Category: Media

1
there’s mounting evidence that insects can experience a remarkable range of feelings. They can be literally buzzing with delight at pleasant surprises, or sink into depression when bad things happen that are out of their control. They can be optimistic, cynical, or frightened, and respond to pain just like any mammal would
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2
The right brain is in charge of present-moment awareness, and this is the part of the brain that meditation takes to the gym. Essentially, the longer we meditate, the more we’re able to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The result of this is more attention, awareness, and computing power for the task at hand.
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3
When the new individual was of the same gender […], the subjects sniffed their own shaking hand twice as much as before. In contrast, after handshakes across different genders, subjects more than doubled the amount of sniffing they did of their own nonshaking hand
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4
The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy. – Arthur Schopenhauer

5
We settled things with our only two neighbors – Canada and Mexico – well before our first centennial and immediately got down to the more serious business of arguing amongst ourselves. More Americans died in the Civil War than in all our military conflicts with all our adversaries throughout all our history, combined
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6
When you ask a stranger a personal question, you make that person happy. Your question relieves the stress of awkward silence and gets the conversation moving. Best of all, it signals that you have interest in the stranger, which most people interpret as friendliness and social confidence…
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7
That is [the critic’s] real evil. Not that we believe them, but that we believe the Resistance in our own minds, for which critics serve as unconscious spokespersons. The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

8
In lake of some reptiles, when they overpopulate it and there is a surplus of refuse, there is trigger in nature: a monster is born to them. A lizard many times the size of a normal one is born, who deals out destruction and culls the lake.
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9
Ask a wage slave what he’d like to accomplish (when he retires early or wins the lottery).
Chances are the response will be something like “I’d start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I’d practice the piano for three hours. I’d become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I’d really learn how to handle a polo pony. I’d learn to fly a helicopter. I’d finish the screenplay that I’ve been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV.”
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10
Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.
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11
The trials of twenty-two former Auschwitz officers had revealed a common personality type: ordinary, conservative, sexually inhibited, and preoccupied with bourgeois morality. “I do think that in a society that was more free about sexuality, Auschwitz could not have happened”
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12
Once you take this far enough, you enter a cycle of accelerated returns in which the practice becomes easier and more interesting, leading to the ability to practice for longer hours, which increases your skill level, which in turn makes practice even more interesting. Reaching this cycle is the goal you must set for yourself
-Mastery by Robert Greene

13
We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient. – Jeff Bezos

14
Bitcoin, the asset, is likely crossing into the early majority while Bitcoin, the network, is on the cusp of moving from innovators to early adopters. So, overlapping the two, Bitcoin, overall, is still early in its adoption curve, likely somewhere in the early adopter phase
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15
Both versions of tea come from China. How they spread around the world offers a clear picture of how globalization worked before “globalization” was a term anybody used. The words that sound like “cha” spread across land, along the Silk Road. The “tea”-like phrasings spread over water, by Dutch traders bringing the novel leaves back to Europe.
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16
Pixar storytelling guide
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
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17
If we’re all the average of the five people we spend the most time with, then the only way to remain a true believer in a seemingly impossible goal is to spend all of your time with other true believers
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18
But what the world has shown in the last year is the opposite […] We’re willing to permanently give up our livelihoods, friends, and freedom, slowly and passively falling into the “new normal”, without really much of a second thought.
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19
Rather, he finds it was the 13th-Century response of Benedictine monks to the devotion: Never become idle. Sure enough, the clock proved the perfect machine to keep us busy. And if not achievement enough, Benedictines had a correspondingly swell idea that would come to dominate our planet–connecting a daily schedule of activity to the clock.
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20
History weighs heavily on Mr Xi, who keeps mentioning the Soviet collapse. He is waging a campaign against what he calls “historical nihilism”—that is, any grumbling about communism’s past. One Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, is held up as the archetypal nihilist for denouncing Stalin’s brutality in 1956. That event haunts Mr Xi. Party literature says it led to the Soviet Union’s demise. Much of Mr Xi’s energy is focused on making sure the party learns the Soviet lesson. Mao must remain a saint.
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21
By one estimate, in a given ant colony, three percent of the ants are workaholics and never stop, about a third seem to do absolutely no work at all, and the rest work some and slack some
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