books, life, love, relationships, school, solitude, take it easy, work, writing

basic pleasure model

Dedicated to one or two women who maybe liked me.. years ago. and inimitable… Philip K. Dick.

For those of you who skipped their women’s studies classes, first-wave feminism got women the vote; second-wave got them employed and divorced; third-wave is busy making them porn stars. More or less – Kathleen Parker

Someone once told me that I was good enough looking, that if I were just nice to girls, I could probably get laid pretty often. I don’t think I ever actually tried doing it that way.

These are the phases that you go through, I suppose. You’re young. You’re surrounded by people. You’re anxious. and Annoyed. You drink. You’re alone. You’re afraid of dying alone. I think eventually you figure out… alone might be kind of nice. Because you’re so goddamn tired of being nice to people. Would anyone ever really love the real you? Doubtful… Someone wise once said.. what you really want doesn’t actually exist in reality. Now you go and think about that one…

Lucky for me, I was the only one at that fucked up party who actually figured out her costume – Pris. And you don’t dress like that.. unless you want some. Am I right or am I Right?

She wasn’t perfect.. but you know what, she was pretty close. The only question now is, could I actually leave behind this fucking self-pity I had become so addicted to. Senior year. I think I really was doing these calculations somewhere in the back of my mind. Just imagine. If I don’t get laid THIS year.. then shit. I could actually keep feeling sorry for myself FOREVER. I mean look, I didn’t even get any pussy in college. What are they going to say to that? This is America, and there ain’t a worse punishment imaginable.. Look at him. He didn’t even get any pussy in college. Right?

So what’s the plan going to be here? We close. We start talking about our parents.. and the future perhaps… I hope that when I actually have to see these other parents, they’ll hate me enough that I don’t have to feel too bad about the inevitable breakup. Ideally, I can get enough sex out of this and be done with her by Christmas.

So you live in this house? (She jolts me out of the daydream)

Uh.. no, Jerry does. Let me talk to a couple people first, then we’ll get going.

I never said I’m going home with you! I was just wondering. I think the girls and I have other plans.

Whatever. Give her space.

A few drinks later she does wander over to the couch, and again starts chatting.

So you said you don’t live far, is that right?

I like your type, I say…

Which is?

You’re the type who’ll have a lot of regrettable sex because you’re afraid you can’t get the guy you really want to be with.

It took a few seconds for her to start laughing.

She came back with the usual, I guess that’s what college is for, isn’t it?

You wanna watch Blade Runner with me or no?

We do indeed end up at my place pretty soon that night. I never even have to meet the parents. She found some other inebriate between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess it’d be worse if she were perfect.

babies, books, creativity, love, relationships, school, writing

Good in small doses… and other stories, perhaps?

So I am thinking of applying to an exclusive fiction writing program in the fall. I’ve got a few half-baked stories and Essays out there… I do read a lot of crap too, and I think my crap is basically as good as anyone’s crap. Over the past few days I was working on this one story. My rule for short fiction is.. Write it.. then give it a week. if it still makes you laugh, it’s not bad. That’s my theory. I hope I can come up with something else that’s new this summer.. but don’t get your hopes up. This theme of a depressed man reconnecting with a long lost child has been used before, I am sure, but I hope I’m giving it a good twist of my own… – Dmitry Dyatlov, 2025.

Waiting in the therapist’s office, I had some time to reflect on what went on this spring… in Ohio.

I almost became a father. Of course, the best time to find out you’re a father is just before you kill yourself.

I believe that you’ve got to have some kind of moral compass or, rather, a guiding philosophy in life. Mine has always been, everything is good in Small doses. I’m a pharmacist. At least, I used to be. I guess that’s where it comes from. I moved up to Atlanta after I got my degree.

Holly got my current number from a mutual college friend and called at the strangest moment. I was preparing to mix a nice little cocktail of pharmaceuticals to permanently relieve me of the pain of.. Life. And out of nowhere.. Holly.

I guess you could say I got exactly what I always wanted at 34. I got married, and divorced. and I still got to keep the Land Rover. Used. Not too used. Life’s good, isn’t it? However, most days I still felt like I was doing a jail sentence.

