In my experience, this is dead on.
In the depths of Winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
If you get through a hard time, and really conquer it, then you are 10x stronger on the other side.
The key is to actually go through your winter (not around it), own it, and then flip it.
This Al Camus guy seems interesting. Apparently he was a philosopher, author, and journalist (yes!) from French Algeria.
I should probably read some of his books. 🤔
You gotta love this guy. He’s a real Einstein.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein
All the greatest scientists had wild imaginations. Otherwise you’re just a nerd in a lab coat.
Interesting things like time travel, black holes, and atomic energy can’t be solved by simply using what we know. You have to expand your mind.
And if you want to be extra smart about it, develop some theories and test them against reality (aka science). That’s such a powerful combination. 🤩
Good ol’ Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist who gave us a pyramid and a hammer, is at it again with some pretty sensible insights.
This time he’s riffing on Aristotle’s function argument about what the heck we’re even doing here. Basically, we’re here to be useful.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.
(Apparently he was an old-school fan of the “he/him/man” pronoun. 🤷🏻♂️)
It’s one thing to find your purpose — and those who do so should consider themselves fortunate. But the real trick is to actually do something about it.
It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
Thank you for the reminder, Mazzy. Can I call you that? Because here’s another Mazzy who found her purpose.
As MacBreak Weekly celebrated the 14th anniversary of the iPhone’s launch, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ “redemptive arc.”
Here is Jobs addressing a somewhat hostile question at the 1997 WWDC. At the time, Apple was nearly out of money, and Jobs had just returned after previously being kicked out of the company.
George Bernard Shaw said that “your patience when you have nothing” is one of the two things that define you. It’s interesting to look at Steve Jobs when he is down and see the vision and patience that was brewing at the time.
As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer, where can we take the customer. Not starting with ‘let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that’.
And I think that’s the right path to take.
It would be four more years until the iPod launched and ten years until the iPhone launched.
The end of Jobs’ answer also reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt.
Some mistakes will be made a long the way. That’s good, because at least some decisions will be made along the way.
Steve Jobs
Ah yes, patience and decisiveness. Like a good game, they are easy to learn and hard to master.
Here is Japanese Breakfast’s perfect companion to The Walkmen singing “Baby, I want everything”.
I want it all.
Japanese Breakfast – Diving Woman
I’m feeling this vibe. I do want it all.
I don’t want six cars, a mansion, a helicopter, or even a fancy watch. Please, no. Just no.
I do want to travel, but not all the time. I could probably spend 1000 years happily just goofing around Central Texas.
But I do want to write a novel, make some music, raise some amazing kids, have a long and challenging career, learn to tell good stories and jokes, improve the world a bit, take care of myself, and be a good friend.
Am I asking too much? We shall see. 😆
We’re only given this one life, so you might as well at least try to make the most of it.
You’ll have it all
I’ll have it all
We’ll have it all
Mental Break Town 