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December, 2023
December 31 Smell Your Tea
When you brew tea, it's too hot to drink. Without pausing and paying attention, you'll sip it too early and burn your mouth. Savor the time when your tea is too hot to drink. It's not ready to taste, but you can smell it; you can feel the heat radiating through your cup. Like brewing tea, you must steep each moment in boiling, 180° awareness, else it will be watered down and lack flavor. Before you sip, smell. While you wait, be grateful and wonder. Don't rush.
Entropy is a bitch, and it's the nature of reality. But is Mother Nature a bitch? Or is she worthy of worship? If the concept of Mother Nature — a creator — is something to revere, then how could we lament such a fundamental characteristic of Her creation? Learn to love the Mother, learn to live within nature's trend toward disorder.
The bigger your topic, the narrower your scope needs to be.
It's dangerous and destructive to make sex an ethical issue. Sex for us — just like it is for dogs and ducks — is amoral, natural, necessary. The ethical issue is consent. Christianity has been the primary cause of this cultural phenomenon, by praising virginity and abstinence and condemning unsanctioned sex. But if we loosen the cultural cuffs on sex and tighten the norms around consent, everyone would have healthier, better — and likely more — sex.
December 30 The feminine desire is to have kids without having sex. The masculine desire is to have sex without having kids. Those are the conceptual extremes, and both are impossible. The reality, within every person, is a homogenous yet unequal mix of both energies.
Religion is a source of ultimate comfort (e.g, the promise of eternal life after death). Maybe that's why it feels inauthentic and untrue to me. What new truths have you learned that made you more comfortable? The character of the universe is not simple and unified but paradoxical and entropic. Our greatest fears and pains and worries are all assuaged by the Christian doctrine. Sad that your mom died? Don't worry, she's in a better place, and you'll join her soon. Worried that you might be a bad person? Go to confession and take Communion. Unsure of why you're here or how life began? Read the Bible. Unclear of what you should spend your time doing? Are you afraid of being selfish? Do you not trust yourself to adhere to a self-ascribed morality? Follow Jesus. Religion offers simple answers to unanswerable questions. That's why it seems inauthentic and untrue.
Often, what you think is your intro should actually be your conclusion. Open with a question and save the answer for the end — so that you give your reader a reason to read, and a satisfying resolution.
It is enough to justify your philosophy with your experience — not enough for academia but enough to make an impact on other people.
Don't write about a timely topic unless you can use it to make a timeless point.
No matter how well you think you know yourself, writing will reveal what you don't.
Most philanthropy is guilt- or status-driven.
Here's my playlist of top-tier doomed-romance films: Past Lives, 500 Days of Summer, Marriage Story, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, La La Land.
The cohort is as a fundamental model of community. On a small scale, you have an elementary and high-school cohort. On a large scale, you are alive with a small portion of humanity, whose lifespans intersect with your own. As a model for community, the cohort is about chance connections and a group navigating similar circumstances and facing adversity together.
December 29 The paradox of mindfulness: being aware of the moment and being in the moment are fundamentally different things. Mindfulness is meta-experience, which means it is not presence.
If you’re struggling to write, you either don’t know what you’re trying to say or you’re trying to say too much.
The best way to express a philosophy is to render it as a character and embed it in a story: Socrates, Buddha, Zarathustra, Monsieur Meursault, Icarus, Alice, Jesus, Oedipus, Odysseus, Prometheus.
The glaciers are melting. Yes, they are. And they have before. Once we're extinct, they'll be another ice age, and the glaciers will rein again. Of course, let's try to stop the glaciers from melting, but let's not pretend that we could ever possibly kill them. That's too great a feat for mere mortals. We're not saving the planet. We're saving the planet for ourselves.
December 28 Ideas are power-laws. The more you work you do with ideas, the less work you have to do for the same results.
December 24 Inflation is an increase in price without a change in value. Appreciation is an increase in value, relative to a previous price.
December 23 I just met a guy named Harley whose parents' home is in Asheville. Harley lives in Kinnelon, NJ, and works for L3 Harris. Harley, before I knew him, was riding in the middle-seat across the aisle, in my row, on our flight from EWR to ORD. Their trio was pretty chatty, led by a spunky girl in the window-seat, whom I overheard was studying abroad in Spain. The guy talked to her enough and was awkward enough, and she was pretty enough where I could safely assume that Harley was smitten.
