rhetoric

“It's not my job to create meaning, but to charge the air so that meaning can occur.” -Todd Hido

"What's the most complete span of a life, you ask? To live until attaining wisdom. Whoever reaches that goal ends furthest, not at a point but greatest. Let that man rejoice boldly in the truth, and give thanks to the gods, and to himself among these; let him credit the cosmos for his creation, and deservedly so, for he returns to the cosmos a better life than the one he got. He has set the template of the good man, and revealed its measure and its quality. If he had added anything to it, the addition would have been similar to what came before." — How to Die, Seneca

The key to healthy and sustainable social progress is understanding to what extent a potentially useful idea can be pursued before tipping over into self-defeating extremism.

"The role of the leader is to define reality and give hope." \-Napoleon

America and France are each being undermined by internal divisions—one by overemphasizing them, the other by denying them.

What's a lesson or a piece of advice you find yourself coming back to often?   My grandmother said, "Hungry dogs run faster." I've always been a hungry dog. There's different reasons people are driven. I'm driven by the passion of doing it well, as opposed to pleasing my father or avoiding punishment or whatever, which is why some people are driven. Fortunately, I don't have that as a driving force. Mine is just wanting to do it as well as I can do it—up to a point. That's another notion for me, that perfection is the enemy of progress. You just keep polishing and polishing, and you never get anything done.

One of the worst things any of us can believe is that anything is inevitable.

We have a tremendous agency to build the things that help us towards a future we want to live in—whether that’s in consumer products, climate, politics etc

The body can reject things it finds foreign.

Intelligence is knowing how to win the game. 

Wisdom is knowing which game to play in the first place.

The goal is to design a life that you don't need to retire from.

“I want to fill my world with things that make me want to think and create.” -Todd Hido

11) “Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. 

Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” 

— Richard Feynman

“People sometimes fail to live
because they are always 
preparing to live”

— Alan Watts