Sublime

Our cultural values almost try to make us dependent on validation, entitled, and ruled by our emotions.

his emotions, even if that means he gets rejected because of them sometimes. He has no problem moving on to people who don’t reject him, but instead like him for who he is. The second man hunches over, his eyes dart around and he is unable to look someone in the eye without getting uncomfortable. He puts on a cool persona that is always aloof. He

people’s immortality projects were actually the problem, not the solution; that rather than attempting to implement, often through lethal force, their conceptual self across the world, people should question their conceptual self and become more comfortable with the reality of their own death. Becker called this “the bitter antidote,”

When a culture’s standard of success is to “be extraordinary,” it then becomes better to be at the extreme low end of the bell curve than to be in the middle, because at least there you’re still special and deserve attention. Many people choose this strategy: to prove to everyone that they are the most miserable, or the most oppressed, or the most

A non-needy man’s actions and words will therefore be primarily motivated by embodying his own values and desires.

The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.