Reminders for myself

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”

―

Albert Einstein

The self is not something you can set out looking for; it reveals itself gradually through the choices you make.

In a long-term relationship, if you can’t trust your partner… what are you doing? You’re very possibly wasting your time. Or your standards are so low that you’re willing to tolerate an untrustworthy partner because you’re scared of being alone.

I often feel like I’m accumulating insight when I’m doing, but it doesn’t translate into changes in my action and perception unless I take a pause from doing. When acting on the world, I am like a dam filling with potential energy, but it is only in silence and stillness the dam can open up, and the insights I have accumulated can transform into... See more

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

―

Iris Murdoch

It is said that traditions are answers to enduring questions, and so dispensing with them because we do not understand them (or "see the point of them") is an unfortunate way to squander this inheritance.

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.