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That encouragement creates a positive feedback loop. You take a positive action, get some sort of positive result, and teach your brain that this is a good thing to do. It’s that simple.
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Joseph · Flag
Jared Gillins
“Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue. ”
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“Most people seem to resent the controversial in music; they don't want their listening habits disturbed. They use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be used as a soporific. Contemporary music, especially, is created to wake you up, not put you to sleep. It is meant to stir and excite you, to move you--it may even exhaust you. But isn't that the kind of stimulation you go to the theater for or read a book for? Why make an exception for music?”
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“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
― Books and You
― Books and You
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― The Once and Future King
― The Once and Future King
“Only great pain, the long, slow pain that takes its time... compels us to descend to our ultimate depths... I doubt that such pain makes us "better"; but I know it makes us more profound... In the end, lest what is most important remain unsaid: from such abysses, from such severe sickness, one returns newborn, having shed one's skin... with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childlike and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever been before.”
― The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
― The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
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Jared’s 2025 Year in Books
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