Max > Recent Status Updates

They say the perfect is the enemy of the good, that if you strive for perfection you will overlook the good. But I did not agree. I didn’t like the good. The good was just mediocre. I wanted to go beyond mediocre. I wanted to be exceptional. I did not want to be medium-size. I wanted to be perfect. And by perfect, I meant less.

How could I long so for someone whose existence I’d only just become aware of? But wasn’t it always like this? Some things we never know we need until we find them.

[…] the heavenly feeling of cleaning each side evenly with my tongue—hardness and softness, sweetness and more sweetness—a prism of beauty on Earth and above it, and me, the me on the ground, nothing but a giant mouth and tongue, eating and eating for nothing, not one thing, except sheer pleasure alone.

But a food-service interaction seemed an inopportune time to say, Hey, any thoughts on a two-state solution?

’There’s one thing you must remember. This all ends the moment you want something from me. You can’t ask me for anything… Anything – do you hear?’

For a time, we were silent. But we were still trying to look each other over, without making it too obvious, and whenever our eyes met, we smiled, liking what we saw.

She moved her body over me so that her face was by my face, her hair brushing against my cheek. She nuzzled my forehead, the tip of my nose, my neck. Then she kissed me very lightly on the lips. There was a pause. Then she kissed me again, this time with her mouth open. Her tongue was in my mouth, tasting for mine like a ripe strawberry.

There are things – so many things – that I need to say… but to whom? … Can there be another soul wandering this great globe who is as lonely as I? Who would hear me out? Where would I begin?

I told Dr. Mahjoub I hadn’t expected fanfare from my mother. But I’d thought she would at least be a little bit proud.
“You were going to the hardware store for milk again,” said Dr. Mahjoub.
“Well, maybe just a tiny bit of milk,” I said.
“That’s the problem,” she said. “You have to expect nothing.”

My mother persuaded me to stay thin by insulting me. Ana did it by insulting everyone but me. This absence of rejection felt like
an embrace.

It didn’t matter where I lived—Mid-City, Mid-Wilshire, or Miracle Mile. It didn’t matter where I worked; one Hollywood bullshit factory was equal to any other. All that mattered was what I ate, when I ate, and how I ate it.

’In all the time we have known each other, you and I have never spoken for this long… What a shame!’

For even the most wretched and simple-minded man could be a surprise, even a fool could have a soul whose torments were a constant source of amazement. Why are we so slow to see this, and why do we assume that it is the easiest thing in the world to know and judge another?

Later, when I’d been coming and going for some time, I got to know these children better. And they weren’t bad people at all. Rather, they had nothing, absolutely nothing, inside. All their impertinence came from that. It was the yawning void inside them that drove them to deride, scorn and ridicule others, for this was their only source of satisfaction, their only way of knowing who they were.

Be wary of drastic action. Ask what the side effects will be. Ask how the idea has been tested. Step-by-step practical improvements, and evaluation of their impact, are less dramatic but usually more effective.

Look for systems, not heroes. When someone claims to have caused something good, ask whether the outcome might have happened anyway, even if that individual had done nothing. Give the system some credit.

Factfulness is recognising that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.

When misfortune visits those who once walked alongside us, we do tend to feel relief, almost as if we believe we have ourselves been spared, and as we come to convince ourselves that they are suffering in our stead, we feel for these wretched creatures. We feel merciful.

And here was the strangest thing: the more my situation worsened, the less I could be sure of surviving from one day to the next, the greater my shame and my reluctance to ask for help. […] The more I needed my friends, the more I longed to run away.

Factfulness is recognising when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can’t stop generalisation and we shouldn’t even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalising incorrectly.

Of all the people I have chanced upon in life, there is no one who has left a greater impression.

I hear the car breaking on the gravel in the lane, the door opening, and then I am doing what I do best. It’s nothing I have to think about. I take off from standing and race down the lane. My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me.

’You don’t have to say anything,’ he says. ’Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.’

Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won’t have to feel this. It’s a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be. He takes shorter steps so we can walk in time.

I dip the ladle and bring it to my lips. This water is cool and clean as anything I have ever tasted: it tastes of my father leaving, of him never having been there, of having nothing after he was gone.

’Where there’s a secret,’ she says, ’there’s shame and shame is something we can do without.’