Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Some people might enjoy drain water if they were told it was vodka.

This is what technology wants, it wants to be a symptom. Like all psychological symptoms, it obscures a problem by 'solving' it without addressing it.

That is a vacation! It is the best time for you to be productive because you are not being distracted by work.

Serious people are not easily distracted!

A human being can only endure depression up to a certain point; when this point of saturation is reached it becomes necessary for him to discover some element of pleasure, no matter how humble or on how low a level, in his environment if he is to go on living at all. In my case these insignificant birds with their subdued colourings have provided just sufficient distraction to keep me from total despair. Each day I find myself spending longer and longer at the window watching their flights, their quarrels, their mouse-quick flutterings, their miniature feuds and alliances. Curiously enough, it is only when I am standing in front of the window that I feel any sense of security. While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life. The very indifference to humanity of these wild creatures affords me a certain safeguard. Where all else is dangerous, hostile and liable to inflict pain, they alone can do me no injury because, probably, they are not even aware of my existence. The birds are at once my refuge and my relaxation.

The author says the earliest Australian aborigines devoted extraordinary amounts of energy to enterprises no one now can understand.

I should have learned mindfulness, and it’s too late now because it’s no good learning it when you’re already in crisis: you have to start when things are good. But only the very, very oddest would think, Hey, my life is perfect. I know! I’ll sit and waste twenty minutes Observing My Thoughts without Judgement.

Ignorance is one of the best defense available. Distraction is a remedy.

Your calling is important, regardless of its status or other people’s opinion.