Author: jaylazzo

Stories, Friends and Food

| jaylazzo

After a battle, warriors of old would sit around a campfire to tell stories. This practice — which no true warrior ever missed — had many functions, learning being one, and a good-humored bragging another. I say good humored because one can’t really brag in front of peers who can see through one’s lies and tricks.

Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other apps kept us connected during the Covid pandemic of 2020-2022. Where we could, we stayed in touch through get-togethers, sit-downs, and of course, around the dinner table.

Early in the lockdown of April 2020 I went on a brown bag date with one of my best friends, M.. We took our lunch on some bench outside a closed restaurant, overlooking the Marikina Valley, the mountain skyline in the foreground, sky in the back, a perfect blue the likes of which I have never seen and probably never will again with the return of cars. There were no people, just us and one security guard. M. told me about her plans for graduate school and how she was trying to keep her business afloat. I told her about how I ran my team by remote. Within a few weeks of that she left for the UK to pursue graduate studies.

By November of 2022 countries were opened again. All Covid-related restrictions had been removed, especially in the UK. I visited the University of Reading. I had dinner with my friend at Pulia, an Italian restaurant on Stoney Street. She had gotten her MS degree and was working for a marketing firm dealing in foodstuff. “Speaking of marketing”, I said, “You know there’s a Jollibee in Reading? And it’s on Broad Street. But I don’t think I’ll go there; I mean, coming all the way to England.”

Jollibee is like McDonald’s, only bigger, in the Philippines. And Broad Street, Reading, is where all the top shops are in that city. One of the most well known Philippine multinationals had arrived. And I wasn’t going to dine in it.

“You should try it,” she said. “It’s not the same as in the Philippines. Chicken standards in the UK are very strict.”

Well, I thought that in general there were only two kinds of restaurants in the Philippines: yung masarap o yung malinis, those that taste good, and those that are clean. M. was telling me that Jollibee was not just clean, it was UK-clean.

After Pulia we went to Borough Market, and after a wonderful time winding around the tight, talkative, unmasked crowd to sample mulled cider, I returned to Reading. The next day, Sunday, I went to Jollibee.

Immediately I knew it was good: there was a line at the automated teller; Q. and I were lucky to find a table. At my turn, I selected Chickenjoy, spicy. If you’re not familiar with fowl, this is what the species looks like:

Nearly every Filipino knows Chickenjoy, so much that when supply was interrupted by supply chain problems in 2014, management had to publicly apologize for the “Chickensad” incident. Non-filipinos, well, check Youtube, e.g., People Trying Chickenjoy for the First Time, etc.

This is not an ad: I don’t usually choose Jollibee. But since I did this time, I found it wasn’t that different from what I recall of the original version. It did not at all disappoint.

In fact, I prefer Tortilla, Reading, as possibly one of the best Mexican restaurants ever. Which I will remember as being the one close to Jollibee.

They say that we tend to link everything we experience at the moment with whatever strong emotion at the time, whether the experience caused the emotion or not. Hence, hearing familiar and strange voices, smelling Jollibee’s air, and tasting mulled alcohol with good friends who have touched our lives — these are all linked.

I’m so glad we’re back.

Icarus and Pieter Bruegel

| jaylazzo
XIR3675 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555 (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69); 73.5×112 cm; Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; (add.info.: Icarus seen with his legs thrashing in the sea;); Giraudon; Flemish, out of copyright. Downloaded from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Pieter_Bruegel_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_Icarus.jpg)

I blogged earlier about Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. This is the painting.

There, just below the ship on the right, are the legs of the presently-drowning Icarus. For those unfamiliar with the legend, Icarus made himself a pair of wings and stuck bird feathers in it using wax. He flew too close to the sun, the max melted, he fell, barely missed the ship. Too bad, said the sailors, move on.

Put simply, Bruegel is telling us: No One Cares About Your Drama.

I need to remind myself as well not to give a f***. This does not mean be rude to people. But, “how it will make me look” is not enough reason. It might have been St. Theresa of Avila who said, if you have a good reason for doing something, just do it. And I’m sure St. Augustine said, “Love, and do what you will.”

The downside: not everyone likes spontaneity. An interests in Brazilian guitar and speaking my mind about things, some won’t like that about me. Those who don’t like that are automatically selected against.

