing our friendship with a friendship of pleasure, since we have given each other so much of it (hilarity and clogs and dreams of Italy). And we are worried since these friendships fade when pleasure fades (and Clare has taken so much pleasure with her). But surely that's not all we've shared. The highest friendship, Aristotle wrote, 'requires time and familiarity; for, as the proverb says, it is impossible for men to know each other well until they have consumed together much salt, nor can they accept each other and be friends till each has shown himself dear and trustworthy to the other.' I guess we are now in the phase of eating much salt. . . . I am not sure what it means to eat much salt, but it doesn't sound pleasant. It makes me think of tears rolling down our faces into our mouths. . . . Yet this time is not merely that. When I see you or read your letters, I am suddenly made happy. I see that I still love you, take pleasure in your ways, and yearn for your good and for mine. If this load of salt can’t kill our pleasure or desire for good, then I doubt anything can. And maybe this very salt will make us all the more dear and trustworthy to each other. With much love and salt, Amy
Amy Alznauer (Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters)
Performance measure. Throughout this book, the term performance measure refers to an indicator used by management to measure, report, and improve performance. Performance measures are classed as key result indicators, result indicators, performance indicators, or key performance indicators. Critical success factors (CSFs). CSFs are the list of issues or aspects of organizational performance that determine ongoing health, vitality, and wellbeing. Normally there are between five and eight CSFs in any organization. Success factors. A list of 30 or so issues or aspects of organizational performance that management knows are important in order to perform well in any given sector/ industry. Some of these success factors are much more important; these are known as critical success factors. Balanced scorecard. A term first introduced by Kaplan and Norton describing how you need to measure performance in a more holistic way. You need to see an organization’s performance in a number of different perspectives. For the purposes of this book, there are six perspectives in a balanced scorecard (see Exhibit 1.7). Oracles and young guns. In an organization, oracles are those gray-haired individuals who have seen it all before. They are often considered to be slow, ponderous, and, quite frankly, a nuisance by the new management. Often they are retired early or made redundant only to be rehired as contractors at twice their previous salary when management realizes they have lost too much institutional knowledge. Their considered pace is often a reflection that they can see that an exercise is futile because it has failed twice before. The young guns are fearless and precocious leaders of the future who are not afraid to go where angels fear to tread. These staff members have not yet achieved management positions. The mixing of the oracles and young guns during a KPI project benefits both parties and the organization. The young guns learn much and the oracles rediscover their energy being around these live wires. Empowerment. For the purposes of this book, empowerment is an outcome of a process that matches competencies, skills, and motivations with the required level of autonomy and responsibility in the workplace. Senior management team (SMT). The team comprised of the CEO and all direct reports. Better practice. The efficient and effective way management and staff undertake business activities in all key processes: leadership, planning, customers, suppliers, community relations, production and supply of products and services, employee wellbeing, and so forth. Best practice. A commonly misused term, especially because what is best practice for one organization may not be best practice for another, albeit they are in the same sector. Best practice is where better practices, when effectively linked together, lead to sustainable world-class outcomes in quality, customer service, flexibility, timeliness, innovation, cost, and competitiveness. Best-practice organizations commonly use the latest time-saving technologies, always focus on the 80/20, are members of quality management and continuous improvement professional bodies, and utilize benchmarking. Exhibit 1.10 shows the contents of the toolkit used by best-practice organizations to achieve world-class performance. EXHIBIT 1.10 Best-Practice Toolkit Benchmarking. An ongoing, systematic process to search for international better practices, compare against them, and then introduce them, modified where necessary, into your organization. Benchmarking may be focused on products, services, business practices, and processes of recognized leading organizations.
