Schadenfreud. You hate to see it.
Month: September 2021
50 Very Short Rules for a Good Life From the Stoics
- Focus on what you can control.
- You control how you respond to things.
- Ask yourself, “Is this essential?”
- Meditate on your mortality every day.
- Value time more than money and possessions.
- You are the product of your habits.
- Remember you have the power to have no opinion.
- Own the morning.
- Put yourself up for review. Interrogate yourself.
- Don’t suffer imagined troubles.
- Try to see the good in people.
- Never be overheard complaining—even to yourself.
- Two ears, one mouth for a reason.
- There is always something you can do.
- Don’t compare yourself to others.
- Live as if you’ve died and come back (every minute is bonus time).
- “The best revenge is not to be like that.” —Marcus Aurelius
- Be strict with yourself and tolerant with others.
- Put every impression, emotion, to the test before acting on it.
- Learn something from everyone.
- Focus on process, not outcomes.
- Define what success means to you.
- Find a way to love everything that happens.
- Seek out challenges.
- Don’t follow the mob.
- Grab the “smooth handle.”
- Every person is an opportunity for kindness.
- Say no (a lot).
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
- Find one thing that makes you wiser every day.
- What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee.
- Don’t judge other people.
- Study the lives of the greats.
- Forgive, forgive, forgive.
- Make a little progress each day.
- Journal.
- Prepare for life’s inevitable setbacks.
- Look for the poetry in ordinary things.
- To do wrong to one, is to do wrong to yourself.
- Always choose “alive time.”
- Associate only with people that make you better.
- If someone offends you, realize you are complicit in taking offense.
- Fate behaves as she pleases…do not forget this.
- Possessions are yours only in trust.
- Don’t make your problems worse by bemoaning them.
- Accept success without arrogance, handle failure with indifference.
- Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. (Always).
- The obstacle is the way.
- Ego is the enemy.
- Stillness is the key.
On the “Good Guys with Guns” Hypothesis
Guns don’t keep you safer:
[Dr. Fridel’s] findings show that looser concealed-carry laws had little impact on mass shootings and increased a state’s gun homicide rate by 11%. Higher rates of firearm ownership overall, meanwhile, was associated with a 53.5% increase in the likelihood of a mass shooting.
Anti-Vaxxers are Sheeple, Too
Donald G. McNeil Jr, calling for stricter federal mandates to combat COVID-19, shares my observation about the anti-vaccine movement’s central hypocrisy (via Daring Fireball):
Many writers, including Michael Fitzpatrick, author of “Defeating Autism, a Damaging Delusion” and Seth Mnookin, author of “The Panic Virus,” have shown that the anti-vaccine movement is not merely a self-help group of concerned mothers. It is a business pushed by millionaires: the sellers of vitamin and herbal supplements, the directors of unregulated clinics prescribing chelation drugs, detoxifying purges and hyperbaric chambers, the seekers of fame and tax-deductible donations.
Retro OSX Wallpapers
Classic Mac OS X wallpaper, for those of use who still call it “Oh-Ess-Ten.” Collected are Leopard through Mountain Lion.