Spontaneity goes with vulnerability and sincerity, and it’s worth the shot. Besides, spontaneity and vulnerability and sincerity will allow one to APPRECIATE and UNDERSTAND others. One too careful inspires nothing but carefulness. Still, if that’s part of one’s character, then it is being true, no problem, and one’s association with other careful people will be fulfilling.

I have some friends, though, who are uncommonly good with all kinds of people. Again, that’s part of who they are. But even introverts can come to feel comfortable with anyone who at least isn’t a cheat. Icarus wasn’t a cheat, and the sun was just being itself. One may hate Icarus on the one hand (he failed), or admire him (he tried), but few are indifferent. The farmer and the sailors were indifferent to Icarus, but not Bruegel and the millions who have heard of Icarus through the centuries.

Of course, there’s a problem if one is too lazy to go about interacting with at least a few. Like Icarus they will win some and they will lose some, but at least try. But when we focus on “what if the sun melts my wings”, we will never fly.

I would rather regret something I’ve done than something I’ve never done.

On Schopenhauer’s pessimism

| jaylazzo

Some people like to brainstorm and innovate, create and imagine, but are not comfortable when reality sets in, i.e., when actual effort needed is much higher than expected. They realize that actual costs are higher, time required is higher, they have mess to clean up and finishing touches to be placed. They realize every stakeholder has a different interest, and even every team member has other concerns of greater priority to him. Especially for some creatives, they can become uncomfortable when their idea becomes another’s, when it has been changed to become something very different from the inspired idea.

It might appear that most people may be called “dreamers” with respect to some issues, and “realists” with respect to others. I do not think it’s that simple. Rather, we always see outside realities through a subjective lens. This is why two observers of the same event will have different interpretations of it. The same person will interpret an event differently depending on his emotional state, and will interpret differently depending on his will.

That’s more or less what I got from a brief introduction to Schopenhauer.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation, in which he characterizes the phenomenal world — the world in our head — as the product of will. Most people consider him a pessimist because, pondering on the subjects of loneliness, solitude, boredom, he concluded that only pain was real and true happiness was the absence of pain.

Schopenhauer may have been extreme in saying the outside world has little to no value outside of a negative, but our thoughts do matter a lot. Happy or sad, your thoughts determine your behavior, and your behavior changes your world.

How, then, do we change thought?

Schopenhauer’s answer: detach yourself especially from selfish desire. For as long as it is conscious, this Will that is inside us will always seek self preservation and will always be frustrated. Therefore, the only way to be free from frustration is annihilation. As this is not practical, we opt for something like it that is: asceticism, and failing that, compassion.

As Steve Magness wrote, Do Hard Things. Don’t purchase everything you fancy, and don’t quit too easily. Be generous to others, but don’t be too soft on yourself.

Although it doesn’t look like a Schopenhauer tool, Zen meditation serves a similar annihilating purpose. The Zen practitioner removes all thought at least for the time he is meditating. Whether he is sitting in meditation or practicing flower arrangement or making a sword, the practitioner is focused on the present. By staying there, he annihilates two common distractions: worry, which is thinking in the past; and anxiety, which is thinking in the future. In a duel, a samurai does not think about dying, but only about cutting. It doesn’t serve the samurai to be worried or anxious about outcomes.

Schopenhauer may have said that happiness is not real. So what? Pleasure and pain are like chiascuro in painting. Pain is not to be avoided at all costs. Neither is it to be sought for its own sake. It can be experienced with resignation, or chosen. No pain, no gain.

Is there useless pain? If you Will pain to be useful, it will be useful, even if you did not choose it. But if you set your Will against pain, Schopenhauer says you’ll always be frustrated. Schopenhauer’s pessimism at least to me is far from negative.

As a scientist, I aim to make life better through science. And I go through the pain of experimental failures, funding rejections, broken instruments, to get there. Everyone can say the same thing. It’s practically what makes a pro a pro: their ability to do, to persist donig hard things.

Even in Schopenhauer’s landscape, is there a position where the view is nothing but beautiful? No. Instead, in his and anyone’s landscape, if you remove all the shadows and grays, what interest would that landscape have? Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, a painting attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, is interesting not only because it is a beautiful painting of ships and farmers. But if you look at the lower right corner you will see Icarus drowning. Bruegel is telling us that tragedy is part of truth.

Well, he’s also saying that no one really cares about your drama, Icarus.

At least for us living, pain and pleasure may be a matter of where one stands. This suggests that seeing is itself an act of creation! Of course, we do not create the subject, but we create meaning by seeing what we see. A trained person draws more from the same experience as a novice. But the novice begins his path to expertise by exposure and feedback regarding what he saw.

