You are Here Now -- Robert Saltzman

Embrace the One

Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.

Therefore the wise embrace the one
And set an example to all.
Not putting on a display,
They shine forth.
Not justifying themselves,
They are distinguished.
Not boasting,
They receive recognition.
Not bragging,
They never falter.
They do not quarrel,
So no one quarrels with them.

Therefore the ancients say,
'Yield and overcome.'
Is that an empty saying?
Be really whole,
And all things will come to you.

Lao Tsu,
Tao Te Ching - chapter 22

(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

Too Lazy to be Ambitious

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably,
with both legs stretched out.

 ~ Ryokan Taigu

How to become Limitless

We feel limited so often, with our money, opportunities, circumstances, needs, and time. Thus I believe it is super important to remind ourselves of our limitlessness and great potential. Here is the list of the ways in which we are limitless.

   In your creativity. The more you create, the more creative you will become. The more ideas you come up with, the more ideas you'll have. There will always be more where that came from.
 
   In your generosity. Karma bajillionaires know this well. If you want to be happy, make others happy. If you want to be respected, show respect for someone. If you want to receive letters, make sure to send some first. Give, give, give in order to receive. It doesn't have to be the money. Be generous with sharing your ideas, compliments, smiles, warm messages, words of encouragement. You can always give more. That's how you'll receive more.
 
   In your beliefs. Beliefs form the scenery for everything we're allowing into our experience. We grew up with many beliefs about the world and at certain point we stopped questioning them. No one will love you, unless they can get a tangible benefit out of your friendship. Or In the field of infinite possibilities. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. The future is the field of infinite possibilities. When you imagine it, you can only create as much. When you give directions and let the Universe do its thing, possibilities are endless.
 
   In human lives you may affect.  "Why should I write when no one is reading?" How do you know? You have no idea if and when will your old post will be discovered. You have no idea who will be the lonely person on the other side of the world who got smile on her face back after reading your post. If you encourage one person today, he or she will empower someone else. And so on. Your influence will translate. Don't expect the praise or reward, just do good.

   In love. No explanation needed.

   In your anti-fragility. (We are not absolutely limitless here, but much more than we've been taught.) If you want to build your muscles, do the workout, a bit stronger every day. The same goes for an idea muscle. If you want to build your immune system, it's good to be exposed to dirt and bacteria here and there. Don't try to avoid all the stress, all the hard work, don't clean obsessively. You'll ruin your inherent anti-fragility. Don't try to predict random event. Become anti-fragile. You have huge potential.

   In NOW. NOW is the only thing that has no end.  In NOW you're limitless.

   In ability to improve. Huge mistake is to believe that you've been somehow done with your growth. You reached a certain point and then it's over. It doesn't mean you're not good enough as you are. It means you can always get better, kinder, more generous, more loving, you can always grow. One more note: choose growth that feels good. Not the one like "something is wrong with me, I need to fix it." Choose the growth that makes you feel empowered and light. In whatever you choose to focus on. Because what you focus on, expands. And it's important to recognize that the choice is always yours. You can either choose to focus on 1 plane that crashed or millions of planes that landed safely (although newspaper won't write about them). You either choose to focus on how fucked up life is, or how many creative solutions there are now. And mind is powerful tool. It will find the proof for anything as long as you choose the side. Choose wisely.

15 Things Happy People Avoid

Happiness: something everyone hopes to achieve in his or her lifetime. Such a simple concept, yet many have trouble realizing how to obtain it. Sometimes we unintentionally create our own obstacles that prevent us from achieving this goal. It is ever so important to realize the ways we are limiting ourselves so we can fully reach happiness.

Happy people and unhappy people see the world through two completely opposing views. Here are fifteen behaviors happy people avoid:

1. Gossip
The only people who gossip are people whose personal lives are not fulfilling enough. If you are happy and content with your life, why do you even care what is going on in someone else’s? There is no reason to engage in this petty behavior — all it does is make you look pathetic and jealous.

2. Concern Themselves With Other People’s Problems
People who are unable to mind their own business are most likely internally miserable. They seek to find faults within others just to make themselves feel better. They tend to lead boring lives and have no excitement in their own, so they act in this manner to create something out of nothing. They seek to fill the gap in their lives by discussing the lives of others and judging them harshly, so that they can feel better about their own miserable existences.

3. Think Negatively
There are the miserable people, who are always complaining about anything and everything, while on the other side, we have the optimistic people who always look at the glass as half full and are constantly looking for more out of life. Thinking positively will directly affect your happiness since you are focusing on the good as opposed to the bad.