Opioids. I was beginning to like them too, and I knew that if at some point, someone at that place ever figured out how to count, well, we would have to have a very uncomfortable conversation. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but something about the scripts seemed more and more suspicious the last few years. All these drugs, it just can’t be healthy. I didn’t want to annoy the Boss with every little inconsistency.
“Just give ’em the pills, you’re not a doctor.”

That’s right. I don’t make the rules.. I just work here. Anyway, after a few years of this, the pesky conscience did begin to hit the brakes on me. I just had to get out. Possibly, I could come back, but right now, I really had to leave. A family member was in desperate need of help, I said, in Ohio! And so I got my month off. And, by some miracle, I did have to go to Ohio, after all.

I suppose I just lost the sense that I was really helping anyone there, you know?

Getting married was something I always wanted to do and at the time it seemed acceptable. This was years before Holly’s little intervention, remember. She seemed acceptable. The wife. I met a Brazilian nurse who drank a little too much. Honeymoon was fantastic. But, you know how it is. Couple years go by, a few extra pounds. Then there was the time her mom went off medication. She would call us 3 times a day for a month. She’d get locked out, or she really thought that someone was hiding in her closets. Oh, and finally, the cheating. You know what happens when you marry a cute little nurse, don’t you? She’s gonna try to trade you in for a doctor… probably sooner rather than later. C’est la vie. She said… she said she just got bored and it meant nothing. Just move on. And so we did… Move on. Separately.

She just GREW UP, you see? Nothing makes me want to die as much as people telling other adult people to GROW UP. Would you like to see my birth certificate? Or my college diploma? I suppose they have a point. I seem to be the only one who gets stuck in the past, trying to invent a time machine… why can’t I just move along? Why does every little fling have to be so special?

In the 90s, my small Florida college was a bit like… a sexual wine tasting. I didn’t have to worry about money at the time. I ran the mile pretty fast. Solid scholarship. Track was cool, at this school, apparently. The female entourage on weekends was actually impressive. And once in a while they let you fool around with the snatch. Everyone has to tell you their pedigree before copulation. Well I am Polish-Italian, or German-Irish, or just a Jew… I think I met at least 7 different kinds of Asian and I still can’t tell them all apart. Was there a Latina in there somewhere? I believe there was… we didn’t get very far. Catholic… she says. Virgin. I guess I wasn’t sleeping with the girls I really wanted, but at least I was sleeping, with people, once in a while. I suppose I got enough sex to not have to hate women forever. We should all be so lucky.

Speaking of hating women. That’s kind of how Holly and I met. There was this one Sociology class senior year led by a fervent anti-Misogynist named G. Wallace. Typical academic. Some kind of fancy, flamboyant jacket, large glasses, ponytail. A tad more body fat than optimal, I am sure. I remember one day when some fool asked him point blank why women always seem so capricious. Wallace told him the facts… the truth. Look, girls have a short time horizon, and a huge potential investment from sex. You, my friend, can still fuck around till, oh 45 or even 50 maybe and then still get your shit together, find a feeble-minded Doe outside some therapist’s office, and make babies. You see what I’m saying? We were assigned to groups for a project. It was me, Holly, and a far less attractive female specimen. The three of us would get coffee once in a while.

So, a few months back, mid-March, I guess, Holly called and said she wanted to catch up. I said this is great timing, as I had a vacation coming up. What a strange coincidence, huh?

I did go up to Ohio, not too far from Columbus was where she lived. And here it is. Here she is. The female child that’s about to give life meaning. Holly seemed so certain that it was me. That it was Mine. I guess I do remember that night in ’97. Sort of. Classes were done. We had a few days before graduation. After checking out some dives (bars) in that Florida town, we expressed mutual interest. We did exchange numbers, but never really kept in touch. I had Grad school and she had to fulfill some kind of missionary commitment… for her church. They shipped her off to Peru, or Bolivia, or one of these places.

“May I ask why you thought this would be such a great time for us to get acquainted?”

And she says her parents died. A week apart. Around Christmas.

“and what exactly does she know about me?”

That you were deported.