As we deplaned, I tried to let their whole trio exit before me, together, but the girl in the window-seat waited back for her bag and let me go ahead. I stepped into the aisle between her and my boy, Harley (before he was my boy), and felt like I'd failed to fuel the romance. It's the holiday season! I can't be stepping on dreams. All my suspicions of Harley's smitten-ness were confirmed when he glanced behind him to see where the girl was, clearly wondering whether he would talk to her again. Actually, as I was walking behind him, I was waiting for him to catch a backward glance, to confirm my suspicions of his smitten-ness and timidity. Damn, I'm perceptive! (Oooph, that's a little arrogant. But hey wait, is it arrogant if I am aware of it being so and couch my arrogant statement in a too long aside to assure a theoretical reader of my humility?) That glance permitted me to say to Harley the thing that I'd had a growing impulse to say.
I'd been there. Planes, actually, are among my most successful arenas for courtship. Junior year of high school, I asked prom date to the dance using the aircraft's intercom (but had no plan for what would happen after and weirdly walked over and had a random man in the aisle stand up to let her out from the middle seat to give me a hug before sitting back down, and forty of my classmates witnessed this, who were all there because we were headed back from a choir performance at Carnegie Hall). The summer prior, I made a last-minute, illegal seat-change to bunk with the prettiest girl on our student-travel trip to Argentina. We intermittently made out from Buenos Aires to Miami. (I had just met this girl on the trip, and I'd been in the friend-zone with my prom date for years, hence the hug.)
Anyway, I was intimately familiar with the situation my boy Harley found himself in today. His quick glance back down the aisle was, in fact, double confirmation that I had the grounds to say what I wanted to say. Before that, as we were taxiing to the gate, I also noticed him absentmindedly flipping through a seat-back mag while he was talking to the window-seat girl. (That's a tell for a lot of guys. Is he acting disinterested and distracted? He's insecure and has convinced himself you're out of his league.) Off the jet bridge, in the arrival gate, I stood by Harley, pretending to be checking the gate of my connection, until the girl came out and said goodbye. He wised her a Merry Christmas but pretended to be busy with his phone. Just after she walked away, I said my line: "Hey, did you get her number?"
Harley and I had not spoken. These were the first words I had uttered to this stranger. To his credit, he was smooth and honest with his response: "I didn't," he said with a smile of fraternal understanding.
"This is your chance. You've got this," I said.
"Nah," he said with some head-shaking and a few lousy excuses about her living in Spain and whatnot. (Recall from my eavesdropping that she is not Spanish but studying abroad in Spain. Harley was trumping up his excuse by leaving out that detail.)
"You could be friends. Let's go," I said, gesturing that he and I run after her, and I hand him off to give the ask.
It wasn't going to happen. I asked if he was interested in her and if they got along. He dodged, saying that they enjoyed talking. I understood. I'd been there (but in high school). Harley was at least my age, maybe 25. I was disappointed but didn't show it and shook his hand, finally learning the name of this stranger: Harley, who was on his way to his parents' home in in Ashville — today, without the girls number. Harley works at L3 Harris, but just like everyone else I've known to work there, he says he will leave soon and is looking at other jobs. I wonder if he negotiates pay like he courts women. Maybe his next job will require him to move to Spain.
Most times I pee at a urinal, I stare that the wall in front of me and try to focus on the smallest little thing I can see, wether it's a spec in the grout, a fleck in the tile, or a mark on the wall. It's a practice of pseudo-mediation I have. Today, it made me think about how rarely we use the full measure of our visual focus. It's only when I'm at a urinal that I pay attention to something so small.
December 22 Resist the winds that push you from your way, but heed the omens that tell of one better, a way that you have yet to consider.
[[Die at Sea]]
I happily embrace the feminine energy of an inscrutable legacy. I don't need credit for the great things I do. I don't care whether I'm remembered. The only thing I care about is becoming the best possible version of myself, while doing right by everyone I interact with along the way.
I have no kinship with the men who seek a stone-etched legacy. Strip me of money, fame, and notoriety; leave me with a sense clarity, strong relationships, and meaning. I would die happy.
[[Not all "great people" lead great lives.]]
As an editor, if you can't see the forest for the trees, you're failing. As an editor, you have to see the forest, the trees, and the leaves — and move between those scopes nimbly.