Hence, the “expert’s perspective” businesses will pay millions for. It’s not their IQ, not their degrees. It’s their experience, sculpted, refined by criticism and dialogue. For this reason, it would be wrong to say, as many young people do, that all opinions are equal.

Sometimes the best one can do is to appreciate things from afar. Without research, without getting involved, without commitment. Because as we said, “spectating” is NOT doing NOTHING. Since a good part of reality is in our head, what we put in there is a product of work. Everything, therefore, matters. Looking at an Oreo may not be like looking at a Bruegel, but I once attended a show where the poet read out a shopping list in a truly inspired way.

There is very little one can do that is totally indifferent and ineffectual. But it would be a true pain if one never sought the benefit of conversation.

On procrastination and dreaming of bicycles

| jaylazzo

Is it the case that having many interests promotes procrastination?

It would seem that having interests makes it painful to consider other tasks. According to this reasoning, having an interest other than the task at hand distracts. But this reasoning is nuanced. Although it may be true that having many other things in mind can be distracting, the problem is not with those other things but with the task one struggles with. This new task may be too large, too “difficult”, too complex. The mind protects itself, and puts a barrier that makes it easy to decide to postpone action.

It’s safer to run away, to procrastinate. The mind stays clear of danger. Let’s just not do anything. It’s a wise strategy sometimes. Perhaps the problem will disappear by itself, or somebody else will handle it. That is certainly something to hope for when one has too much on one’s plate. Which would be a problem in itself: not knowing how to manage priorities. And to manage emotions. Casually hoping a problem would go away when one’s priority is to deal with that problem is a problem of mismanaged emotions. Deal with it. Deal with it not by thinking about it but by acting on it.

Accounting is not an easy skill. I used to find Accounting very painful just to think about. But I came to love it. How? I acted, starting small. I bought a basic textbook, did all the exercises, and saved them as Excel templates that I still use today. On the other hand, intermediate accounting is daunting because I never studied it; I did not need it for my regular work.

Many other things cause pain, such as thinking about repairs in the house. I don’t have a system. A system would involve, say, scheduling a repair and preparing the materials the night before. This is an example of breaking the daunting task into familiar fragments — how much skill does it take to gather tools?

In short, the hard part is to begin, and the solution is to begin with a simple fragment of the whole and let momentum do the rest. In other words: “When you feel lazy about going to the gym, just think about putting on your gym clothes.”

Leadership roles are certainly more complex. They involve objects, people, how people relate to objects and how they relate to each other. But even for a CEO, a very complex work can be cut into fragments. Divide and conquer.

Another way out of procrastination is to obey. One can obey other people, or one can obey one’s to-do list. We often obey against the grain, sometimes even against our perceived self interests. But we can see why acting from obedience — whether it is in response to a boss’ demand, or to one’s own to-do list, works: action kills pain.

I do not know why action has that effect. It appears that action and fear are incompatible. A hunting dog does not feel its fleas. There, alone with one’s thoughts, one will soon discover a million reasons not to act where risk and difficulty are involved.

So, act. This is no way guarantees success. But even failure is relative — it’s just feedback. Failure is essential to success, for who can do anything well without feedback? One is almost sure to fail when one takes on too big a task. It’s still feedback, but it is reckless to set oneself up for failure. Again, the problem is not having too many things on one’s plate, but in poor planning and mismanaged priorities.

I once met an engineer who handled about 30 projects; he seemed to be doing a good job. He does have a good team. Teams multiply action. In fact, I’ve been thinking how one might write a hundred books in 10 years, and the answer is “ghostwriters”. But even a system of ghostwriters will get a poor share of one’s resources if one also employed assistants in so diverse fields that teams don’t benefit from the work of other teams. It’s still better to focus on related tasks, and leave the unrelated tasks few and for purposes of rest and recreation.

I like to bike. But last night I dreamed I was on a bicycle that became more and more difficult to pedal even though the ground was flat. The fact that failure is essential to success is an uncomfortable thought that sometimes shows in dreams.

But even in the dream I’m on the bicycle. That’s what matters.

I can own this space

| jaylazzo

I wish I could own this space.

But that’s where the problem is. Se arrependimento matasse. Regret kills. Suicide really. I don’t want to think of it that way. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve wasted time, and I don’t have as much energy, inspiration or even talent even for the Bom Combate that I find myself in. I’m not making excuses for these defeats that makes my disappearance from the scene a good price to pay for all my stupidities.