Alright, fair enough. I guess I’d buy that, if I were 12. Would I stoop so low as to order the customary DNA test? You know, at some point I probably will. But we’ll see how this goes first. There’s no rush. Why not at least entertain the idea? The eyes… Yes, they could be my eyes. Very pretty.

Their suburban place was big and everyone felt it was appropriate for me to stay with the newfound family. Mary, Holly, and I. After a couple days I decided to start dispensing fatherly advice.

“So what is going on with you, kid?”

Lots of people said that Michael likes me, but when I gave him a “Valentine” last month he told me to jump off a cliff.

Well, I suppose that happens sometimes. People actually love feeling sorry for themselves, you know? They call it a Secondary payoff, I think. You don’t get what you really want, but it’s almost like… like a Silver medal, I guess. You get to Sulk all day, and there’s no fear of loss. Imagine… just imagine having absolutely nothing to complain about. We would die of boredom. Maybe his ‘loving’ parents have horrible fights. So that’s what he’s been associating with attraction. Who knows what’s really going on with this Mike kid. Let me tell you this. Give it a year, and if you still like the kid, give him a Psychology book next year. Something by BERNE, Eric. I think he might appreciate it.

Later that week, I found one of those Bumper car places in Columbus… it’s the stupidest thing in the world, but I always wanted to take my kids to a Bumper car attraction. And then Ice cream.

So the pharmacy job was still an option, and I could put in for a transfer to Ohio, I guess. I still had a few days to make up my mind about what to tell these people.

Toward the end of April, Holly said we had to meet another friend.

Holly and I went to a diner nearby. Well, what a surprise. It’s the old Professor. G. Wallace. Explanation? After getting sober, this sneaky asshole also got a divorce… then got hired by Ohio State after Florida. Said he had to track down an old flame for an AMENDS, you see? Of course, he and I were quite surprised to see each other.

Yes, it’s certainly not Okay to sleep with students. It says so in every university manual, I am sure. But this complicates our situation now, doesn’t it? What exactly was the timeline of Holly’s shameful liaisons?

One might ask why Holly didn’t do the test herself. The DNA test. And I suppose, the only plausible explanation is she believed her own Bullshit. She repressed the particulars of those last few stressful weeks of college, maybe drank a little too much. I suppose I must have made a better impression. Who really wants to remember screwing some Icky 45-year old professor, with a ponytail? She said they ran into each other at some kind of concert.

Soon enough, we had the final verdict. I am Not the daddy, after all.

It was all very nice, and now it’s kind of nice that it’s all over. Mary is still the child of someone that I maybe used to love, and I suppose that’s good enough. We can all be Friends, I guess. I gave her some money and a birthday card with that John Lennon quote – If you can’t be happy, then you don’t know anything about life… something like that. I told her to start jogging and think more about Jesus.

The aging academic said he’ll gladly take over relevant duties. And I said I prefer the South anyway.

What else can I say about kids? I just know that if I say too much, they will blame me for everything.

And remember, everything is good in small doses. Especially family.

books, life, love, relationships, solitude, writing

IF THERE WAS A TEST, I MUST HAVE FAILED IT.

If there’s delight in love, ‘Tis when I see that heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me – William Congreve

I took a certain pride in knowing I’d helped ruin his life enough to give him something substantial to write about – Mick Jagger

I started thinking.. the other day about whether or not I actually broke any hearts, really? If I can find like 3, then maybe I’d be happy. hehehe. Pretty fucked up, isn’t it? Is this a diagnosable condition?? Did anyone actually Want to go to prom, with me? Or.. or maybe that Megan girl I roomed with for a few weeks in Chicago. I think maybe Megan liked me. maybe not. She looked pretty frail.. but I do hope she’s alive.. somewhere..

Maybe it was just the one girl.. in Russia.. who wanted to marry me when we were 10 or 11.

