juliana ong

People are not reliable narrators of their heart’s desires. You have to listen to what they’re saying, but you also have to study their actual behavior and their previous partners to understand their real preferences.

Put another way, a major reason everyone is so exhausted is because we have been taught to always strive for better, even if we have only the vaguest notion of what that “better” would look like, and even if it means viewing everything in our world as raw material that could potentially be utilized toward that end. But obedience to something... See more

There are the two convictions: one that focuses on the numbers and one that feels.

introspection is overrated. That’s in part because what’s going on in your mind is not only more complicated than you understand, it is more complicated than you can understand. Your mind hides most of your thinking so you can get on with life. Furthermore, you’re too close to yourself. You can’t see the models you use to perceive the world because

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This is choice paralysis. Previous generations didn’t have many options so they stuck together through hard times and made it work. Now, abundance (or its illusion) has led people to feel less satisfied. People are now more anxious about making a choice and less certain that the one they made was correct.

But without any legitimate external authority to shape the self, whether cultural or familial, there can’t be any real stability for the individual. There can be no real constraints on the desires of the self, since that would have to come from an authority beyond it; nor can there even be any awareness—let alone shame—that what the self desires... See more

A charming person is not one that glimmers but holds a mirror to your glow — a conversation with them makes you fall for them by making you fall for yourself.