[[Park-Ranger Revision]]
How can I reach DFW's level of English-mastery without getting an MFA?
To assume a stance of objectivity is to remain ignorant of your subjectivity.
Here's a coined term for the misconception that other people are doing more with their time than you (or for the myth successful people get good overnight, or the related myth that people like news anchors also have time to write their own memoirs): The Santa Claus Effect. We inflate the idea of what other people are accomplishing and how productive they are — just as we do with Santa. We imagine him traversing the globe in a night and hand-delivering presents to eight billion people — all while we're asleep.
Doesn't "traveling" feel like it should have two Ls? Look at its past-participle cousins with double consonants: "betting," "getting," "sitting," "ridding," "bidding," "kidding." But I guess the 'L' is just an exception: "quarreling," "barreling," "appealing," "reeling," "feeling," "dealing."
Original Sin is a man-made justification for his own insecurities and low self-esteem.
(Then, religious devotion — according to what Kant would call "an ecclesiastical faith" — is a clear path to remedying those insecurities and, to a believer, also the only available path to do so.)
Warren Buffet said that the best portfolio is the entire market, and the best time horizon is forever. It's a clever way to say that the market trends upward in the long term. But that advice is only an ideal, a heuristic. You can't hold the entire market, and you can't hold it forever. If you translate the same advice to practical terms, it's this: the best portfolio follows the long-term trend of the market, and the best time horizon is indefinite.
An indefinite time horizon is better than an infinite one. If you're close to retirement or death, you don't want to keep holding everything until the last possible moment. If your time horizon is indefinite, rather than infinite, you have the ability to sell. And if your time horizon is indefinite, rather than immediate, you have the freedom to buy and hold through market dips.
The more market-independent you can be, and the more you can align yourself with the long-term trend of the market, the better off you'll be as a retail investor.
December 21 Live In The Third (Interval)
To create harmony, all you need are two frequencies separated by an interval less than an octave. The simplest and most pleasing two-note harmony (interval) is the third. Sing aloud to yourself: "Do, Ra, Mi." A third is the interval from "Do" to "Mi." (If you have a friend — or a willing stranger — nearby, ask them to sing the "Mi" to your "Do," so that you can hear and feel the harmony.)
For contrast, take the major second interval: "Do, Ra." It's just as simple — two notes — but not nearly as satisfying to the ear. They sound in competition, whereas "Do" and "Mi" collaborate in the interval of the third. You know the minor second from the Jaws theme, and the major second is similarly disconcerting.
In life, we two often see the world as if it consists of dichotomies: masculine or feminine, success or failure, confidence or insecurity, conservative or liberal. We too often see the world as only comprised of two notes, only one step apart. They play at each other, as a call and response like the Jaws theme: "Duh...Duh, Duh...Duh, Duh Duh, Duh Duh, Duhduhduhduhduh." "Aaagh!" And we feel like we have to choose one side.
Instead of choosing one of any two extremes, choose to live in The Third. Stretch the extremes so that they are two steps apart, and leave room for yourself to exist in the middle, along the spectrum of the duality (not a dichotomy). Harmony does not mean balancing two things and taking them both at half-portion. It means having both in full at once. It's almost paradoxical, but I assure you it's possible. Play "Do" and "Mi" together. Find harmony among the dualities of life: masculine and feminine, success and failure, confidence and insecurity, conservative and liberal. Live in The Third.
[[Live in the Third]]
December 20 The thing to focus on when you dream journal is not the dream-content but the structure of the content and how you respond to it. Map the structure of the dream-content to your waking life, usually through an emotion — pride, guilt, excitement, fear — and examine your subconscious response to now whether you can trust your instincts or whether you need to overcome some blockers/insecurities around that thing.
Response in the Substack comments section: "I’ve always regarded the Fall as the story of man receiving the gift of divine knowledge — the knowledge of good and evil, self-awareness, sin. I like what you say about finding gratitude in the fact that life is a gift, regardless of whether it is finite or eternal. However, I’d argue that Adam and Eve wouldn’t have had the awareness to see life as a gift. In Eden, before the Fall, they lacked self-awareness and the divine knowledge and probably did not feel gratitude, because they were just living and were unaware that living is a gift."
Today, everything is treatable, so everyone is treating everything. We live longer than our ancestors did, but we have a higher rate of chronic illness. Everything is treatable, so why put in the work to prevent a thing?