I keep discovering writers who killed themselves in their 40s.. or drank themselves to death, which is arguably the same thing.. so.. even THAT is not original. You begin to wonder.. around this time, I suppose.. will there ever be a second act? Another chapter in this crazy life. they had that plane and black hawk crash at Reagan the other day. No survivors. It’s not always so dramatic.. but it begins to dawn on you that.. this.. All this will soon be over, and maybe you won’t even see it coming. And if you see it coming.. yeah, I suppose I’d rather see it coming. There must be.. a date.. in the Akashic field (Ervin Laszlo, Edgar Cayce) or whatever the hell that is. Look it up. it’s interesting stuff.. this Akashic business.

I think it’s another common theme in Alcoholics anonymous. IF YOU LIKE ME, THEN I’LL DESPISE YOU.. right? Pretty fucked, I guess. I think I heard something like that before..

I think there’s another game called Stump your Therapist. I’m pretty good at this game. That’s where I came up with – MY QUALITY OF LIFE DOESN’T JUSTIFY THE EFFORT REQUIRED TO COPE WITH IT.

Pretty good, eh? Or.. my Higher power doesn’t want me to get a shitty job in addition to being a miracle.

Or, Why don’t you make me Care about Life again? It’s your job, not mine. You’re the EXPERT.

So, anyway, Still looking for a prestigious publisher for my Autobiography. I think we’ll call it – IF THERE WAS A TEST, I MUST HAVE FAILED IT.

another one is – IF YOUR LIFE IS A LIVING HELL, THEN WHY DO YOU WANT MORE OF IT??

You know.. good things do happen, sometimes. I really did find a backpack with $52 dollars around this time last year. That was nice. But I still didn’t get the stimulus. what do I really want? I think I just want to drive one of those streetcars in New Orleans. that’s what I want.

this.. I think this is called “Secondary gain” in the business –

Victimhood
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PART II.

Well. this is Part 2. So we’re up to.. about 165? another 200 good ones.. will be hard to find. But.. find them we will! Someday… I guess there is a bit of a theme here. A lot of quotes here are mostly about dumping out the Garbage we’ve all been taught. And a little more diversity, I guess.