What I am talking about is owning the real space I was MEANT to own. Like every one born, I have a reason for being born. A reason for being born is a concept that only makes sense when one believes in God. In my case, that purpose is this: I was meant to sanctify my work (whatever that happens to be, wherever that happens to be), sanctify myself in that work, and sanctify others through my work. Whether I actually own that space or not, belief in a God-given purpose should lead to the conviction that conquering this space possible, following his simple logic: if God brings you to it it, He will bring you through it.

God provides. If I still don’t own that space it’s because I’ve put obstacles.

The biggest obstacle is the feeling that it can’t be done. I could think that the road blocks are just too many. Or that I’ve done too many mistakes for me to even be minimally credible. Or that there is not time to make a dent or even to repair the very problems that are contributing to my lack of progress.

A lack of faith. Not an absence of faith, but a lack of it.

I guess God has considered all that when He called me. And you I’m not really getting out of this mess of road blocks; that’s life. I know, though, that I will have to pay my dues because that’s how the world works. Quitting or procrastinating only delay my progress — they don’t remove the road blocks down the road, which seem to actually become bigger for lack of experience dealing with previous ones.

It is an obstacle to despair about how beautiful life is even with this mess and everything.

I know I’m not praying enough. By not praying I sever the connection with the thoughts that alone allow me to sever despair from road blocks.

God understands I can’t solve it all.

But then let’s get it down to essentials. The last thing we need is a person who asks: “What’s the point?” I simply just have to fight the Bom Combate, fool that I am.

It is therefore certain: I can still own the space, if only because I make the effort to remove obstacles inside me. Weeds. They keep growing all the time. Perhaps my ground is fertile for weeds. But I may simply just have to remove a little everyday. Maybe the rules are that simple.

Again, through faith. They’re never that simple otherwise.

Emotional trash of worry and anxiety

| jaylazzo

“Existe um lixo emocional: ele e produzido nas usinas do pensamento. Sao dores que ja passaram, e agora nao tem mais utilidade. Sao precaucoes que foram importantes no passada mas de nada servem no presente.”

Anxieties and worries are reactions to signals. Sensors. They suggest to us decisions we could make and take actions that are thoughtful and useful. But they can also stimulate an internal debate that amplifies the original feelings, drowns out reason, and leads to rash decisions.

A trained mind will know how to stop this unproductive internal spiral. It may react with worry and anxiety for maybe a fraction of a second, say. BUT WILL NOT DWELL on it. Instead, anxiety and worry could even lead to clear judgment. This is because judgment flows from reason. The urge to calm the pain can short-circuit or bypasses reason.

I understand this process quite clearly. Putting it into practice in the face of strong negative emotions, however, is not easy. That is because emotions can inspire memories and learned reasonings that reinforce those feelings causing me to buckle through a vicious cycle where emotion leads to more emotion.

Say a person criticizes me. I will react with anxiety to that. In the right frame of mind this reaction would last for only the time needed to assess whether to take that signal seriously. From here, I should shift to an assessment of the situation it signals. I’ve learned over the years that many things that cause worry at the start can be dealt with reasonably.

But some worries and anxieties are habitually stronger than others. The fear of rejection by peers is one of these. This habit has diminished considerably over many areas, but it is still something that causes me to get irritated when criticized (even by well meaning people) and fearful of getting into a situation where I might get criticized. How I managed to take on leadership roles with this fear is a testament to the power reason can exercise when not overwhelmed by emotion.

One might argue: “Isn’t instinct an action that flows directly from feeling?” I think this is a productive “short cut” when the stimulus is a familiar one, and familiar in the sense that one knows one can handle it. It is when the stimulus is unfamiliar and the perceived threat so strong — because unfamiliar — that the problem of thoughtless action arises. This reasoning also suggests a way out of being held captive by emotional habits, and that is to work at it. The more exposes oneself to challenges just a little above one’s abilities the more one realizes that threats are not as big as they seem. This realistic knowledge of one’s abilities in the face of given levels of challenge is the basis for true confidence. That is, in contrast to bluster, which often can just be a way to cope with fear.

Sometimes this works.

Always choose God

| jaylazzo

Once again, out of town. I just love going out because it is restful. I like to stay away from the house for a while. For whatever reason, say I don’t like being with certain people there, I just admit it because taking a step back is the first step forward to licking the problem.

