Collaging 2025

1. Some of the most beautiful things in the world are sad.
2. A cruel joke: when the anima instructs you to find her—but provides no details!
3. Once a man loves you, he never goes back to liking you.
4. Perfectionism is at odds with self-compassion.
5. Outward perfectionism, inward purification.
6. A sculptor's mind sees the beauty found in constraints.
7. Love yourself like others should've.
   
   Evil fears: beauty
   
   
   
8. “Even in our sleep,
   pain which cannot forget,
   falls drop by drop upon the heart,
   until,
   in our own despair,
   against our will,
   comes wisdom,
   through the awful grace of God."
9. Waiting in long lines becomes suddenly more tolerable once you realize how unmemorable they are.
10. That scent again! —so fleeting, you couldn't figure out what it once reminded you of.
11. When your identity is tied to your career, what’s left when it’s gone?
12. Remember those long summer nights, when you thought childhood would last forever?
13. Can you be certain you lived if no one was ever there to reflect your life back at you?
14. —you looked away too long and can no longer imagine what it was like to be a kid again.
15. What was any of it, having treated life like a timeshare?
16. Maybe identity isn't created, but noticed retroactively.
17. “You can only avoid regret by switching off your imagination.”
    
    Evil fears: memory
    
    
    
18. Even hedonists feel it, walking into an empty home.
19. You think you’re the main character—until someone holds eye contact with you.
20. In conversation, it’s easy to mistake another’s self-consciousness for your own.
21. Do you see things others often overlook?
22. And who do you become, when nobody is watching?
23. People panic when they hear Joe Rogan speculate because they assume that everybody consumes information like they do—at face-value.
24. Conspiracy theorists have an amazing intuition—with absolutely zero counterbalance.
25. Shower thought: Somewhere remote, a homeowner just shot the Amazon driver delivering a shovel meant to bury the last ‘intruder.’
26. A paranoid person isn't wrong—just right twice!
27. Hm. It was maybe the 80^th time I kicked over the cats' food bowl when I finally decided to buy the gravity feeder...
28. Money is well-spent when it removes small annoyances in your life!
29. You didn't appreciate what you had until you bought it all over again.
30. How many times are you going to taste that god awful food before you double-check the recipe?!
31. Uh, so what's the virtue in being conservative if you're going to be wrong...?
32. “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.”
33. Do you know how difficult it is to run a grocery store?!
34. Nothing says “ahead of the curve” quite like commenting “obviously AI” on Facebook.
35. "Most people are other people."
36. Predators thrive when those around them misjudge everything that cries for a baby.
37. What irritates us most about others often mirror what we’ve exiled from ourselves.
38. Anger long nursed in silence becomes resentment.
39. Evil is an entity outside of us, welcomed in, inhabiting us little by little each time we said “yes,” when we should’ve said “no.”
40. Evil thrives when we deny our own darkness.
41. — I should be more careful.
    — Being careful is not enough.
    — I should be aware, then.
    — Now you are aware.
    
    Evil fears: awareness
    
    
    