4. Act Jealous
There is no reason for a happy person to act jealous towards others. They recognize the good fortune they possess and relish in it. They do not compare themselves to others since they are more than likely content with themselves. Instead of acting jealous towards others, they take pleasure in their success and celebrate their accomplishments with them.

5. Seek Validation From Others
Happy people do not look to others to confirm their self-worth. They recognize their value on their own and don’t live up to anyone’s expectations. They do things for themselves that they believe will advance them in life. By not concerning themselves with the opinions of others, they can focus on personal growth.

6. Seek Revenge
There is no reason to actively seek revenge against another person. Leave that up to karma and just continue living your life accordingly. Instead of focusing on revenge, happy people try to make peace with the issue. The only way to stop revenge is to give up and to accept it. Replace the evil feelings with opposite thinking. This is the only way; rise above it and let it be.

7. Hold Onto Resentment
By holding onto resentment, all you are doing is continuing and intensifying your own sadness. Learn to let things go, especially those which are unchangeable and that are in the past. This feeling will eat at you from the inside and cause stress. There is a unique sense of freedom once you let your anger go.

8. Argue For The Sake Of Being Right
It’d be easy to voice my thoughts rationally, but quite as easy to do it condescendingly as well. Many people will have a belief and will hold onto it even when contrary facts are presented to them. If it is a topic that you know they won’t listen to with open ears, don’t open your mouth just so you can appear wiser in the eyes of those around you. You’re only boosting your ego. Do not force your opinions on others or think you know best, as everyone is coming from somewhere. State your point calmly and listen to others. At the very least, you can always agree to disagree.

9. Have Expectations
One of the biggest challenges we face in life is learning to accept people for who they truly are. Once you realize that your expectations cannot change people, the better off you will be. The problem will arise when the expectations do not materialize. Unrealistic expectations will, can, and most often do lead to disappointment. Do not expect things out of situations; just go into them with an open mind. This will allow you to fully immerse yourself without the pressure of living up to preconceived notions.

10. Avoid Personal Problems
When a problem arises, it is the unhappy people who tend to ignore it. This is an awful way to handle situations as the longer you let a problem linger, the greater it will become. You need to tackle issues head on and as soon as possible in hopes of rectifying the circumstances. The stress and anxiety of ignoring such things can and will make you miserable and consumed with worry.

11. Look For Happiness Externally
Your happiness is contingent upon your outlook and not the actual situation. You have the power to view things in certain ways, so it is crucial to try and remain positive. Look within yourself to create your own happiness. Do not look at others to fulfill you, you are more than capable on your own. No relationship or material possession can bring you true happiness until you are happy on your own, first and foremost. This is a fatal error far too many people make in their lives.

12. Overthink Things
Over thinking is what creates problems from nothing and is probably the leading cause for arguments between two people. Many people falsely believe that by over thinking certain things, they can garner a better result. There are actually little to no benefits to over analyzing any given situation. All this will do is cause a person stress and anxiety. The more time a person analyzes a decision, the more time this person makes themselves susceptible to negative thinking. Rational decisions can become clouded when a person lingers on them for too long. The motivation and drive behind the initial idea can and will start to obscure.

13. Live In The Past
The past is the past for a reason — it has already happened. There is no reason to linger there since it cannot be changed. Happy people tend to make peace with their past and focus on the future. They actively seek out different opportunities in order to make the most out of their lives.

14. Follow The Crowd
Confidence is a crucial aspect of any happy person, just like this is a critical characteristic for a leader. Happy people tend to be secure in their values and beliefs and, as a result, have a propensity to be leaders as opposed to followers.

15. Take Things Personally
When you hear a comment that you think is directed at you, take a moment and think. Do not over analyze the situation at hand, just let the other person speak freely. Listen completely to what this person is saying – selective hearing is the cause of these misinterpretations. People tend to get caught up in petty drama, which typically occurs when one person takes something the wrong way. When it comes down to it, you’re in control of how you interpret things. Think of how much more you could achieve with a new perspective, one seen only through your eyes.

What You Have To Offer Is YOU by Charlie Kaufman

This is an excerpt from an incredible speech made by Charlie Kaufman during BAFTA's 2011 Screenwriters' Lecture Series. The video touches on how the world is built on consumerism. It serves to distract us, killing the human in side of us, leaving us feeling inadequate, lonely, empty and scared. One way to combat this is to realize this is not reality. You can make another choice; you have that power.

Who were we before we were named?

Who were we before we were named?

