Life Lessons

"The first draft of anything is shit."

"People say, “I’m going to sleep now,” as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. “For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.” If you didn’t know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you’d seen. “They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be okay? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the ‘mind adventures’ got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren’t unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.” So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you’re in a science fiction movie. And whisper, “The creature is regenerating itself."

"Why do you want to die? Why don’t you want to exist? If you don’t want to participate, my darling, if you don’t want to be part of the happy anxious societies, then turn. Don’t wish to disappear, wish to find something satiating, even if it’s destruction and malcontent. Because I love you so, my darling, and would rather see you evil than dead.”
— Jhang Moon-Jin"

"If there’s anything I despise it’s the thought and recollection of what my girl has done in the past. Who’s had her first. Who beat me. Who felt her hands and heard her laughter and felt her from the inside before I did. The only remedy I have been able to come up with is something which I hate to do. Basically I’ve had to learn to lower my standards and be realistic. Not lower my standards in her, but come from the perspective that I’m lucky to even be near her and see her and know her in the first place. Everything is better when you look at it in a realistic point of view. She’s beautiful in every way and I’m lucky to have experienced that even if it only lasted for a day."

"Life doesn’t always come with a set of instructions. In fact, most of the time it just comes. Every morning, like clockwork. It’s there when you open your eyes, and it’s still there even if you don’t."

"The biggest difference between school and work is not free time, not responsibility, not money, not even access to college bars and parties. The biggest difference is hope. When you’re still in school, no matter what is going wrong or how bad it gets, you know it’s going to end. You know school will eventually be over and you can move on to something different. You know you have another chance, because your “real life” is still in front of you. It’s not like that with work. Once you are done with school and get a job, that’s it. That is real life, that is what you’ve been working toward in school…and if you hate your job or what’s going on with your life, there isn’t an obvious end to it or an obvious escape."

"Just look at us. Everything is backwards. Everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health. Lawyers destroy justice. Universities destroy knowledge. Governments destroy freedom. The major media destroy information. And religion destroys spirituality."

"The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are."

"When I was growing up, I thought I’d be a lot happier if I was famous and successful and if I had money. And I think that’s because we live in a culture that celebrates fame and commerce and consumerism and money, so that if you don’t have those things, you feel like you’re not enough. And I think we live in a culture that makes me, “Oh, I’m a little bit too fat or I’m too thin, or I’m not right and I don’t fit in.” And I think that increasingly I’ve realised is I’ve tried to change and I’ve tried to adapt and amend and pursue these ambitions that ultimately - everybody has beauty within themselves, and if you find this and accept this, then you will be happy regardless of external attributes or material things."

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."