John Cleese, from a speech called On Creativity:
'It's easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent - like thinking - and it is easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things we're not so sure about.'
Andy Ihnatko:
That kind of self pity, that kind of selfishness, is just totally useless and worthless. That it is really is a form of narcissisism, it really is a form of selfishness, to define the entire world in terms of things that exist just to vex me...The world doesn't work that way. Even in the lives of people who actually know of you, their entire day does not work out in terms of, what can I do right now to make Andy happy? Or what can I do to undermine Andy to my personal advantage? That's not how the world works. You are not that important, Andy Ihnatko.
The basic realisation is just how selfish that perspective really is, to think that there are...supernatural forces out there that are working against you...
So much of the trouble that you invite upon yourself, so much of the strife that you create for yourself, is created through some subtle implementation of the idea that your are in any way more important on this planet than any other organism...
It's very enabling and very empowering and very hope-inducing because it reminds you that - no, no, no - there is nothing preventing you from doing things, you are in control of the vast majority of your life...
I love it when Andy gets philosophical.
Anger is fine. It's normal, it's an integral part of the human experience. In life, sometimes things don't go our way. The idea is to not get caught up in the victim mentality, because like he says here, that is when it becomes selfish and unproductive. No one is out to get you. No one really minds whether you succeed or fail except you, and only you are capable of making that happen.
To be clear, I understand why Twitter is doing this. Everyone should. It’s so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be explained…Twitter is not a non-profit. It needs to make money. And it has chosen a path to do that.
I’m not going to pretend that I know what the business model should be. But I don’t think it’s big, rich in-stream sponsored content. I think such a model may work fine for other networks, but that’s not what Twitter has ever been about.