  1. There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before – Willa Cather
  2. We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie – Michael Ondaatje
  3. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right – Ashleigh Brilliant.
  4. The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults – Peter De Vries
  5. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury – John S. Mill
  6. Those who teach, must never cease to learn – John Cotton Dana
  7. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I’m beginning to believe it. Clarence Darrow
  8. To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness – John Dewey
  9. I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them. – Charles Bukowski
  10. Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear. – William James
  11. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. – William James
  12. Humans seldom have created anything of lasting value unless they were tired or hurting. – Jon Huntsman Sr.
  13. Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the non-sucker, not exactly the same thing – Nassim Taleb
  14. The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary – Nassim Taleb
  15. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power – PJ O’Rourke
  16. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable – GB Shaw
  17. I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve – Albert Schweitzer
  18. Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. – Bertrand Russell
  19. What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain?
  20. All cruelty springs from weakness – Seneca
  21. The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed – Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  22. Maturity requires a final accommodation between our aspirations and our limitations – J William Fulbright
  23. We’re a nation of Adult children of alcoholics. We don’t get mad at the people who are inflicting the pain in this country. We get mad at the people who are pointing it out.- Jimmy Dore.
  24. But my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn’t you argue the other side?” He said, “That’s true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do? – John Maynard Keynes
  25. It’s amazing how people can change behind closed doors – Susan Forward
  26. it is the essence of morality to meditate on one’s own wrongdoing, to try to find ways to make up for it and to be resolved not to repeat it – Dan Kovalik
  27. The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. WALPOLE?
  28. He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being – Stanislav Grof
  29. We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented – Andrew Niccol
  30. Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes – William GIBSON
  31. To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy. – Will Durant
  32. If you keep telling the same sad small story, you will keep loving the same sad small life.- Jean Houston
  33. The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it – John Ruskin
  34. There is never anything to change but our own perspective – Karen Casey
  35. We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter -Denis Diderot
  36. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything – Chuck Palahniuk
  37. You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists. – Abbie Hoffman
  38. Action isn’t my forte. I’m an expert on contemplation and mild regret. – R. SHECKLEY
  39. All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. – James Thurber
  40. The greatest ownership of all is to glance around and understand. – William Stafford
  41. What we do not understand we have no right to judge – Henri-Frederic Amiel.
  42. Ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter a year from now? – Richard Carlson
  43. A problem well stated is a problem half solved. – Charles Kettering.
  44. “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” – Charles Darwin
  45. The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. – Michael Porter
  46. “Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.” – Henry Miller
  47. No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it. – Peter Drucker
  48. The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible — and achieve it, generation after generation. – Pearl Buck
  49. Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. – Thomas Szasz
  50. Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is. – Thomas Szasz
  51. Back home there was no freedom, but there were readers. Here there was freedom enough, but readers were missing – Sergei Dovlatov
  52. Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think? – Frank Baum
  53. The greatest evil that one has to fight constantly, every minute of the day until one dies, is the worst part of oneself – Patrick McGoohan
  54. In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. – Ram Dass
  55. Anxiety, trauma and crisis are necessary catalysts to stimulate self-consciousness. – Rollo Tomassi
  56. Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together. – Petrarch
  57. You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. – Cormac McCarthy
  58. “Think of denial as an acronym for Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying” – Debbie Ford.
  59. “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” – Charles Bukowski
  60. Don’t give advice, it will come back and bite you in the ass.. – Ellen DeGeneres
  61. although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what “he” thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally – that is, for himself – which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts – Erich Fromm
  62. America’s always been a great place to be crazy. It just used to be harder to make a living that way – Charles P Pierce
  63. A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say – Italo Calvino
  64. Happiness is not easy to find. It’s very difficult to find it in yourself — and impossible to find anywhere else… (Found this attributed to at least 3 different authors.. so let’s just say UNKNOWN)
  65. Natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial – GARRETT HARDIN
  66. When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. – Desmond Tutu
  67. People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results – Michael Burry (movie, Big Short)
  68. A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. -Leon Festinger
  69. Every man dies, not every man truly lives. – Sonny Barger
  70. Sex is like air; it’s not important unless you aren’t getting any. – John Callahan
  71. “He was old and wise, which meant tired and disappointed…” TE Lawrence.
  72. The first duty of a man is to think for himself – Jose Marti
  73. Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect. – Oswald Spengler
  74. An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong. – Russell Baker
  75. Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help. – Alex Haley.
  76. If people cannot rise to the level of applying to ourselves the same standards we apply to others they have no right to talk about right and wrong. – Noam Chomsky
  77. I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally. – Bill Maher
  78. Ninety-five percent of the beliefs we have stored in our minds are nothing but lies, and we suffer because we believe all these lies – Don Miguel Ruiz
  79. Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck – Iris Murdoch
  80. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal – Aristotle.
  81. The duty of youth is to challenge corruption. – Kurt Cobain
  82. The more things change, the more they are the same – Alphonse Karr
  83. ….
books, life, relationships, school, society, solitude, writing

Time flies….

So Philip Zimbardo died earlier this month. I also had sort of a near death experience.. if you follow my other publication.. well maybe you know. Seemed like a trap. really seemed like some kind of trap to me. Thought I’d catch a ride on a freight train.. always wanted to do it. anyway. you probably want to JUMP OFF the thing maybe before it starts goin over 20 miles per hour or so. it won’t be a soft landing…..

I do.. I really do have to get going on finishing up this little project. My work.. no, Hobby the past 10 years has been the collecting of quotes.. and Im up to 3230 so far. And I suppose it is time to pare down the list to just the ones.. I really cannot live without. Let’s say Elon Musk figures out how to augment your brain and working memory and stuff.. and really makes us all.. Wiser? let’s say it works out. and I wake up in the morning. And I want to download a list of things TO REMEMBER. every single day. let’s say it’s a list of 365 little reminders.. then I suppose this would be my list. You might have seen these little meditation books that are popular with people who Used to use drugs.. or Christians.. both. anyway.

If you’ve got Strong ties to Hazelden publishing, maybe put in a good word?

I decided to give myself an Education I missed out on.. when I was busy boozing at UM. Didn’t even get laid. Fucking unbelievable. I don’t know how they get away with this shit.