Like Snow - Wendell Berry

LIKE SNOW 
Suppose we did our work like the snow, quietly, quietly. leaving nothing out. —Wendell Berry

The Universe in a Glass of Wine (Richard Feynman

A poet once said, “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he said that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look in glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe’s age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let us give one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

No Small Talk

Reclaim Your Mind

Catalysts to say what has never been said, to see what has never been seen. To draw, paint, sing, sculpt, dance and act what has never before been done. To push the envelope of creativity and language and whats really important is, I call it, the felt presence of direct experience which is a fancy term which just simply means we have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture.

Don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time, where you are now, is the most immediate sector of your universe and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, you are disempowered. You are giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media, so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y or something. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking.

That is all cultural diversion and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, and your fears... and we are told no, we're unimportant, we're peripheral, "get a degree", "get a job", get a this, get a that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world. Where is that at?

   --Terence McKenna--

Plan de Vida

Lyrical Medicine Chest

Lyrical Medicine Chest (Full) from 60.46 Productions on Vimeo.

Three stories reflecting on love and loss are connected through an autobus traveling from country to city.
A young man falls in love,
two lovers confront their dwindling relationship,
and a jaded musician rediscovers himself in a small town.
Adapted from Doctor Erich Kästner's Lyrical Medicine Chest, these vignettes, entitled "Sample of Eternal Love," "Relevant Romance," and "Nocturnal Recipe for City Dwellers," are translated here for the first time in English.
Winner of PBS' Reel 13 competition and selected by Anthology Film Archives NYC.

How to Reinvent Yourself

I’ve had to change careers several times. Sometimes because my interests changed. Sometimes because all bridges have been burned beyond recognition, sometimes because I desperately needed money. And sometimes just because I hated everyone in my old career or they hated me.

There are other ways to reinvent yourself, so take what I say with a grain of salt. This is what worked for me.

I’ve seen it work for maybe a few hundred other people. Through interviews, through people writing me letters, through the course of the past 20 years. You can try it or not.

A) Reinvention never stops.

Every day you reinvent yourself. You’re always in motion. But you decide every day: forward or backward.

B) You start from scratch.

Every label you claim you have from before is just vanity. You were a doctor? You were Ivy League? You had millions? You had a family? Nobody cares. You lost everything. You’re a zero. Don’t try to say you’re anything else.

C) You need a mentor.

Else, you’ll sink to the bottom. Someone has to show you how to move and breathe. But don’t worry about finding a mentor (see below).

D) Three types of mentors

  Direct.
Someone who is in front of you who will show you how they did it. What is “it”? Wait. By the way, mentors aren’t like that old Japanese guy in “The Karate Kid.” Ultimately most mentors will hate you.
  Indirect. 
Books. Movies. You can outsource 90 percent of mentorship to books and other materials. 200-500 books equals one good mentor. People ask me, “What is a good book to read?” I never know the answer. There are 200-500 good books to read. I would throw in inspirational books. Whatever are your beliefs, underline them through reading every day.
  Everything is a mentor.
If you are a zero, and have passion for reinvention, then everything you look at will be a metaphor for what you want to do. The tree you see, with roots you don’t, with underground water that feeds it, is a metaphor for computer programming if you connect the dots. And everything you look at, you will connect the dots.
mentor

E) Don’t worry if you don’t have passion for anything.

You have passion for your health. Start there. Take baby steps. You don’t need a passion to succeed. Do what you do with love and success is a natural symptom.

F) Time it takes to reinvent yourself: five years.

Here’s a description of the five years:

Year One: you’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to DO.
Year Two: you know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re Doing every day. You finally know what the monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.
Year Three: you’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.
Year Four: you’re making a good living
Year Five: you’re making wealth
Sometimes I get frustrated in years 1-4. I say, “why isn’t it happening yet?” and I punch the floor and hurt my hand and throw a coconut on the floor in a weird ritual. That’s okay. Just keep going. Or stop and pick a new field. It doesn’t matter. Eventually you’re dead and then it’s hard to reinvent yourself.

G) If you do this faster or slower then you are doing something wrong.

H) It’s not about the money. But money is a decent measuring stick.

When people say “it’s not about the money” they should make sure they have a different measuring stick.

“What about just doing what you love?” There will be many days when you don’t love what you are doing. If you are doing it just for love then it will take much much longer than five years.

Happiness is just a positive perception from our brain. Some days you will be unhappy. Our brain is a tool we use. It’s not who we are.

I) When can you say, “I do X!” where X is your new career?

Today.

J) When can I start doing X?