42. — I was always there. It was just in that moment, you decided to see me.
43. Ever notice how cats walk around like a deity in a mortal’s body?
44. Every cat owner is trapped in an abusive relationship with their pet...
45. Language names experience.
46. Ever meet someone and think, ah—so you're why insurance premiums are so high!
47. Try it: strangers will call you interesting when you let them talk about themselves!
48. You wondered why fast-food tastes bad—then you remembered that it's tailored towards the lowest common denominator.
49. It’s hard to cheer someone up when you find that you're just arguing with their inner-critic.
50. Their voice, your inner-critic.
51. Be honest with yourself: therapist or subscription-friend?
52. Judge before you respond: do they need advice, an ear, or just someone to sit beside them in the mud?
53. A friend puts it this way:
    1. Are the incompatibilities in your relationships a difference in hardware or software?
    2. What level of clearance do you have with the person closest to you?
    3. How differently do those closest to you treat you once you’re doing better?
54. ‘They made me—’ is abusive language. Everyone has agency, and nobody creates your feelings.
55. Healthy guilt answers to violating your own standards. Neurotic guilt answers to violating others’.
56. Never apologize for something you’re not sorry for.
57. Beliefs are reflected in actions—not words.
58. What appears to be true is as real as what’s actually true.
59. The 'dimwit': usually right... and usually for the wrong reasons!
60. Treat all news like it’s Fox News!
61. The 'midwit': only knows enough to fear being wrong.
62. Professor: if everyone has equal intelligence, why aren’t you lecturing at Harvard?
63. Not everything that is ‘true’ is ‘proven.’
64. The 'intellectual' will tell you, "a point in every direction is the same as no point at all!"
65. Imprecise speech is the language of tyrants.
66. You can’t be ‘tolerant’ unless you’re putting up with something you dislike.
67. PSA: Friendship never required a political loyalty test.
68. The 'doctrinaire': deferment as a default—not as a decision.
69. Standards are a stand-in for trust.
70. It's claimed that Picasso is shown a drawing by a child and says, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
71. The 'master': who returns to simplicity.
72. Politics is a lot more fun to watch when you see it as a bloodsport!
73. Religion: distilled truths of a collective unconscious.
74. Religious language: the personification of invisible forces.
75. Temptation is evil asking for consent.
76. When faith becomes detached from personal experience, you’re looking at dogma.
77. Atheists: people who are such a snore that they can't even find a meaningful coincidence interesting.
78. Our opinions form an interlocking framework; when our identity is entangled with our opinions, we resist changing even one.
79. Open-mindedness requires distance; true understanding requires the ability to hold multiple truths at the same time.
80. Ask yourself: if the opposite were true, what else would have to change?
    
    Evil fears: naming
    
    
    
81. Why does it always feel like there is somewhere else I need to be?
82. Don’t misread eagerness for urgency—they’re not the same thing.
83. Start each day on your terms.
84. Allow a child to choose their breakfast, and it'll be ice cream every time!
85. Permissive adults teach children that they are not worthy of being cared for.
86. Feeding a dog at the table serves you—not the dog. Tough love is selfless love.
87. Teachers: by editorializing everything, we signal a fear that students will form judgments that are not our own.
88. When a kid wants to show you something you already know how to do: humor them.
89. Why is it difficult to give myself permission to relax?
90. If you wait for the oven timer before removing a cake, why make commitments you aren’t ready to hold? All that does is reinforce negative beliefs about yourself.
91. Where perfectionism demands intensity, commitment asks for consistency.
92. The expectations we demand from others diminishes how much we can enjoy them.
93. A person becomes jaded when they resent a universe that cannot bend to their will.
94. Idealism is the first stone placed on a path toward disappointment!
95. Emotions burn us when we stepped into the fire we could've just sat beside.
96. Sit, see what presents itself.
97. When death is forever, why run in the rain?
    
    Evil fears: restraint
    
    
    
98. Those who fear change wish to encase time in amber.
99. To respect another’s agency is an act of humility, an expression of faith.
100. When the research van crashed in Mississippi, I was rooting for the monkeys!
101. If you have something to lose, true freedom costs a fortune.
102. It can be very disappointing to accept that sometimes people walk away with the wrong impression of you—but it’s okay, when you realize they've felt that, too.
103. Self-compassion understands our bad habits as past survival skills.
104. Addicts only have the capacity to love conditionally.
105. Acknowledge that you loved it—then remember the higher value: the part is being sacrificed for the whole.
106. If the Exiled believe not even God could see them as redeemable, why wouldn’t they beget more evil?
107. “But I'm begging, please, I need this so much more than you'll ever know."
108. Once they have your hope, they have you.
109. Forever thinking, maybe tomorrow…
     
     Evil fears: hope
     
     
     