A Shiny Dime is the most compressed version of a specific and surprising idea.
December 19 Send a week trying to minimize the number of ads I see, and log all the ads that I do — the ones that are unavoidable, that trespass on my optical real estate.
A third of the people on the 8:00 am 156 bus to Port Authority have their eyes closed. And they're not meditating. Maybe it's the end-of-year angst and exhaustion (today's December 19), or maybe they have to nap on their commutes because their lifestyles don't sustain them and their work doesn't excite them.
December 18 I want to consume long-form narratives visually, because that medium adds so much depth and economy to the storytelling. (Think of an actor's subtle facial expressions and the immersive expanse of an establishing shot in films vs. pages of exposition and descriptive language in novels). This means I would rather watch a film or play a video game than read a novel (mostly because I really enjoy films and video games — not just for the sake of being efficient). In most cases, I am willing to give up having my version of a story exist in my head, so that I can spend my reading time on the types of writing I want to write: narrative essays, nonfiction books, popular philosophy, and short stories. This would let me learn more about writing from what I read. You can't render a nonfiction book in a visual medium, and short stories are richer in your head than they would be as four-minute films. Both nonfiction and short fiction (idea- or theme-focused content) benefit from the economy of prose, whereas long-form narratives (character-, setting-, and plot-driven content) benefit from the economy of motion-picture.
Read to become a better nonfiction and short-fiction writer. Watch films and play video games to learn how to deliver a captivating, long-form narrative.
[[Manifesting My Ideal Information Diet]]
"The young man who became the wanderer... wonders: Who learns the most? The one who has seen every corner of the world, or the one who made it to the top of the great mountain at its center?" – Like Stories of Old on The Eight Mountains
December 16 I used to look at a Lamborghini and want one. Now, I look at a Lamborghini and wonder what the owner had to give up to get one.
I subscribe to a local, practical ethics. I strive for the following ideal, and achieving this is my definition of living a moral life: do right by yourself and everyone you interact with. This is an ideal because it is approachable but unattainable; you will inevitably say something you shouldn't or wrong someone. But this local, practical version of ethics is all that you need to focus on to live a good life. You don't have to torture yourself about how you should sacrifice your own happiness to reduce the suffering of others. Instead, you can treat everyone with dignity and respect and help everyone you meet live a more enjoyable, meaningful life. Keep it local. That's all we're evolved to handle.
December 14 Usually what's scarce is expensive; it's simple supply and demand. Silence is scarce in New York City, but it's free to go to the New York Public Library. That's a paradox in a capitalistic society but a welcome one to me.
A piece of practical wisdom: other people don't share your insecurities. The worst way to interact with the world is to assume that everyone is worried about what you're worried about. The best way to be in the world is to acknowledge the reality that everyone is consumed by their own thoughts, their own insecurities. No one but you has the thoughts that go through your head.
December 13 I've always been interested in quantifying qualitative things — applying an analytical mind to what is subjective and unpredictable. Now, I'm obsessed with it, but in a different way. Now, I lean more on my intuition. I'm not concerned as much with quantifying as I am about sensing quality or intuiting what can't be directly measured or observed. I find this skill so valuable and so rare. It's the foundation of good taste. Applied on the largest scale possible, having good taste is how you decide what to spend your time doing before you die; it's how you live a good life.
Genesis as a Myth
Present a new way to read the Bible: it's the most successful story ever written by humans. Of course, that would diminish its significance in the eyes of a believer, since I'm saying it's not the word of God. But to a non-believer, that would elevate the book's significance. Think of how much we value stories and live by them and for them already. We tell stories to explain the world around us and how we are within it. The Bible, better than anything before it, captures the latter. It tells a convincing story more about human nature than Nature, unlike the pagan and polytheistic traditions before. It was the first transcendental story to appeal more to our minds (e.g., the concepts of Original Sin and The Trinity) than to our senses and survival needs (e.g., praying to the god of the harvest for rain).
Here are some examples from Genesis of how to read the Bible as a piece of literature:
- Labor and childbirth are painful for women, so man invented a story with a crime that would be worthy of such a "punishment": Original Sin.
- Men are violent and kill their kin, hence the story of Cain and Abel to justify this characteristic as part of our fallen nature.
