Review: Candide

Candide by Voltaire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Our critics are our friends, they show us our faults," in the same vein, I would say Voltaire is a necessary friend for every person who professes to follow a philosophy of life. A thinker who attacked not only religious people, be it Muslims or Christians, but also philosophers and monarchs, he mocks everybody who, in their pursuit of goodness, do bad.

As a religious person, I not only enjoyed Candide for it's story and characters, for it's sarcasm, it's twists and turns; but I also learned how a person can become self-righteous and oppress people while serving no god but one's ego. Consider the story when few righteous and gallant soldiers were stationed to protect women. How they let their morals guide their behavior:

The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never surrender. The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged them to eat our two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at the end of a few days they resolved also to devour the women.

Oh but wait, their prayer leaders wouldn't let them commit such cruelty. So...

"We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon, exhorting them not to kill us all at once.

"'Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.'

"He had great eloquence; he persuaded them; we underwent this terrible operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to children after circumcision; and we all nearly died.

"Scarcely had the Janissaries finished the repast with which we had furnished them, than the Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a Janissary escaped. The Russians paid no attention to the condition we were in. There are French surgeons in all parts of the world; one of them who was very clever took us under his care—he cured us; and as long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were healed he made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the laws of war.

Such off-hand descriptions appear to be jokes, they sound ridiculous until one looks deeply upon ones life, and then it hits. It's so easy to commit crimes in the name of following ones religious, one's morals, or society's established conventions.

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Most favorite fat-loss resources on the internet

http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/

Can't shake the career-woman tree and expect a homemaker to fall out.

Review: Siddhartha

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book was amazing as long as it was taking me on the journey of Siddharta, it was engaging as it was instructive, in a way. However, the end was substantially on a higher level than the beginning and the middle.

Every man should read it once before becoming a man. And then read it once again, after becoming a man.

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Men are never loved unconditionally

“only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally,” whereas “a man is only loved under the condition that he provide something. I’ve never heard a woman in my life say, ‘You know, after he got laid off, we got so much closer.’” After all, when a man meets someone new, his friends ask, “What does she look like?” When a woman meets someone new, her friends ask, “What does he do?”

The value of a man is tied up in his work, Rock says: “What the fuck does that nigga do that can help you out? Can this motherfucka facilitate a dream or not?”

We value your privacy. The people we sell it to, value it even more.

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."

Sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson. But one thing he did say was:

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground."

That's what we're seeing now.

The secret to all success

Learn to front-load your pain.

That's it.

If you procrastinate, you're putting off more than your work. You're putting off the pain. Right?

But doesn't it always catch up to you?
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/4xwrut/advice_this_is_the_real_secret_to_successa/


What you have to do is front-load all those yucky crappy feelings. Go ahead and feel it now so you don't have to feel it later. And guess what? If you put it off, it gets amplified. Right now you're dreading doing your homework or writing an article or w/e, but what if you don't do it? And worse, what if you put that stuff off consistently?

That thing you feel crappy about? That thing you're dreading? That is exactly the thing you need to do in order to improve your life.

It's a sign post.

Instead of dreading it, go ahead and embrace it. Embrace the yucky feeling and all. If you can do this for three weeks consistently, you will change your life forever.

If you embrace all that yucky stuff with gusto, your brain will take notice. Your brain is not static. it changes depending on what you focus on. The circuitry in your brain literally changes over time.

Finally, think of your actions as alchemy. You are taking time and adding energy to it to create a result. If you take action haphazardly, you will have a meh kind of life.

You know you're going to end up feeling like shit if you procrastinate anyway, so go ahead and do the thing you're afraid to do. If you're going to feel bad either way, you might as well take the action that will improve your life.