Douglas W. Hubbard (Business Intelligence Sampler: Book Excerpts by Douglas Hubbard, David Parmenter, Wayne Eckerson, Dalton Cervo and Mark Allen, Ed Barrows and Andy Neely)
The 12 Principles of Permaculture Investing are: 1. Accumulate & Compound Capital: Consistently save and invest to grow your capital base over time, leveraging the power of compound interest. 2. Utilize Capital: Actively deploy your capital into productive investments that generate returns, rather than letting it sit idle. 3. Retain Maximum & Gradiented Liquidity: Maintain a balance between liquid assets (easily accessible cash) and less liquid investments, ensuring you can meet immediate needs while still investing for the long term. 4. Actively Manage Passive: While focusing on passive income sources, actively monitor and adjust your investments to optimize returns and mitigate risks. 5. Prioritize Long-Term Growth: Focus on investments that offer potential for significant growth over the long term, even if they don't provide immediate high yields. 6. Prioritize Consistent Yields: Balance your portfolio with investments that provide reliable, consistent income to support your financial needs. 7. Add Net Value to all Stakeholders: Invest in ways that benefit not only yourself but also the broader community, environment, and all parties involved. 8. Provide Authentic Data: Be transparent and honest in your financial reporting, providing accurate information to all stakeholders. 9. Collect & Utilize Authentic Data: Base your investment decisions on reliable, verified data rather than speculation or rumors. 10. Diversify Holistically: Diversify your investments across different asset classes, industries, and geographical regions to reduce risk and maximize potential returns. 11. Harvest Yields Equitably: Distribute profits fairly among all stakeholders, ensuring everyone benefits from the investment's success. 12. Reinvest Yields in Most Profitable Assets: Continuously evaluate your portfolio and reinvest profits into the most promising opportunities to further compound your growth.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
The free man is immoral, because it is his will to depend upon himself and not upon tradition: in all the primitive states of humanity “evil” is equivalent to “individual,” “free,” “arbitrary,” “unaccustomed,” “unforeseen,” “incalculable.” In such primitive conditions, always measured by this standard, any action performed — not because tradition commands it, but for other reasons (e.g. on account of its individual utility), even for the same reasons as had been formerly established by custom — is termed immoral, and is felt to be so even by the very man who performs it, for it has not been done out of obedience to the tradition. What is tradition? A higher authority, which is obeyed, not because it commands what is useful to us, but merely because it commands. And in what way can this feeling for tradition be distinguished from a general feeling of fear? It is the fear of a higher intelligence which commands, the fear of an incomprehensible power, of something that is more than personal — there is superstition in this fear. In primitive times the domain of morality included education and hygienics, marriage, medicine, agriculture, war, speech and silence, the relationship between man and man, and between man and the gods — morality required that a man should observe her prescriptions without thinking of himself as individual. Everything, therefore, was originally custom, and whoever wished to raise himself above it, had first of all to make himself a kind of lawgiver and medicine-man, a sort of demi-god — in other words, he had to create customs, a dangerous and fearful thing to do! — Who is the most moral man? On the one hand, he who most frequently obeys the law: e.g. he who, like the Brahmins, carries a consciousness of the law about with him wherever he may go, and introduces it into the smallest divisions of time, continually exercising his mind in finding opportunities for obeying the law. On the other hand, he who obeys the law in the most difficult cases.
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
Tanya Latty and Madeleine Beekman of the University of Sydney were studying the way slime molds handled tough choices. A tough choice for a slime mold looks something like this: On one side of the petri dish is three grams of oats. On the other side is five grams of oats, but with an ultraviolet light trained on it. You put a slime mold in the center of the dish. What does it do? Under those conditions, they found, the slime mold chooses each option about half the time; the extra food just about balances out the unpleasantness of the UV light. If you were a classical economist of the kind Daniel Ellsberg worked with at RAND, you’d say that the smaller pile of oats in the dark and the bigger pile under the light have the same amount of utility for the slime mold, which is therefore ambivalent between them. Replace the five grams with ten grams, though, and the balance is broken; the slime mold goes for the new double-size pile every time, light or no light. Experiments like this teach us about the slime mold’s priorities and how it makes decisions when those priorities conflict. And they make the slime mold look like a pretty reasonable character. But then something strange happened. The experimenters tried putting the slime mold in a petri dish with three options: the three grams of oats in the dark (3-dark), the five grams of oats in the light (5-light), and a single gram of oats in the dark (1-dark). You might predict that the slime mold would almost never go for 1-dark; the 3-dark pile has more oats in it and is just as dark, so it’s clearly superior. And indeed, the slime mold just about never picks 1-dark. You might also guess that, since the slime mold found 3-dark and 5-light equally attractive before, it would continue to do so in the new context. In the economist’s terms, the presence of the new option shouldn’t change the fact that 3-dark and 5-light have equal utility. But no: when 1-dark is available, the slime mold actually changes its preferences, choosing 3-dark more than three times as often as it does 5-light!