- Women are a mystery to men, and men want to act as if they have the power — when, in fact, they live their lives according to the women they want to attract. To explain the male-female dynamic, men wrote about women as having been created from a part of man (a rib) and made Adam's Original Sin deferring to Eve, when she offered him the apple. Eve's sin was disobeying The Father, and Adam's sin was following a woman.
Eden Is Hell Too
Hell is eternal suffering for the body. Heaven is eternal suffering for the mind. Eden and Heaven are stagnant, unchanging — completely counter to the nature of our universe and of ourselves. We are entropic and ever-changing. We are unfit to exist in a place of perfect, eternal order. What would there be for us to do or strive for or hope for or love? There would be everything always as it was. We would have no agency. The world wouldn't need us in it. It would be the exact same without us. That's not true on Earth, our world. We can act in the world and dictate change and impact people. None of that was true in Eden, and it wouldn't be true in Heaven. As for Hell, no human is deserving of eternal torture, especially for disobeying overly-particular, amoral rules about what it means to be obedient to one idea of what God could be. Neither Hell or Eden is an existence fit for man.
Travel vs. Adventure
When you ask people what they would do if they didn't have to work, too many say, "I would travel the world." It makes sense why this is the answer, why it's so appealing, but we're lying to ourselves if we think meaning and fulfillment in life depend on the range of your lived experience. In fact, it all depends on depth. When you're anxious, can you reason why? When you're with a dear friend, are you fully present and undistracted?
We feel obligated to say "travel the world" because we have that privilege and because we know the value of traveling (or maybe because we've never really thought about what we desire). More important than traveling is going on adventures. Adventures have depth and a purpose and teach you a lesson or unlock a new skill. Traveling is all about range, breadth. How many destinations can I mark of my bucket list? Think of any human that lived before the airplane (or anyone today who can't afford an international flight). None of them had vague dreams of "traveling the world." That wasn't an option. If you wanted to go somewhere dramatically new, it'd be on a boat, a wagon, or a train, and you'd have to commit to going on an adventure to do it.
One more thing about the people who lived before us, without airplanes or social media or air-fryers: their lives still were meaningful and fulfilling. Actually, they were less worried about living a meaningful life, because they had fewer choices. Meaning and fulfillment came easier to them because they had no choice but to be present; the here and now was often all that was available. Depth was easy. Now we're optimized for breadth, and we're being strung out over everything, rather than connecting with one thing: here-and-now.
There's a skill to sensing someone's vibe and where they fall on the spectrum of masculine and feminine energies, and whether they have harmony among the two. For a sense-check, here are a few archetypes for each side of the spectrum, and for the harmonious middle:
Masculine: Finance Bros, Girl Bosses, High-Libido High-Achievers, The Aspiring Alpha
Feminine: The For-Yourself Talent Who Makes No Money from Their Craft and Doesn't Want To, The Devoted Mother, The Nature Girl, The Ski Bum
Harmony: The Ambitious and Authentic Artist, The Pro Athlete with a Traditional Family, The Executive Who Does Quarterly Meditation Retreats, The A-List Actor Who Doesn't Seek Validation, The Honest Self-Critic Who Finds Humor in Their Flaws
December 12 A heuristic for personal finance (during a phase of full-time work): Don't stress over having a negative-cash-flow months, but limit those to no more than two or three per year (for big purchases or expensive experiences), and make sure each quarter is cash-flow-positive; manage your spending and saving so that you guarantee quarterly and annual surpluses.
December 11 There is a rare synchronicity between your subconscious and your waking mind where a dream can seem like it was made to speak to you, rather than for you to interpret. It's like a rogue realist painting in a gallery full of abstract art. Sometimes, you know exactly what the artist (your subconscious) is saying with their work of art (your dream).
[[Dreams as an Aesthetic Experience]]
Neither the ant nor the snowflake has the privilege of appreciating their existence, because they lack our special self-awareness.
December 10 We humans are beholden to Nature. If you don't like the weather, all you can do is wait.
"Smart" is domain-specific. It must be qualified, to indicate the area of smartness: "smart about," "smart with," "book-smart," "street-smart." Wisdom is wholistic and unconditioned. To be wise is to be globally smart — smart about how to approach life.
December 9 As a writer (or any artist really), it's dangerous to take yourself too seriously. The more seriously you regard yourself and the status you ascribe to yourself for the self-perceived quality of your work, the less you focus on improving you craft. And that's what matters. Focus on the work and the words. Forget the artist. Like anyone else, you're just a person with a passion. You're not so precious.
