Ideas I'll remember from Agnes Callard - Aspiration

The ‘doing ’ can feel and look fake or inauthentic at the beginning. We put on classical music when really we’d rather listen to something else. We pinch ourselves to stay awake at the symphony because we’re rather bored. We borrow opinions from music critics because we haven’t yet formed our own. 

Thedifference between aspiration, ambition, and self-cultivation. Aspirational pursuits combine the property of being large in scale with that of being directed at change in oneself. Ambition has the former but not the latter. Self-cultivation, has the latter but not the former.