Today. If you want to paint, then buy a canvas and paints today, start buying 500 books one at a time, and start painting. If you want to write do these three things:

Read
Write
Take your favorite author and type your favorite story of his word for word. Wonder to yourself why he wrote each word. He’s your mentor today.
If you want to start a business, start spec-ing out the idea for your business. Reinvention starts today. Every day.

K) How do I make money?

By year three you’ve put in 5,000-7,000 hours. That’s good enough to be in the top 200-300 in the world in anything. The top 200 in almost any field makes a living.

By year three you will know how to make money. By year four you will scale that up and make a living. Some people stop at year four.

L) By year five you’re in the top 30-50 so can make wealth.

M) What is “it”? How do I know what I should do?

Whatever area you feel like reading 500 books about. Go to the bookstore and find it. If you get bored three months later go back to the bookstore.

It’s okay to get disillusioned. That’s what failure is about. Success is better than failure but the biggest lessons are found in failure.

Very important: There’s no rush. You will reinvent yourself many times in an interesting life. You will fail to reinvent many times. That’s fun also.

Many reinventions make your life a book of stories instead of a textbook.

Some people want the story of their life to be a textbook. For better or worse, mine is a book of stories.

That’s why reinvention happens every day.

N) The choices you make today will be in your biography tomorrow.

Make interesting choices and you will have an interesting biography.

N.1) The choices you make today will be in your biology tomorrow.

O) What if I like something obscure? Like biblical archaeology or 11th-century warfare?

Repeat all of the steps above, and then in year five you will make wealth. We have no idea how. Don’t look to find the end of the road when you are still at the very first step.

P) What if my family wants me to be an accountant?

How many years of your life did you promise your family? Ten years? Your whole life? Then wait until the next life. The good thing is: you get to choose.

Choose freedom over family. Freedom over preconceptions. Freedom over government. Freedom over people-pleasing. Then you will be pleased.

Q) My mentor wants me to do it HIS way.

That’s fine. Learn HIS way. Then do it YOUR way. With respect.

Hopefully nobody has a gun to your head. Then you have to do it their way until the gun is put down.

R) My spouse is worried about who will support/take care of kids?

Then after you work 16 hours a day, seven days a week being a janitor, use your spare time to reinvent.

Someone who is reinventing ALWAYS has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and re-carving them the way you want them to be.

S) What if my friends think I’m crazy?

What friends?

T) What if I want to be an astronaut?

That’s not a reinvention. That’s a specific job. If you like “outer space” there are many careers. Richard Branson wanted to be an astronaut and started Virgin Galactic.

U) What if I like to go out drinking and partying?

Read this post again in a year.

V) What if I’m busy cheating on my husband or wife or betraying a partner?

Read this post again in two or three years when you are broke and jobless and nobody likes you.

W) What if I have no skills at all?

Read “B” again.

X) What if I have no degree or I have a useless degree?

Read “B” again.

Y) What if I have to focus on paying down my debt and mortgage?

Read “R” again.

Z) How come I always feel like I’m on the outside looking in?

Albert Einstein was on the outside looking in. Nobody in the establishment would even hire him.

Everyone feels like a fraud at some point. The highest form of creativity is born out of skepticism.

AA) I can’t read 500 books. What one book should I read for inspiration?

Give up.

BB) What if I’m too sick to reinvent?

Reinvention will boost every healthy chemical in your body: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. Keep moving forward and you might not get healthy but you will get healthier. Don’t use health as an excuse.

Finally, reinvent your health first. Sleep more hours. Eat better. Exercise. These are key steps to reinvention.

CC) What if my last partner screwed me and I’m still suing him?

Stop litigating and never think about him again. Half the problem was you, not him.

DD) What if I’m going to jail?

Perfect. Reread “B.” Read a lot of books in jail.

EE) What if I’m shy?

Make your weaknesses your strengths. Introverts listen better, focus better, and have ways of being more endearing.

FF) What if I can’t wait five years?

If you plan on being alive in five years then you might as well start today.

GG) How should I network?

Make concentric circles. You’re at the middle.

The next circle is friends and family.

The next circle is online communities.

The circle after that is meetups and coffees.

The circle after that is conferences and thought leaders.

The circle after that is mentors.

The circle after that is customers and wealth-creators.

Start making your way through the circles.

HH) What happens when I have ego about what I do?

In 6-12 months you’ll be back at “B”

II) What if I’m passionate about two things? What if I can’t decide?

Combine them and you’ll be the best in the world at the combination.

JJ) What if I’m so excited I want to teach what I’m learning?

Start teaching on YouTube. Start with an audience of one and see if it builds up.