Jordan Ellenberg (How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking)
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Ajit S. Bhalla
Flagyl was clearly effective in the treatment of Lyme disease. But how did it work? As early as 1967 The British Journal of Venereal Diseases had published a study showing Flagyl to be effective in certain cases of syphilis, and that it had an effect on bacterial DNA and RNA irrespective of bacterial replication. Could this be the mechanism of Flagyl’s action against Burrelia burgdorferi? The key to Flagyl’s effectiveness on Lyme, however, was not reported until several months after my study was presented. Dr. O. Brorson, a Norwegian researcher, published a paper on Flagyl and its effect on the cystic forms of Lyme disease six months after I presented my research. The cystic form of Lyme disease, it turns out, is one mechanism that Borrelia burgdorferi utilizes to persist in the body. Dr. Brorson reported that Flagyl would cause Borrelia cysts to rupture, and he went on to publish that he could see under the microscope the cell wall forms of Borrelia burgdorferi (helical/spiral–shaped organisms) transform into cystic forms, and under proper conditions convert back into mobile spirochetes. A review of the medical literature revealed that these cystic forms had, in fact, been reported in syphilis. No one had clearly made the link between Borrelia and a cystic form of the organism that could persist for long periods of time in a dormant state. It was a highly evolved survival mechanism that would allow the organism to reemerge when conditions were optimal. My patient, Mary, had been treated initially with Plaquenil, which according to Dr. Brorson’s research also affects the cystic forms, yet it appeared that it was not powerful enough to destroy the dormant forms and prevent a relapse, or to prevent her from passing it on to her fetus. She had also been treated with drugs that addressed the cell wall and intracellular forms of Lyme. Although Plaquenil has some effect on cystic forms, it is often primarily used in antibiotic regimens with Lyme disease to alkalize the intracellular compartment, modulate autoimmune reactions, and affect essential enzymes necessary for bacterial replication. Clearly, however, it is not powerful enough to destroy enough of the
Richard I. Horowitz (Why Can't I Get Better?: Solving the Mystery of Lyme & Chronic Disease)
The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or more plainly, of instinct and reason―the question whether, in respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality, which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility―it is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of Socrates, and had divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates himself, following, of course, the taste of his talent―that of a surpassing dialectician―took first the side of reason; and, in fact, what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward incapacity of the noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like all noble men, and could never give satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their actions? In the end, however, though silently and secretly, he laughed also at himself: with his finer conscience and introspection, he found in himself the same difficulty and incapacity. "But why"―he said to himself― "should one on that account separate oneself from the instincts! One must set them right, and the reason ALSO―one must follow the instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support them with good arguments." This was the real FALSENESS of that great and mysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the point that he was satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he perceived the irrationality in the moral judgment.―Plato, more innocent in such matters, and without the craftiness of the plebeian, wished to prove to himself, at the expenditure of all his strength―the greatest strength a philosopher had ever expended―that reason and instinct lead spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to "God"; and since Plato, all theologians and philosophers have followed the same path―which means that in matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it, "Faith," or as I call it, "the herd") has hitherto triumphed. Unless one should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution), who recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a tool, and Descartes was superficial.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
