“ Nothing’s ever for sure. That’s the only sure thing I do know.
A Beautiful Mind (via littlemiss)
My Lessons Learned
Revenge and the people who seek it (APA Online)
Historically, there are two schools of thought on revenge. The Bible, in Exodus 21:23, instructs us to “give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” to punish an offender. But more than 2,000 years later, Martin Luther King Jr., responded, “The old law of ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind.”
Who’s right? As psychologists explore the mental machinery behind revenge, it turns out both can be, depending on who and where you are. If you’re a power-seeker, revenge can serve to remind others you’re not to be trifled with. If you live in a society where the rule of law is weak, revenge provides a way to keep order.
But revenge comes at a price. Instead of helping you move on with your life, it can leave you dwelling on the situation and remaining unhappy, psychologists’ research finds.
Considering revenge is a very human response to feeling slighted, humans are atrocious at predicting its effects…
“ If information is such valuable property, what is the Darwinian selective advantage in the ubiquitous impulse to give it away? […] the human mind did not just evolve as a problem-solving device, it also evolved by sexual selection - like the peacock’s tail - to waste resources in a way that cannot be faked. Peahens admire peacocks with fancy tails, because those peacocks are strong enough to waste the resources needed to grow the tail and to drag it about. That peacock has good genes for strength, growth, and endurance, and so is worth mating with. Parts of the human mind are for wasting glucose in a way that cannot be faked. […] You cannot pretend to paint a picture well, or pretend to write a quatrain of iambic pentameters well - you cannot pretend to be witty. You need to waste real glucose to do those things, all of which have no utilitarian value.
Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous - The End of Intellectual Property
“ You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche
“ Happiness is in the doing, not in the getting what you want.
Before Sunset (via filmquotes)
(via littlemiss)
“ You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky
“ Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Donald Knuth
“ If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter—for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself….Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
Letter to Sylvia Plath from her mother Aurelia (via khrushchev)