KK) What if I want to make money while I sleep?

In year four, start outsourcing what you do.

LL) How do I meet mentors and thought leaders?

Once you have enough knowledge (after 100-200 books), write down 10 ideas for 20 different potential mentors.

None of them will respond. Write down 10 more ideas for 20 new mentors. Repeat every week.

Put together a newsletter for everyone who doesn’t respond. Keep repeating until someone responds. Blog about your learning efforts. Build community around you being an expert.

MM) What if I can’t come up with ideas?

Then keep practicing coming up with ideas. The idea muscle atrophies. You have to build it up.

It’s hard for me to touch my toes if I haven’t been doing it every day. I have to do it every day for a while before I can easily touch my toes. Don’t expect to come up with good ideas on day one.

NN) What else should I read?

AFTER books, read websites, forums, magazines. But most of that is garbage.

OO) What if I do everything you say but it still doesn’t seem like it’s working?

It will work. Just wait. Keep reinventing every day.

Don’t try and find the end of the road. You can’t see it in the fog. But you can see the next step and you do know that if you take that next step eventually you get to the end of the road.

PP) What if I get depressed?

Sit in silence for one hour a day. You need to get back to your core.

If you think this sounds stupid then don’t do it. Stay depressed.

QQ) What if I don’t have time to sit in silence?

Then sit in silence for two hours a day. This is not meditation. This is just sitting.

RR) What if I get scared?

Sleep 8-9 hours a day and never gossip. Sleep is the No. 1 key to successful health. It’s not the only key. It’s just No. 1. Some people write to me and say, “I only need four hours of sleep” or “in my country sleeping means laziness.” Well, those people will fail and die young.

What about gossip? The brain biologically wants to have 150 friends. Then when you are with one of your friends you can gossip about any of the other 150. If you don’t have 150 friends then the brain wants to read gossip magazines until it thinks it has 150 friends.

Don’t be as stupid as your brain.

SS) What if I keep feeling like nothing ever works out for me?

Spend 10 minutes a day practicing gratitude. Don’t suppress the fear. Notice the anger.

But also allow yourself to be grateful for the things you do have. Anger is never inspirational but gratitude is. Gratitude is the bridge between your world and the parallel universe where all creative ideas live.

TT) What if I have to deal with personal bullshit all the time?

Find new people to be around.

Someone who is reinventing herself will constantly find people to try and bring her down. The brain is scared of reinvention because it might not be safe.

Biologically, the brain wants you to be safe and reinvention is a risk. So it will throw people in your path who will try to stop you.

Learn how to say “no.”

UU) What if I’m happy at my cubicle job?

Good luck.

VV) Why should I trust you – you’ve failed so many times?

Don’t trust me.

by James Altucher

How to live Right

Six right livelihood guidelines
  Consume mindfully.
Eat with awareness and gratitude.
Pause before buying and see if breathing is enough.
Pay attention to the effects of media you consume.
  Pause. Breathe. Listen.
When you feel compelled to speak in a meeting or conversation, pause.
Breathe before entering your home, place of work, or school.
Listen to the people you encounter. They are buddhas.
  Practice gratitude.
Notice what you have
Be equally grateful for opportunities and challenges.
Share joy, not negativity.
  Cultivate compassion and loving kindness.
Notice where help is needed and be quick to help
Consider others' perspectives deeply.
Work for peace at many levels.
  Discover wisdom
Cultivate "don't know" mind (= curiosity).
Find connections between Buddhist teachings and your life.
Be open to what arises in every moment.
  Accept constant change.

sunset photo at Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia. photo by Julia

The Meaning of Life rEvisited

What I Think

There is a BIG difference between what I think and what I say.

Breakthroughs require Breakdowns

Breakthroughs require breakdowns.

Philip K. Dick “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later”

It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question “What is reality?”, to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.

But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. . . . So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later.

As soon as you begin to ask what is ultimately real, you right away begin talk nonsense. Zeno proved that motion was impossible (actually he only imagined that he had proved this; what he lacked was what technically is called the “theory of limits”). David Hume, the greatest skeptic of them all, once remarked that after a gathering of skeptics met to proclaim the veracity of skepticism as a philosophy, all of the members of the gathering nonetheless left by the door rather than the window. I see Hume’s point. It was all just talk. The solemn philosophers weren’t taking what they said seriously.

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real — that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.

Philip K. Dick, in a 1978 speech titled “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later,” found in the altogether mind-bending 1995 anthology The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings 

Nelson Mandela and Invictus

He truly lived his life by the poem that got him through prison:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.