The day-to-day horror of writing gave me a notion of tournament time. Writing novels is tedious. When will this book be finished, when will it reveal its bright and shining true self? it takes freakin’ years. At the poker table, you’re only playing a fraction of the hands, waiting for your shot. If you keep your wits, can keep from flying apart while those around you are self-destructing, devouring each other, you’re halfway there. … Let them flame out while you develop a new relationship with time, and they drift away from the table. 86-7 Coach Helen’s mantra: It’s OK to be scared, but don’t play scared. 90 [During a young adult trip to Los Vegas] I was contemplating the nickel in my hand. Before we pushed open the glass doors, what the heck, I dropped it into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars. In a dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More. Remembering it now, I hear a sizzling sound, like meat being thrown into a hot skillet. I didn't do risk, generally. So I thought. But I see now I'd been testing the House Rules the last few years. I'd always been a goody-goody. Study hard, obey your parents, hut-hut-hut through the training exercises of Decent Society. Then in college, now that no one was around, I started to push the boundaries, a little more each semester. I was an empty seat in lecture halls, slept late in a depressive funk, handed in term papers later and later to see how much I could get away with before the House swatted me down. Push it some more. We go to casinos to tell the everyday world that we will not submit. There are rules and codes and institutions, yes, but for a few hours in this temple of pure chaos, of random cards and inscrutable dice, we are in control of our fates. My little gambles were a way of pretending that no one was the boss of me. … The nickels poured into the basin, sweet music. If it worked once, it will work again. We hit the street. 106-8 [Matt Matros, 3x bracelet winner; wrote The Making of a Poker Player]: “One way or another you’re going to have a read, and you’re going to do something that you didn’t expect you were going to do before, right or wrong. Obviously it’s better if you’re right, but even if you’re wrong, it can be really satisfying to just have a read, a feeling, and go with it. Your gut.” I could play it safe, or I could really play. 180 Early on, you wanted to stay cool and keep out of expensive confrontations, but you also needed to feed the stack. The stack is hungry. 187 The awful knowledge that you did what you set out to do, and you would never, ever top it. It was gone the instant you put your hands on it. It was gambling. 224
Colson Whitehead (The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death)
Then, decades later, in the 1970s, a hard-assed U.S. swim coach named James Counsilman rediscovered it. Counsilman was notorious for his “hurt, pain, and agony”–based training techniques, and hypoventilation fit right in. Competitive swimmers usually take two or three strokes before they flip their heads to the side and inhale. Counsilman trained his team to hold their breath for as many as nine strokes. He believed that, over time, the swimmers would utilize oxygen more efficiently and swim faster. In a sense, it was Buteyko’s Voluntary Elimination of Deep Breathing and Zátopek hypoventilation—underwater. Counsilman used it to train the U.S. Men’s Swimming team for the Montreal Olympics. They won 13 gold medals, 14 silver, and 7 bronze, and they set world records in 11 events. It was the greatest performance by a U.S. Olympic swim team in history. Hypoventilation training fell back into obscurity after several studies in the 1980s and 1990s argued that it had little to no impact on performance and endurance. Whatever these athletes were gaining, the researchers reported, must have been based on a strong placebo effect. In the early 2000s, Dr. Xavier Woorons, a French physiologist at Paris 13 University, found a flaw in these studies. The scientists critical of the technique had measured it all wrong. They’d been looking at athletes holding their breath with full lungs, and all that extra air in the lungs made it difficult for the athletes to enter into a deep state of hypoventilation. Woorons repeated the tests, but this time subjects practiced the half-full technique, which is how Buteyko trained his patients, and likely how Counsilman trained his swimmers. Breathing less offered huge benefits. If athletes kept at it for several weeks, their muscles adapted to tolerate more lactate accumulation, which allowed their bodies to pull more energy during states of heavy anaerobic stress, and, as a result, train harder and longer. Other reports showed hypoventilation training provided a boost in red blood cells, allowing athletes to carry more oxygen and produce more energy with each breath. Breathing way less delivered the benefits of high-altitude training at 6,500 feet, but it could be used at sea level, or anywhere. Over the years, this style of breath restriction has been given many names—hypoventilation, hypoxic training, Buteyko technique, and the pointlessly technical “normobaric hypoxia training.” The outcomes were the same: a profound boost in performance.* Not just for elite athletes, but for everyone. Just a few weeks of the training significantly increased endurance, reduced more “trunk fat,” improved cardiovascular function, and boosted muscle mass compared to normal-breathing exercise. This list goes on. The takeaway is that hypoventilation works. It helps train the body to do more with less. But that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant.
