“If a person gave away your body to some passerby you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled. Have you no shame in that.” —Epictetus
@phokarlsson reminiscent of this @gwern quote
> The average of many good plans is often a bad plan, and a bad plan followed to the end is often more informative than switching at every timestep between many good plans.
On those who find themselves having others “utter all kinds of evil” against them on account of Jesus or who suffer for carrying the name “Christian,” Jesus is not talking about the so-called war on Christmas, what decorations appear on the winter-season coffee cup, or whether the mall rings with sounds of “Happy holidays” rather than “Merry... See more
It becomes a pleasure after about the fifth, possibly the sixth draft. At that point it begins to be fun because you begin to have an inkling of what you’re trying to say. You never know what you think until you try to set it up in a sentence, maybe fish it into the net of a metaphor. The writing doesn’t get easier, but the work becomes play.
It is not that I’m some grumpy person who thinks that some people are great and others aren’t, in some predetermined way—I think you can to a large extent decide which kind you want to be. But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided.