rob hardy

A good conversation is an act of joint exploration. Somebody floats a half-formed idea. Somebody else seizes on the nub of the idea, plays with it, offers her own perspective based on her own memories, and floats it back so the other person can respond. A good conversation sparks you to have thoughts you never had before. A good conversation starts

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"Utopias are dreams of collective deliverance that in waking life are found to be nightmares."

- John Gray, Black Mass

A principle is only useful if you can legitimately take the opposite side. Otherwise it's simply an aspiration that everyone else is also shooting for.

if you stand firmly on a self-lain foundation of patience and trust, someone crossing your boundaries is not so threatening. let them in. see what they do in your space. remove yourself if necessary.

Great works are unsettling, disorienting, they confound our expectations. In this definition, it’s almost impossible for a great work to be considered ‘refined’ at the time of its creation, because its elements are alien, they have not yet had time to have been weighed and evaluated.

The only way to help people rise above undignified behavior is to teach them that they are dignified. You cannot fight shame with shame.