James Nestor (Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art)
WHY ADDICTION IS NOT A DISEASE In its present-day form, the disease model of addiction asserts that addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease. This disease is evidenced by changes in the brain, especially alterations in the striatum, brought about by the repeated uptake of dopamine in response to drugs and other substances. But it’s also shown by changes in the prefrontal cortex, where regions responsible for cognitive control become partially disconnected from the striatum and sometimes lose a portion of their synapses as the addiction progresses. These are big changes. They can’t be brushed aside. And the disease model is the only coherent model of addiction that actually pays attention to the brain changes reported by hundreds of labs in thousands of scientific articles. It certainly explains the neurobiology of addiction better than the “choice” model and other contenders. It may also have some real clinical utility. It makes sense of the helplessness addicts feel and encourages them to expiate their guilt and shame, by validating their belief that they are unable to get better by themselves. And it seems to account for the incredible persistence of addiction, its proneness to relapse. It even demonstrates why “choice” cannot be the whole answer, because choice is governed by motivation, which is governed by dopamine, and the dopamine system is presumably diseased. Then why should we reject the disease model? The main reason is this: Every experience that is repeated enough times because of its motivational appeal will change the wiring of the striatum (and related regions) while adjusting the flow and uptake of dopamine. Yet we wouldn’t want to call the excitement we feel when visiting Paris, meeting a lover, or cheering for our favourite team a disease. Each rewarding experience builds its own network of synapses in and around the striatum (and OFC), and those networks continue to draw dopamine from its reservoir in the midbrain. That’s true of Paris, romance, football, and heroin. As we anticipate and live through these experiences, each network of synapses is strengthened and refined, so the uptake of dopamine gets more selective as rewards are identified and habits established. Prefrontal control is not usually studied when it comes to travel arrangements and football, but we know from the laboratory and from real life that attractive goals frequently override self-restraint. We know that ego fatigue and now appeal, both natural processes, reduce coordination between prefrontal control systems and the motivational core of the brain (as I’ve called it). So even though addictive habits can be more deeply entrenched than many other habits, there is no clear dividing line between addiction and the repeated pursuit of other attractive goals, either in experience or in brain function. London just doesn’t do it for you anymore. It’s got to be Paris. Good food, sex, music . . . they no longer turn your crank. But cocaine sure does.
Marc Lewis (The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease)
One of the positive side-effects of maintaining a very high degree of awareness of death is that it will prepare the individual to such an extent that, when the individual actually faces death, he or she will be in a better position to maintain his or her presence of mind. Especially in Tantric Buddhism, it is considered that the state of mind which one experiences at the point of death is extremely subtle and, because of the subtlety of the level of that consciousness, it also has a great power and impact upon one’s mental continuum. In Tantric practices we find a lot of emphasis placed on reflections upon the process of death, so that the individual at the time of death not only retains his or her presence of mind, but also is in a position to utilize that subtle state of consciousness effectively towards the realization of the path. From the Tantric perspective, the entire process of existence is explained in terms of the three stages known as ‘death’, the ‘intermediate state’ and ‘rebirth’. All of these three stages of existence are seen as states or manifestations of the consciousness and the energies that accompany or propel the consciousness, so that the intermediate state and rebirth are nothing other than various levels of the subtle consciousness and energy. An example of such fluctuating states can be found in our daily existence, when during the 24-hour day we go through a cycle of deep sleep, the waking period and the dream state. Our daily existence is in fact characterized by these three stages. As death becomes something familiar to you, as you have some knowledge of its processes and can recognize its external and internal indications, you are prepared for it. According to my own experience, I still have no confidence that at the moment of death I will really implement all these practices for which I have prepared. I have no guarantee! Sometimes when I think about death I get some kind of excitement. Instead of fear, I have a feeling of curiosity and this makes it much easier for me to accept death. Of course, my only burden if I die today is, ‘Oh, what will happen to Tibet? What about Tibetan culture? What about the six million Tibetan people’s rights?’ This is my main concern. Otherwise, I feel almost no fear of death. In my daily practice of prayer I visualize eight different deity yogas and eight different deaths. Perhaps when death comes all my preparation may fail. I hope not! I think these practices are mentally very helpful in dealing with death. Even if there is no next life, there is some benefit if they relieve fear. And because there is less fear, one can be more fully prepared. If you are fully prepared then, at the moment of death, you can retain your peace of mind. I think at the time of death a peaceful mind is essential no matter what you believe in, whether it is Buddhism or some other religion. At the moment of death, the individual should not seek to develop anger, hatred and so on. I think even non-believers see that it is better to pass away in a peaceful manner, it is much happier. Also, for those who believe in heaven or some other concept, it is also best to pass away peacefully with the thought of one’s own God or belief in higher forces. For Buddhists and also other ancient Indian traditions, which accept the rebirth or karma theory, naturally at the time of death a virtuous state of mind is beneficial.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom: Words from His Holiness on Buddhism, Mindfulness, and Compassion)