I found this lovely little book that I hope will improve me a lot. Perhaps I’m not an extrovert, but I have some things I can share with the world, so let’s just maximize that area of strength. I think I can work in the direction of improving my social skills. But I should not imagine there is one right way of understanding social talent. I would rather emphasize where my talents and interests really lie, because those are the areas where i can ENJOY PRACTICING.

It is important, very important, to love practice. This can’t be overemphasized. That could be reading, writing, doing math, practicing the guitar, practicing data analysis. Whatever, it must be enjoyed, and you should be able to tell from the start that “this is the sort of practice I enjoy doing”. As soon as you can identify that, that would be a helpful resource for when discouragement comes.

Sand does not flow back up the hourglass; neither can you force sand to go through before their time. My attention is on the sand that goes through the hole, one at a time and in its own time. Focus on the present. Whatever I might or might not have done in the past is buried there where it should not be regretted upon nor enjoyed. The past today has no meaning save for a memory that hopefully is helpful. The future is nice for a vision, but I can’t live in that one either.

So, in a sense, even if it might seem that existence is dreary, I’m really recreating my life everyday! To put it more truly, I’m in front of the opportunity to do God’s will everyday. I could recreate my life as I want, or I could do what God’s plan requires of me. God wants to recreate me in the Image of His Son, that’s what the will of God ultimately leads to. Any other way of acting would be a false recreation.

It would be a false recreation to aim for an image or a situation in the future that is against the will of God. I shouldn’t plan to sin. I shouldn’t look forward to it. And even where sin is not concerned, there are certain activities, pastimes, hobbies that do not lead to me being recreated into the image of Jesus Christ because they waste one’s time.

A choice often presents itself before me: to deal with a person, or to withdraw. To do good or to do nothing. To show love or to withhold it.

At the bottom is WANT and DESIRE. At the bottom is the question: What do I choose to love right now? At the bottom are only two answers: God, or myself ahead of God. It’s rarely other than that. The rare exceptions DO NOT MATTER, such as do I eat chicken or pork. But those choices that are not indifferent, that do indicate a love or a hatred for a PERSON or persons, those are the choices that matter.

When I choose to WANT something, I should really ask WHO am I choosing?

A man with a pure heart chooses GOD CONSISTENTLY. No matter, whether it’s a big thing or a small thing, the man with a pure heart chooses GOD. That’s it, can’t be any simpler than that. Perhaps we can make it more complicated, but I do not think God had complicatedness in mind. If anything, He probably wants me just to “push the button” or to “swallow the red or the blue pill”, and the He does most of the rest. I could for example choose to waste time with a friend against utilitarian logic and God would make it right no matter what. This by the way is the logic of obedience done for love of God.

So, learn to see that every choice that matters is a choice for GOD or for SELF. If today were the last day of my life it would be in my interest and in the interest of the world that i choose GOD TODAY. Don’t think about tomorrow or yesterday. CHOOSE GOD TODAY, RIGHT NOW.

This is not going to be easy because choosing oneself is a natural instinct and one willed by God Himself so that we take care of ourselves. No problem. If we must do that, and I think this happens a lot, then do it because of love for GOD! I will choose this or that for myself because I am choosing GOD through those things. I will choose to love others for the same reason; at least I will avoid choosing to love others because I needed some favor or because it makes me look good.

That something so ordinary could in fact be a choice for God can be difficult to understand for one used to the idea that loving God is all about going to church. Again, I think God is simple, not complicated, and He wouldn’t want us to be complicated either. That’s probably one reason why Jesus Christ chose to become a man. It makes it a lot easier to imagine human friendship when we think of Jesus as Friend. A relationship with God is universe-level, but it can’t be more complicated than befriending another human.

Friends want the best for their friends, even to the point of making them suffer, as they themselves suffer for imposing punishments. But stop thinking of Jesus only as the Punisher. If anything, the Punisher role would not be like any earthly punisher’s role. Even in things as bleak as that, God is LOVE, and this never ceases, never for a moment.

It would be wrong to lose hope. One could lose hope by substituting one’s criteria for God’s. Simple as that. It’s also a lack of faith. Often, it’s a lack of love as well. Settle this issue, and I am sure I will come to love even the people I would rather avoid being with in the same room.

