Loss Means Losing What Was.

'mediocre' Tends To Mean 'undistinguished', While Snobs Enjoy Their Distinguishing Hallmarks Of Style - How They Wear Clothes, Use Words, Where They Go And Gather And Gossip. ...whatever The Circumstances The Genius Has Put You Into, The Fact Of Individuality Defends The Soul Against All Class-action Claims. No Soul Is Mediocre, Whatever Your Personal Taste For Conventionality, Whatever Your Personal Record Of Middling Achievements.

Attention Is The Cardinal Psychological Virtue. On It Depends Perhaps The Other Cardinal Virtues, For There Can Hardly Be Faith Nor Hope Nor Love For Anything Unless It First Receives Attention.

Everything That Everyone Is Afraid Of Has Already Happened: The Fragility Of Capitalism, Which We Don't Want To Admit; The Loss Of The Empire Of The United States; And American Exceptionalism. In Fact, American Exceptionalism Is That We Are Exceptionally Backward In About Fifteen Different Categories, From Education To Infrastructure.

I Like To Imagine A Person's Psyche To Be Like A Boardinghouse Full Of Characters. The Ones Who Show Up Regularly And Who Habitually Follow The House Rules May Not Have Met Other Long-term Residents Who Stay Behind Closed Doors, Or Who Only Appear At Night. An Adequate Theory Of Character Must Make Room For Character Actors, For The Stuntmen And Animal Handlers, For All The Figures Who Play Bit Parts And Produce Unexpected Acts. They Often Make The Show Fateful, Or Tragic, Or Farcically Absurd.

We Need To Work On The World So It Will Not Be So Oppressive.