big-picture-thinking

What we want to do in this moment is rarely what's best for us. We need to take a longer view of life and to realize that to become someone worth becoming, I probably need to be doing things I don't want to be doing.

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none... Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of __acts_ they feel stuffed, but absolutely __rilliant_ with information. Then they__l feel they__e thinking, they__l get a sense of motion without moving. And they__l be happy, because facts of that sort don__ change. Don__ give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.