I thought I had KILLER title when I first tried doing this a few years ago. but.. the list grew. this’ll probably be published in 3 parts.. 120 – 120 & 125. perhaps I’ll shuffle them around a bit later. I do realize this first one here is quite a bit biased toward Male authors.. all I can say is.. I sort for powerful ideas.. that resonate (with me). But.. I know. I know I’ll try to add some Diversity later… I think I’ll limit each author to 3 appearances.

So, here it is. Have another drink from my.. Fire Hydrant. heh.

The fact that you have unlimited texts does not necessarily mean that you cannot stop talking: Meditations for recovery from the compulsive behavior of your choice.

  1. If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples – ZIMBARDO
  2. A sane person to an insane society must appear insane – Kurt Vonnegut
  3. I don’t want my past to become anyone else’s future – Elie Wiesel
  4. A conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to – Carlo Collodi
  5. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society – Krishnamurti
  6. The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history – Orwell
  7. Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it – Orwell
  8. I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’ – Muhammad Ali
  9. Love is giving something you don’t have to someone who doesn’t want it – J. Lacan
  10. Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today’s employer is seeking – John Kennedy Toole.
  11. You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him – John Kennedy Toole
  12. If reason ruled the world would history even exist? – R. Kapuscinski
  13. How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next – Jules Verne
  14. Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence – Arthur Clarke?
  15. If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position – Seth Godin
  16. Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death – Erik Erikson
  17. Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action – Tim Ferriss
  18. Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it – JK Rowling
  19. A person you excuse from any genuine challenge is a person you do not truly respect – John McWhorter
  20. Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact – George Eliot
  21. To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive – Robert L Stevenson
  22. Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose – Eckhart Tolle
  23. It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living – Eckhart Tolle
  24. He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor – St. Ignatius
  25. For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them – St. Thomas More
  26. I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts – Will Rogers
  27. The map is not the territory – Alfred Korzybski
  28. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away – Philip K Dick
  29. A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world – David Cornwell (le Carre…)
  30. I never think that I am the one who must see to it that cherries grow on stalks – Carl Jung
  31. One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple – Jack Kerouac
  32. Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence – Carl Sagan
  33. It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way – ROLLO MAY
  34. Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something – Robert Heinlein
  35. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with – Jim Rohn
  36. sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past – Irvin Yalom
  37. Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe – HG Wells
  38. What really matters is what you do with what you have – HG Wells
  39. When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice – Andre Gide (or Saul bellow… hehe, I gotta look this one up again)
  40. The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself – Bernard Malamud
  41. All of us are prisoners, to one degree or another, of our experience – Gary Hamel
  42. We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for – Malcolm Gladwell
  43. The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men – Plato

44.. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools – Herbert Spencer (that reminds me of something…..)

45. Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself – Adam Smith

46. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult – Warren Buffett

47. No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true – Nathaniel Hawthorne

48. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man – Heraclitus

49. Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve – Max Planck

50. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants – Isaac Newton

51. Integrity has no need of rules – Albert Camus

52. He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer – Thomas Mann

53. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment – Emerson

54. Prejudices are what fools use for reason – Voltaire

55. ..our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers – M. Scott Peck

56. To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible – Aquinas

57. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free – Goethe

58. It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness – Tolstoy

59. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light – Plato??

60. To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult – Plutarch

61. To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail – Maslow

62. If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later – Maslow

63. We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think – Rod Serling

64. One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries – AA Milne

65. Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important – Stephen Covey

66. All language is but a poor translation – Kafka

67. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate – Carl Jung

68. We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without – Kant

69. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one’s suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering – GI Gurdjieff

70. My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing – Proust

71. No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides – Spinoza?

72. It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live – Dumas

73. If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they’ll kill themselves laughing – ALBERT ELLIS

74. Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong – David Brooks

75. The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere – Anne Lindbergh

76. Beauty fades, dumb is forever – Judge Judy

77. Non nobis solum nati sumus (I think that’s something about Selfishness..) – Cicero

78. The more we love someone, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that true love shows itself – Moliere

And that’s about it for today. Uh. Yeah, a little short of my goal. But. We’ll see. We’ll see if I can come up with another 290 meaningful quotations from the Master list… Left some question marks when I was unsure about authorship… That might be a challenge if we want to get it all right.