110. “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”
111. Rumination is frustrating, because all we do is recount information we already have, always thinking it'll turn up something new.
112. Indecisiveness stems from a fear of making mistakes.
113. "We go on fearing what we refuse to confront."
114. “The thing—whatever it is—thrives on fear.”
115. Scavengers fear what makes us unique.
116. — That’s because strength is in us all!
117. The only way to conquer fear, is through.
118. Understand: nothing natural can be evil.
119. Do not despair; what they must answer for will be between them, and their God.
120. True pride in overcoming hardship comes only when we take responsibility for the participation we had in it—even in burdens we did not first choose.
121. "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings."
122. Action precedes belief.
123. Dull your colors or find a goodness-of-fit—the choice has always been yours to make.
124. A proof of concept always follows the first step in unexplored territory.
125. Conformity sounds lovely until you see someone waterboard their omelet with ketchup!
126. And what are rules if they aren’t meant to be broken?!
127. The only way to slay the narcissist is through their oxygen supply!
128. "Enter action with full confidence!"
129. If we're just going to die anyway, why not pick your favorite hill?!
130. It's strange, isn’t it, to have a sense of your own destiny?
131. "I like fate in the lion's cage..."
132. Arms wide open—dare them to fucking do it.
133. Look down into the eyes of your enemy and show them the face of God.
     
     Evil fears: courage
     
     
     
134. "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
135. Things that feel good, uninhibited:
     1. authentic conversations.
     2. being cheeky and playful.
     3. boundary testing.
     4. feminine touch.
     5. vanquishing my enemies.
     6. (+ having enemies).
     7. bad words.
     8. cute babies.
136. —I can't resist making silly faces at babies... who are they going to tell?
137. To the guy who recently cut me off in the drive-thru: I was real annoyed until I discovered my order cost more than yours!
138. ‘Pathless Pioneer’—the charitable title I gave to my unconventional trajectory in life.
139. "Punctuality is the virtue of the bored!"
140. When your neighbor yells a lot, put a whiteboard on your refrigerator and title it, ‘Days Unscreamed.’
141. "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
142. What’s the point of your enemy's grave if you never bothered to visit it?!
143. Society is more than the sum of all its parts.
144. Contain the evils done to you, so they may find their final resting place.
145. You wander on and on in a great forest without the thought of return.
     
     Evil fears: integration
     
     
146. Opportunists stir the moment you take your eyes off them.
147. What others covet most is our inner compass—protect it from noisy storytellers.
148. "Beware infection from the miserable!"
149. Stand vigilant. Do not give fear size and scope.
150. Peace rests upon the threat of violence.
151. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
     But I have promises to keep,
     And miles to go before I sleep,
     And miles to go before I sleep.”
     
     Evil fears: eternal vigilance

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Notes

• Line 8: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; quoted by Robert F. Kennedy in a 1968 speech (translation varies).
• Line 17: The School of Life, “On Feeling Melancholy,” YouTube (Aug. 2015).
• Line 32: Commonly attributed John F. Kennedy (with variation).
• Line 35: Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (1897).
• Line 36: "Not everything that cries is a baby" is a recurring phrase Jordan Peterson uses across lectures and interviews.
• Lines 37, 54, 55, and 113: David Richo, How to Be an Adult (1991).
• Line 64: Harry Nilsson, The Point! (1971), narrated by Ringo Starr.
• Line 83: Dry Creek Wrangler School, "Either Start Your Own Day, Or Your Day Will Start You," YouTube (Aug 2025).
• Line 95: The idea of "sitting by the fire" was brought up by Louis C.K.'s interview on This Past Weekend with Theo Von, YouTube (Sep. 2025).
• Line 100: Ground News, “Mississippi Truck Crash Frees Research Monkeys, Most Killed as Three Remain Missing,” aggregation page (Oct. 2024).
• Lines 107 and 131: Ruben in the Dark, “Black Water,” Funeral Sky (2014).
• Line 110: William Faulkner's Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech (1950).
• Line 114: Source unknown; quotation circulated via reposted on a variety of social media platforms.
• Line 118: Recurring phrase in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Gregory Hays translation (2002).
• Line 121: Commonly attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky; attributed quotation (English translation varies).
• Lines 128 and 148: Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power (1998).
• Line 134: Commonly attributed to Nelson Mandela (exact source uncertain).
• Line 139: Commonly attributed to Evelyn Waugh (exact source uncertain).
• Line 141: Commonly attributed to Oscar Wilde (exact source uncertain).
• Line 145: Japanese aesthetics associated with yūgen (original source unknown).
• Line 151: Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923).