a zen story I love

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.

How sweet it tasted!

brand YOU

Take chances; take a lot of them. Because the truth is that no matter where you end up, or who you end up with, it always ends up just the way it should be. Your misteaks make you who you are. You learn and grow with each fuck up you make. Everything is worth it. Just be your self, and be okay with that.

thus spoke Albert

to do, or not to do

The question isn't "who's going to let me?"
The question is "who's going to stop me?"

my promise to ME

When I first heard "Comfortably Numb" [by Pink Floyd] I was nineteen, and doing my two years national service in the South African Army. I associated it with the numbness of people to life; that in order to survive people had become numb to things - comfortably numb - so that the 'machinery of life' could run its sensible, reasonable course.

I remember asking questions about the numbness, and was told that I didn't understand the meaning of the song because of my age and inexperience. Nevertheless, I still swore I would never become such an adult. And so now, as a grown up, whenever I hear that song it reminds me of that promise to myself.

just because they say so doesn't make it so

settle for something brighter

Don't settle for something that you don't really want. Playing it 'safe' is not a good enough reason to wake up every day feeling miserable.

brand ME

I do not merely want to be considered 'the best of the best'. I want to be considered 'the only one who does what I do'.

success checklist

To succeed in life, you need three things:
1. a wish bone
2. a back bone
3. a funny bone.

overcoming the tide of reason and rationality

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

-- Pablo Picasso

the things that we are made of

when is enough enough?

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, "Yes, but I have something he will never have ... enough."