To be Continued.

365… There are only two ways of telling the complete truth–anonymously and posthumously – Thomas Sowell.

books, news, religion, school, solitude, writing

Harvey Dent.

Men to whom God is dead worship one another. Harry Crews

Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes. – Metternich

what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts – Thomas Huxley.

Well. how do we begin. I guess I began to seek a God when I finally realized how weak men really are.

There’s a quote for ya. Did I come up with that? hehe.

It used to be WWJD? right? now… now it’s all about AI. I don’t want to think and I never was very good at it anyway. Is there anyone out there?

Let me just ask Google.. or something. How did that Jesus fellow make out anyway? Not so great, right?

HOW’S THAT FUCKING WORKIN FOR YA?? hehe. that’s what.. the Sponsor says. sometimes. After he tries to tell you things.. about Jesus.

We all have little cracks, don’t we? Apply enough pressure.. at the right time. and 98 percent of these fuckers break. Sometimes.. sometimes I guess you get a diamond, maybe. But more often than not.. we just shit our pants. Fail.

I noticed even my father always needs some Dude to look up to. For a while it was Grant Cardone.. then he became a Trump fan. hehe. Likes real estate. No, it never hurts to get a little education, I guess. Are we really going to try this again? hehe. drain the swamp.. and so on.

And we had that one teacher… Family man. Got tricked by one of those Paedophile traps on the internet. It’s sad, but it’s also one of the funniest things in my life so far. The man taught EPISTEMOLOGY of all things. You know what that is, don’t you? I thought something like that should make one a Skeptic.. especially of all the things we read.. on the internet.

Bruce Willis. yep. that’s the guy. that’s the guy I want to get a beer with. Man, I keep thinking I got a real book in me. but.. but I dunno. Days go by.. maybe I’m just meant to be a real good Quotes collector.

Yep. I look. I look at my life and I honestly can’t think of anything Horrible I did.. to anyone, really. Did I? I don’t think I did. But then.. why.. why the fuck am I bored out of my mind all day. There’s fucking nothing to do. Why don’t they just give me some money. I’m such a great fucking guy.

For they are human too…

books, communication, environment, life, money, relationships, society, solitude, work, writing

hide and seek

my friend told me to finish my novel before I finish my next tube of toothpaste

there’s a challenge.

you know I did find a nice place to hide in this annoying town .

there is a roof of an abandoned warehouse. You have a metal ladder you can climb.

haul some water up there and you can live

for weeks maybe. Months?

you look around and see the hospitals the bars and gas stations. Apartments. You see folks moving around and wonder. Why are they in such a hurry?

you can’t pay me enough to live like this.

Vonnegut wrote something about this. The Uwtb. Universal will to become .

what does it all come down to. Love and money. And if there’s enough money you can probably buy love.

sorry. Sorry!

I guess I’ve been alone so long it doesn’t bother me. If I keep sleeping on the roof my guru will show up and explain everything to me.

What are you still trying to turn yourself into?

what is it?

nope. I don’t have it. I’m just me. sometimes I don’t even use my name. I’m Alex or boris or Sergei who played with them Wings in 95.

yes it’s fucking unbelievable. It’s 2024 and people haven’t learned how to stop going to war. Is that really why I drink so much?

maybe.

books, money, relationships, school, society, solitude, travel, value, writing

If you can’t compensate me for my suffering, then at least reward me for my achievement.

I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end – Richard Brautigan…

Look it’s not funny to me. Some people say.. oh.. my parents seem to get smarter as I get older.

haha. Good for you, I guess. Mine seem to get dumber every year as I successfully dissect more and more of their lies.

Really.

Yes. I want to write a fucking book. a novel. Finally. and go over that stuff from 2011. But Im not fucking doing it here. Not here.

