Gabriel

“there is good scientific evidence that meditation is an effective way to improve the skill of controlling attention and ignoring distractions. It also offers a range of other practical benefits that are relevant both in extreme environments and everyday life.”
― Emma Barrett, Extreme: Why some people thrive at the limits

“we can identify the causes of these revolutions, they’re highly varied: glaciation in the case of the end-Ordovician extinction, global warming and changes in ocean chemistry at the end of the Permian, an asteroid impact in the final seconds of the Cretaceous. The current extinction has its own novel cause: not an asteroid or a massive volcanic eruption but “one weedy species.” As Walter Alvarez put it to me, “We’re seeing right now that a mass extinction can be caused by human”
― Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

“Chaos is indeed the normal state of affairs on the battleground, and no army has figured out a way to plan effectively for, let alone alleviate, the so-called fog of war. When the military is confronted with the fratricidal carnage that predictably results, denial and dissembling are its time-honored responses of first resort.”
― Jon Krakauer, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

“Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot.”
― Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam