Jules and Vincent (Pulp Fiction - 1994) as Tigger and Pooh

Done with markers on whiteboard. December 2013.

Your legacy is yours to make. Go forth.

I always think - today I will work hard and not waste time, today I will be outgoing and talk to new people, today I will be friendly and helpful, today I will listen more, today I will be my ideal human being - but this is all when I'm on my own, in the shower or in my room or walking.
As soon as I enter a more social environment, uncertainty anxiety carelessness pretence creep in and *poof!* the productive and positive thoughts are pushed away, to the back of my mind. Instead of being replaced by thoughts about my work and study, these are replaced by demoralizing and useless thoughts of being unaccepted, of self-deprecation and wondering if I am capable of being loved. Do you realize what's happening here? I understand that they're a waste of time and a source of unnecessary stress, but I'm alone right now. So I realize, and the same process is going on. The trick is to not let the 'unstoppable' sort of feeling slip away.
One act commonly practised by me is asking myself at various times during the day, 'Is this the best use of my time right now?', and it sets me back on track to some extent, but not to a satisfactory one.
So why does this happen? Am I an introvert? Do I function best in the absence of other people? Maybe. But I say fuck labels. Who do you think you are, labelling yourself as 'shy' or 'an introvert' or 'not very good at communicating' or 'probably not capable'? Ask yourself - have I REALLY tried? Or have I given up before I had a chance to? Am I lying to myself?
The only solution is to love and accept yourself. I know it's cliché to say 'I know that sounds cliché...' but consider digesting this - people are judging you far less than you think they are judging you. Because ain't nobody got time for that! Just go through life moment to moment, live each moment such that you end up satisfied and not with a bundle of regrets at the end of the day.
"Each moment of our lives will never come again. That doesn’t mean I have to accomplish something amazing or be working hard or having grand adventures every single second: but it does mean I have to take ownership and be accountable for my time, because in the end that’s all that’s truly mine." [http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/how-to-make-every-minute-count]
Need to keep the fire burning! Work relentlessly, because time doesn't care how you feel right now. Nope. It is just flowing away, out of reach, accelerating at maddening rates, it is the only validator. Only time's verdict prevails. Only time's account of achievements and pitfalls remains.
SO. Be you. The world will adjust. Remember that you don't have to conform to - or appear to conform to - stereotypes, cause nobody truly knows what the fuck they're doing. Just, borrow achievers' attitudes, nothing else. All you need is all you've got. Your wits and the clothes on your back.
If nothing else, fake it till you make it. :)

Listen Up, Kids

ALWAYS GIVE EACH TASK YOUR ALL.
When you've given it a 100% and really tried, to the best of your ability,
NO WORDS, DEEDS, OUTCOMES OR EXTERNALITIES CAN HURT YOU.
There will be no regrets, no guilt, and no shame from your side.
WHAT IS LEFT IS HAPPINESS. Contentment.



Wish I had realised sooner.

A Collection Of Favorite Quotes

Philosophy:

“Your life will henceforth be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering; but in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into sweet contemplation of the fulfilment of a bold and proud design. Yes, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything else.”
—  Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“When someone seeks,” said Siddhartha, “then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
—  Herman Hesse, Siddharta (der surchende a “CONTACT”)

No-one can truly love me because this requires the precondition that FIN~knows who I am.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

The little girl’s sense of secrecy that developed at prepuberty only grows in importance. She closes herself up in fierce solitude: she refuses to reveal to those around her the hidden self that she considers to be her real self and that is in fact an imaginary character: she plays at being a dancer like Tolstoy’s Natasha, or a saint like Marie Leneru, or simply the singular wonder that is herself. There is still an enormous difference between this heroine and the objective face that her parents and friends recognise in her. She is also convinced that she is misunderstood: her relationship with herself becomes even more passionate: she becomes intoxicated with her isolation, feels different, superior, exceptional: she promises that the future will take revenge on the mediocrity of her present life. From this narrow and petty existence she escapes by dreams.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Vol II Chapter II: “The Girl”

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
—  Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

LoTR:

All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost
From the ashes of fire shall be woken
A light from the shadow shall spring
Renewed shall be blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king.

RIVENDELL: I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see. For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.

"If you have walked all these days with closed ears and mind asleep, wake up now!" - Gandalf

Be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Fight Club/Taxi Driver:

Tyler Durden: Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.
Travis Bickle: The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Tyler Durden: Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

Travis Bickle: The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.

Khaled Hosseini:

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the 'VOLUME' knob on life. Silence is pushing the 'OFF' button. Shutting it down. All of it.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with the pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

I think we are all waiting, against insurmountable odds, for something extraordinary to happen to us.

Miscellaneous:

"Now, rise, and show your strength.  Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!" - Jerome K Jerome

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

— John Steinbeck in his 1938 journal entry

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. --FRANZ KAFKA

People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.

- J. Michael Straczynski

The world needs all you can give. - E O Wilson

Vioence begets violence. When someone loses hope, he is devastated, and he will say, "Either I fight, or I leave this world." --A Nigerian University Lecturer

~FIN~