I need a real break. A retreat! a month or two. trying to persuade Mom but I dont know if that will work out anytime soon. These people are idiots.

and yes, I think the University of Michigan should be liable for this catastrophe also. They didn’t give me any pussy. I became an alcoholic. But I get to feel good about myself… I guess. hey. this is what dad wanted. An American college graduate. Right here.

I still fail to see any real Value in this pointless activity. They didn’t even teach me how to Close.

I need a fucking fellowship. or something.

Yes.. every year.. every year I seem to learn a few new things, for now. and I think that’s basically the only thing that keeps me going. what happens when even that’s gone. When there’s really nothing else to know….. what then.. do I do..?

books, life, money, relationships, work, writing

My idea!!!

Some days I am actually happy (In jail).

dmitry dyatlov

Look Im really not going to put too much time into this…. but in the spirit of making Lemons out of lemonade… or no. the other way around.

Here’s a movie idea. Hollywood, hope ur listening. I think people are starting to tune in now. hehe. I think we might break new ground with this. Maybe even get a NOMINATION! somewhere….

Just make sure I get a story credit or something. Always wanted a credit on IMDB.

So it starts… just a guy in jail. He has an accent… Eastern european accent probably…. 20 minutes… just regular jail stuff. Yea, those first few days are always a bit of a shock.

But then. Slowly he just gets happier. and happier.

and you start getting some contrast. You see the happy moments of his jail life… Commissary from a girlfriend… making new friends… maybe a Football touchdown for the Lions?? Winning a chess match! Flirting with the nurse… hehe. and you see him just get happier and happier as he moves along. and months go by.

And you slowly get the contrast to his fucked up childhood. Yes. Flashbacks. probably an immigrant. Maybe from Ukraine… see. we know why people leave Ukraine and Syria. but in my case? in my case I believe the Major problem is my daddy was a piece of shit. and someone convinced him… that it’s better here…. hehe. hehehehehe. and he decides… TO START A NEW LIFE…. And the daddy is a spendthrift… and goes in debt. Too much debt. And he yells a lot. and makes his son work too much. and so on…

and he never fucking leaves the kid alone. he always fucking wants something. from the kid. Kid’s like 25… and daddy is aging. So we have an incident. at the end… at the end you kind of understand the situation. Daddy’s in a coma. and the Son’s fucking Ecstatic. in Jail. He’s so fucking happy.

yep. I think that’s a good story. for a movie. best one I had all year.

business, communication, life, relationships, society, work, writing

in one fell swoop, all of the reasons for keeping a job were eliminated… 2009

In every age of India, yoga has produced men who became truly free…

Yogananda

I will write a book about all this someday… possibly.

why do you go to work… WHYYYYYYY

because someone told you to.

but when that’s gone… WHYYYYY??

well there’s money of course. depending on the job, they either pay you enough to buy beer, or perhaps make a baby. and they never paid Me enough to make a baby. and Aa people tell me that I shouldn’t drink.

So I went to college. and I got a fucking job. and then what?

I met other college-educated people who were completely full of shit. you don’t get smarter working a job. you just don’t.

Unless you’re at Accenture… and THEY ask you… are you LEARNING AND GROWING??

WELL ARE YA?? Are YA???

no. not anymore.

so then you’re free.

so you’re still there? At work, huh? Why? Are you trying to impress your father? he’s not impressed, Amanda… hehe. you don’t need to do this. why don’t you just make some babies instead? those things always seem to make the old man happy.

this Entrepreneurship thing isnt working out. I went to all the club meetings. but it’s not working out.

And now, any Employment that falls under FLSA (Fair labor standards act) coverage is absolutely detestable. I met the people who are supposed to be enforcing these laws, remember? yes, I did. I was one of them for a while. and that was it. they’re not going to help you. when your idiot managers or coworkers are fucking with you. you will not be helped.

Enough’s enough. when you need a drink. you grab a backpack, fill it up with Tall bois, and run like hell. 9 times out of 10, the police won’t catch you. the Loss prevention specialists are even less useful than the FLSA enforcement people, Thank God.

sorry… I am hung over… but I had to get some stuff out… there.

work……. work’s just a place filled with Sadistic, resentful bastards you want to Avoid. As long as Mom’s alive. I am staying away from Work. fuck work.