Ego is the Enemy

| jaylazzo

I’m lazy in certain ways. I’m not lazy when it comes to things in which I have some control. But where I’m afraid of failure, rejection, and being let down, where there’s a threat to my self esteem, I procrastinate or, worse, quit. This conditions appears in matters that are professional and personal, even in ordinary relationships.

In one talk I attended last Aug 2022, the speaker suggested that we could build relationships more easily within activities that revolve around our interests. I quickly thought “Am I really good at this? Am I really capable of running a drum circle, or a jamming session?” The answer to the questions was: not at this point.

Why not? One reason is the fear of feedback. The only way to be good at something is to get feedback. Take the djembe: a simple instrument, something I love. But I could never have true confidence until I receive feedback about the level of my skill and the quality of my music. I do not receive this because I do not expose myself to feedback!

I’m not playing publicly because it is risky. Playing FOR AND WITH others necessarily brings with it the possibility of disagreement and negative feedback. This is supposed to be good, but it isn’t, for me.

The enemy has been and always will be EGO. And it is the most difficult enemy to fight. Why? It may be my mind is programmed to reject negative feedback, considering it an insult and a direct attack at my competence, my intelligence, even my character. One way I avoid feedback is to avoid especially those activities where feedback is most helpful, i.e., activities I’m no good at.

The problem with the programming idea is that the relationship between feeling and action is not clear. I went looking for models. Steve Magness, in the book Do Hard Things, suggests a model to explain why some keep a clear mind under discomfort while others break down.

Stimulus -> Feeling -> Internal Debate -> Urge -> Decision (quit/pursue)

In this model, an uncomfortable situation gives rise to feeling, which then affects an internal debate, which then urges the person towards some action, to quit or to continue. According to this model, negative feelings bias the debate and urges quitting or procrastination, especially if the person perceives the task to be a lot more difficult than anticipated. However, when this difference is not big, the debate is more calm, the urge to quit less strong, and the decision then tends towards proceeding.

This mechanism suggests several ways out. One may interpret the Stimulus as fun or exciting, an opportunity rather than a threat. One can lie about the Feeling and say that it is “bullshit”, all while embracing its reality. When one is calm, one can then trust one can carry out the Internal Debate more reasonably, which calms the Urge and makes a decision more clearly thought. If the decision is to quit, then it would be a thoughtful action, one that was not rushed by need to kill the pain.

An interesting form of stimulus is another person. Even thinking about certain people can cause strong negative feelings. Aside from the fact that there is almost always something to like about anyone, not controlling this thought about people can lead to rash judgments (which are also rush judgments), and destroy one’s social skills.

I do not wish to go on living with this handicap.

accentuate your differences

| jaylazzo

“To do something original and to do something well, whether it is appreciated by others or not, that is what being human is really all about and it is alone what justifies the self love that is genuine pride.”

The next time you consider procrastinating, consider the cost. Passivity and lack of creative effort, lack of pursuit to be good at something extraordinary that sets you apart, is a sure formula for mediocrity and mental illness.

Perhaps this is relative. You should consider whether you have more to lose by being passive and by not being different.

You have already been set apart. You have been set apart by your profession, your set of talents and skills, and your experience. God wants to color the world with all these different talents in different people. Some will be more brilliant than others, but it was never God’s intent that a color should be less beautiful than what it was meant to be when He placed them in that part of the canvas. Even the greys, whose purpose is to give naturalness and volume to even the most brilliant of reds and yellows.

One sets himself apart already by being oneself. For no one has been born or ever will be born who has your exact way of thinking, feeling, and doing. Your means of expression, the way you put words together, the way you articulate your interpretation of events around you, these are all unique. There is always someone, even within your vicinity, who appreciates these things that you bring, and there is always something to appreciate in another. In many ways, people will come to like at least the fact that you bring something different. Colors complement.

Even the people we truly dislike at some point we also appreciate even just because of their difference.

Hence, it is good to accentuate what makes one different, and also what makes one similar. One who is plagued with doubts about whether people like him or disagree with him should keep this in mind. The next time someone asks you a pointed question, consider this an opportunity to express yourself in your unique way. In many ways, the message itself might be less important than your view.

This is particularly useful to you because you tend to be in performance mode, always concerned that you say something intelligent or witty. That is NOT THE POINT! Wit is not what you do but how your words resonate. Hence, you can’t really deliberately censor yourself to be witty. YOU JUST GO AHEAD AND SAY THINGS, focusing on the message. Let’s leave it up to others to consider whether what you said was intelligent or witty.