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Adam

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Adam is Currently Reading

Adam is currently reading

Starter Villain

by John Scalzi (Goodreads Author)

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Jun 19, 2026 08:03PM

Adam is currently reading

Whalefall

by Daniel Kraus (Goodreads Author)

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Jun 15, 2026 06:36AM

Adam is currently reading

The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness

by Arthur C. Brooks

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Jun 11, 2026 11:38AM

See all 4 books that Adam is reading…

“The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

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“The psychologist Daniel Gilbert has a famous saying about this: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

5 likes

“Aldous Huxley captured the core reality: “Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” —”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

4 likes

“Successful friendship, like successful therapy, is a balance of deference and defiance. It involves showing positive regard, but also calling people on their self-deceptions. The Buddhists have a useful phrase for unconditional positive regard: “idiot compassion,” which is the kind of empathy that never challenges people’s stories or threatens to hurt their feelings. It consoles but also conceals.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

tags: buddhism, challenging, deference, defiance, friendship, positivity, self-deception, therapy

5 likes

“Humble questions are open-ended. They’re encouraging the other person to take control and take the conversation where they want it to go. These are questions that begin with phrases like “How did you…,” “What’s it like…,” “Tell me about…,” and “In what ways…” In her book You’re Not Listening, Kate Murphy describes a focus group moderator who was trying to understand why people go to the grocery store late at night. Instead of directly asking, “Why do you go to grocery stores late,” which can sound accusatory, she asked, “Tell me about the last time you went to the store after 11:00 p.m.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

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