As a writer, always know, and as an editor, always ask: "Who is your ideal reader?"
A good editor always knows how a piece could be better and always presents those suggestions alongside compliments to the writer, indicating that the editor also understands what's good about the piece already. These are not dishonest platitudes but freely flung praise, to keep the writer motivated and confident — not deflated by — the piece and the criticism at hand.
The highest conceivable ideal of who I could be is in no functional way different than the concept of God. Rather than subordinating myself to something external or someone besides myself, I can live life in service to my Ideal Self and thereby bring myself, effectively, closer to God.
It is my divine mandate in life to liken myself to Him, my Self.
December 7 It's dangerous to romanticize your occupation, vocation, or even your passion. The more you think you are meant to do something, the easier it is to find motivation to do it, yet the more blind you become to all the other parts of life you are meant to be living too. Don't let work prevent aimless wonder. Don't let objectives override relationships. Don't let your purpose draw you away from the present.
The crew member just made a special announcement thanking a passenger for his loyalty to United, celebrating that on this flight he will clear 1,000,000 miles — the equivalent of 737 flights from EWR to AUS. At least four people clapped, which was at least one too many, since I only see three crew members. The man has spent an exorbitant amount of money with one company and irretrievable time away from his friends and family. Who on this plane is enough of a United fan to root for that?
How much of our optical real estate has already been purchased by advertisers? Billboards, pop-ups, promos, sponsorships. Could you spend a day or an hour in America without seeing an ad? Will it ever get any better, or will it become ever worse, where each individual slowly loses the monopoly of his own attention to an infinite conglomerate of capitalistic competitors? Without our consent, our optical real estate has been zoned commercial.
It seems backwards, but your biceps are the hamstrings of your arms, your triceps the quads. Each pair of muscles correspond to pulling and pushing movements, respectively. It's backwards because your elbows bend forwards and your knees bend backwards.
December 6 The only thing to disrupt my peace was a pair of pissed-off Arctic Terns. If you come near the nesting sites of these birds, they'll take to the sky and start dive-bombing toward your head, as if they're going to rip it off and stick it on a pike to deter any other humans who would dare come near their young. These birds have two types of squawks. One is a normal bird-sound, just more frequent and more annoying. The other haunts me. It's a short, raspy growl, and it's the closest thing to a bird yelling "Fuck off!" But in that moment on that beach, I found a rare bliss, and the terns ceased to bother me. In fact, I included them in my thoughts as I paused to appreciate Nature's majesty.
[[Feeling Fire and Ice]]
A writer does best to keep in mind the questions that the reader will have at every turn. Those questions are sources of suspense, reasons to keep reading, and they help the writer find his way to answers (resolution).
December 5 The American ideal of freedom is not a freedom from but a freedom to. Rather than a freedom from all commitments, the American freedom is the freedom to commit to something that you deem meaningful, worthy of your time and attention. This type of freedom is suitable as the primary value of a nation, because it means that each citizen is endowed with the ability to live the life they want, as long as they protect that very freedom for their fellow citizens.
The scariest of the five senses, in isolation, is hearing, for when you can only hear a thing, you are left to infer the sight of it in your imagination: the only place where your greatest fears are a reality.
The third act of Oppenheimer is flawless for the same reasons that James Clear's book is titled Atomic Habits. The third act of the film, like the title of Clear's book, is a microcosm of the very theme and overall message. This is what Oppenheimer says beyond the story: we bother ourselves every day with the petty, material things of our existence, yet our attention to those things is what might cause the devastation of our species, by our own blind hands. Small things — atoms — when broken, can have disastrous results.
December 4 The requisite cost of any pursuit of untethered freedom is a loss of meaning. To chase complete freedom, trying to make life more enjoyable, is to flee from the commitments that make life meaningful.
December 3 Maybe these people didn't share my reverence for this country or this mountain, but even so, a Christian wouldn't walk into a mosque without first removing his shoes. If not reverence, you'd think these people would assume a posture of appreciation or respect rather than consumeristic entitlement and adolescent titillation.
[[Feeling Fire and Ice]]
I exist in service to no one other than the highest conceivable version of my self.
December 1 The best time horizon is not the longest but the most flexible: indefinite.
The patriarchy is not a society where men hold positions of power; it is a society that disproportionately rewards masculine virtues with power.
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