RUTHLESSNESS ONLY LOWERS THE CONVERSATION for everyone.
Tag: learned
What I wish I’d known before I had to learn it.
Aristotle’s Pernicious Hand
PEOPLE OF EARTH, HEAR ME: There are more than two ways out of this moment. (Say it with me: “There are more than two ways out of this moment.”) Some would have you believe that you can only go this…
Poker Face
WE WERE FIVE MEN PLAYING draw poker. “Ante up, gentlemen,” said R. “Nickel apiece.” The cards went round once, twice, thrice. B coughed. T took a sip of his Cuba Libre. R sent the cards round again. And again.
All-Natural Selection
ONE REASON WHY CALIFORNIA HAS so many smart people is that, periodically, the lesser-reasoned go down to the seashore to watch the tsunami come in.
Compassionings
IT IS PRECISELY AT THAT moment when compassion seems most remote that it is most greatly needed. This principle is easier spoken than implemented — what isn’t? — but holds true not only for the individual, who is buffeted by…
Free Metaphor: “Don’t Poke The Squid”
STUCK FOR AN ANALOGY WHEN your well-intendeds provoke a horrible mess that you should have known better than to bother with? Then “Don’t Poke The Squid.” Squid are lovely, largely inoffensive creatures who flash and lurk throughout the ocean’s vasty…
Of Archetypes and Inevitability
IF YOU BELIEVE IN AN afterlife, then one reason my friend Steve Territo died yesterday is to hold the good tables for the rest of us. And if you knew Steve, you know why that’s apt: I don’t have one…
Pithyism #4x
YOU REALLY HAVE TO KNOW what you’re doing in order to sleep on the floor, comfortably.
Refining Maslow
THE GREAT PSYCHOLOGIST ABRAHAM MASLOW proposed a pyramid paradigm of human needs, ranking their vitality and importance as physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. One must satisfy the first in order to be able to secure the second,…
How To Make Your Blog Sound Important
1. BEGIN EVERY PARAGRAPH WITH “I.” 2. Repost the same story as other blogs within your target demographic. 3. When commenting in other blogs, slip in the phrase “as I wrote” and flash your URL. 4. Call everyone by their…
Sigh, Kitty, Sigh
IF ONLY WE COULD TEACH the cat the meaning of “wait five minutes” …
Harlan’s Secret
“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in…