i love ryan holiday:

ryan nails it again

writing essays advice

need to know the strategy before worrying about tactics, otherwise: "tactical hell"

Advice: be the quiet one in the corner, working away. Avoid information you’re unlikely to actually make use of, and avoid extrapolations as much as you can—because “this means that which means this which could become” is just a chain of illusions based on something you’ll probably never have to deal with. Don’t tell people what you do, if you can get away with it. Just lie, or downplay it. Plan as little as possible, set your life up so there’s less you need to plan about anyway (rent, have less stuff, keep commitments loose). Refuse to accept conflation—this is not the same as that, no matter how similar they might seem. Insist on critical evaluations, even negative ones. Finally, accept that you have this impulse to reify. It is natural to feel drawn towards making the abstract into the concrete (we’re not good with things that turn out to be for naught). Just recognize when you’re doing it. The point is that it’s better to know when you’ve submitted to something rather than be blindly enslaved to it.

books are not trophies -- let them motivate you to action. go!

how power is inextricably linked with its inverse. Become empowered and simultaneously disempowered.

good warning to not take metaphors too far. focus on the big things

what are you working towards?

some people never get past the imaginary audience, don't be a slave to it.

the most important thing a company looks for when they hire a young person is not his skill but his ability to maintain and utilize those skills within the existing order.

His conclusion is that life is a strange, confusing kaleidoscope of tiny dimensions. That people are like ants, fighting over bits of food and pieces of dirt.

"When I see a restaurant with a flash heavy website, I see a web designer who tricked a company..."