Yoel Goldenberg makes exhibitions, photographs, models and media craftsmanship. His works are an examination of ideas, for example, validness and objectivity by utilizing an exhaustive methodology and semi exploratory exactness and by referencing documentaries, 'actuality fiction' and prominent experimental reciprocals. Yoel Goldenberg as of now lives and works in Brooklyn. By challenging the division between the domain of memory and the domain of experience, Goldenberg formalizes the circumstantial and underlines the procedure of synthesis that is behind the apparently arbitrary works. The manners of thinking, which are probably private, profoundly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream universes, are much of the time uncovered as collections. His practice gives a valuable arrangement of metaphorical instruments for moving with a pseudo-moderate approach in the realm of execution: these fastidiously arranged works reverberate and resound with pictures winnowed from the fantastical domain of creative energy. By trying different things with aleatoric procedures, Yoel Goldenberg makes work in which an interest with the clarity of substance and an uncompromising demeanor towards calculated and insignificant workmanship can be found. The work is detached and deliberate and a cool and unbiased symbolism is utilized. His works are highlighting unplanned, unintentional and sudden associations which make it conceivable to overhaul craftsmanship history and, far and away superior, to supplement it. Consolidating random viewpoints lead to astounding analogies. With a theoretical methodology, he ponders the firmly related subjects of file and memory. This regularly brings about an examination of both the human requirement for "definitive" stories and the inquiry whether tales "fictionalize" history. His gathered, changed and own exhibitions are being faced as stylishly versatile, specifically interrelated material for memory and projection. The conceivable appears to be genuine and reality exists, yet it has numerous countenances, as Hanna Arendt refers to from Franz Kafka. By exploring dialect on a meta-level, he tries to approach a wide size of subjects in a multi-layered route, likes to include the viewer in a way that is here and there physical and has faith in the thought of capacity taking after structure in a work. Goldenberg’s works are straightforwardly a reaction to the encompassing environment and uses regular encounters from the craftsman as a beginning stage. Regularly these are confined occasions that would go unnoticed in their unique connection. By utilizing a regularly developing file of discovered archives to make self-ruling works of art, he retains the convention of recognition workmanship into every day hone. This individual subsequent and recovery of a past custom is vital as a demonstration of reflection. Yoel’s works concentrate on the powerlessness of correspondence which is utilized to picture reality, the endeavor of dialog, the disharmony in the middle of structure and content and the dysfunctions of dialect. To put it plainly, the absence of clear references is key components in the work. With an unobtrusive moderate methodology, he tries to handle dialect. Changed into craftsmanship, dialect turns into an adornment. Right then and there, loads of ambiguities and indistinctnesses, which are intrinsic to the sensation, rise up to the top
Herbert Goldenberg
The lust of property, and love: what different associations each of these ideas evoke! and yet it might be the same impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something of repose, who are now apprehensive for the safety of their "possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our love of our neighbor, is it not a striving after new property? And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest landscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming something new into ourselves, that is just possessing. To become satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also suffer from excess, even the desire to cast away, to share out, may assume the honorable name of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we willingly utilize the opportunity then afforded to take possession of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this; he also calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of "love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over the body; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to exclude all the world from a precious possession, a happiness, and an enjoyment; when one considers that the lover has in view the impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors "and exploiters; when one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent, colorless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his own, one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times; yea, that out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most unqualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of language, there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have been favored with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then about the "raging demon," as, for instance, the most lovable and most beloved of all the Athenians Sophocles; but Eros always laughed at such revilers, they were always his greatest favorites. There is, of course, here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of sequel to love, in which that covetous longing of two persons for one another has yielded to a new desire and covetousness, to a common, higher thirst for a superior ideal standing above them: but who knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its right name — friendship.
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
It may be cheap, but it should also be sturdy. What must be avoided at all costs is dishonest, distorted and ornate work. What must be sought is the natural, direct, simple, sturdy and safe. Confining beauty to visual appreciation and excluding the beauty of practical objects has proven to be a grave error on the part of modern man. A true appreciation of beauty cannot be fostered by ignoring practical handicrafts. After all, there is no greater opportunity for appreciating beauty than through its use in our daily lives, no greater opportunity for coming into direct contact with the beautiful. It was the tea masters who first recognized this fact. Their profound aesthetic insight came as a result of their experience with utilitarian objects. If life and beauty are treated as belonging to different realms, our aesthetic sensibilities will gradually wither and decline. It is said that someone living in proximity to a flowering garden grows insensitive to its fragrance. Likewise, when one becomes too familiar with a sight, one loses the ability to truly see it. Habit robs us of the power to perceive anew, much less the power to be moved. Thus it has taken us all these years, all these ages, to detect the beauty in common objects. The world of utility and the world of beauty are not separate realms. Users and the used have exchanged a vow: the more an object is used the more beautiful it will become and the more the user uses an object, the more the object will be used. When machines are in control, the beauty they produce is cold and shallow. It is the human hand that creates subtlety and warmth. Weakness cannot withstand the rigors of daily use. The true meaning of the tea ceremony is being forgotten. The beauty of the way of tea should be the beauty of the ordinary, the beauty of honest poverty. Equating the expensive with the beautiful cannot be a point of pride. Under the snow's reflected light creeping into the houses, beneath the dim lamplight, various types of manual work are taken up. This is how time is forgotten; this is how work absorbs the hours and days. yet there is work to do, work to be done with the hands. Once this work begins, the clock no longer measures the passage of time. The history of kogin is the history of utility being transformed into beauty. Through their own efforts, these people made their daily lives more beautiful. This is the true calling, the mission, of handicrafts. We are drawn by that beauty and we have much to learn from it. As rich as it is, America is perhaps unrivalled for its vulgar lack of propriety and decorum, which may account for its having the world's highest crime rate. The art of empty space seen in the Nanga school of monochrome painting and the abstract, free-flowing art of calligraphy have already begun to exert considerable influence on the West. Asian art represents a latent treasure trove of immense and wide-reaching value for the future and that is precisely because it presents a sharp contrast to Western art. No other country has pursued the art of imperfection as eagerly as Japan. Just as Western art and architecture owe much to the sponsorship of the House of Medici during the Reformation, tea and Noh owe much to the protection of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa ( 1436-1490 ). The most brilliant era of Japanese culture, the Higashiyama period ( 1443-1490 ). Literally, sabi commonly means "loneliness" but as a Buddhist term it originally referred to the cessation of attachment. The beauty of tea is the beauty of sabi. It might also be called the beauty of poverty or in our day it might be simply be called the beauty of simplicity. The tea masters familiar with this beauty were called sukisha-ki meaning "lacking". The sukisha were masters of enjoying what was lacking.
Soetsu Yanagi (The Beauty of Everyday Things)