Some of My Favorite Notes and Quotes
I, like most writers I imagine, only end up publishing a tiny portion of my notes in essays.
Here are some short notes, aphorisms, observations, and axioms from the Square Man archives.
There is only one question in life that needs answered: when you come into your own home, are there people there who are delighted to see you?
Everything else is either a distraction from this question, or a way of producing a better answer.
Most nonfiction writing is one of two things: adding nuance to things that people have oversimplified, or simplifying things that have become too complicated.
If you're not engaging in play (intellectual, emotional, sexual), you're not doing your job as a partner.
People often talk about how Americans are inappropriately jaded on the US and we hate it here... while people in other countries are jealous and continue to move here.
The immigrant view: America is the land of opportunity.
The American view: Everything in this country is designed to poison us. Everything.
So what's the difference?
Immigrants don't come here to pay attention to politics and eat fast food. They come here to start businesses and live in peace. Those are things we can still offer them.
Americans ingest the poisons, immigrants ingest the advantages. That's the difference.
There is nothing in life more hideous and disappointing than a fake laugh. It is an offense against everything that is beautiful, true, and authentic.
Same thing with orgasms.
If you have to fake either one, you're with the wrong person.
Or, you are the wrong person.
One funny and difficult thing about being a writer or author is that you may publish a book, an essay or a newsletter, and then change your mind. It’s extremely easy to look foolish or to be disgusted with yourself later on.
One way to avoid changing your mind is to traffic in timeless things. Things like love and principles and good stories and relationships. The more timeless the things your mind focuses on, the less it will have to change.
You need moderates. Because they're the only people who are not willfully ignoring something or exaggerating something. They're the only people who are actually looking for the truth.
If half the emails you send to a client start with “apologies for the delay,” you either hate that client or you’re bad at business. Either way, you need to re-think what you’re doing.
Most delays can be solved by simply replying right away with “looking into it, will follow up.”
Not only does that show that you’re engaged and make the other person feel seen, it puts you on a timeline. It makes you take responsibility for solving the issue now, rather than some “more convenient” time off in the future.
Getting yourself out of a bad place, getting sober, or getting healthy, requires a very particular resource: other healthy people.
Drawing new boundaries is only useful if there are people around who will observe them. Forming healthier relationships requires other people who want healthy relationships.
Sadly, not everyone has access to this resource. There aren’t enough healthy people to go around.
I saw a tweet that said "everyone loves their own AI art and everyone else absolutely does not give a shit."
People are terribly misled to think that the future of any kind of art involves AI. The entire concept of art is connecting with another person. That doesn't make me an idealist or a romantic — that's the only value in art. Art is about people.
I think 9 out of 10 people would be gutted to discover their favorite painting or song was made by a robot. Because that makes it, in every meaningful sense, not real.
The fundamental trade-off of democracy is that everybody gets agency whether they deserve it or not, whether they can wield it or not... but those born into low situations can escape with high agency.
In other words, we get upward mobility and individuality — and the price is that the absolutely incompetent get a say in everything else.
It's hard to think of a greater public tragedy than two busy parents.
Did you pay for your airplane seat? Of course. Do you have the right to recline? Of course. But don't.
Sometimes having good manners is more important than exercising your rights.
The world is suffering from a profound lack of ladies and gentlemen.
All ideology is an attempt to assign blame for the basic unfairness of life.
Humans have a fundamental need to be stressed about something, to sacrifice their peace and happiness for something. Most people's biggest problem is that they've found nothing useful to spend this incredible sacrificial energy on.
99% of human problems would be solved overnight if everyone suddenly had a good answer to this.
I find that the people who most want the image of a perfect family are the least willing to put in the work to create one.
Vanity, not only an ugly trait, often wants things it didn't earn anyway.
It doesn't matter who you think you are inside if that's not what the world sees.
“I am not my actions, I am the actions I plan on taking someday if only the world would let me.”
No, you are your actions.
An interesting challenge from Edward Teach: try describing yourself without using the word “am.”
No amount of coaching, journaling, course-taking or mentoring will do as much for you as simply taking risks and trying things.
"Mindset work" is just another form of procrastination.
The most important thing you can do today is a thing.
People misunderstand the quote "you can't teach an old dog new tricks."
It's not because dogs become stupid at age 7 or something. It has nothing to do with ability. It's that old dogs no longer feel they have something to prove to you. They're either lazy or they don't respect you.
It works the same with humans. If you were to put a gun to his granddaughter's head, you can bet your ass that an old man would learn how to use his iPhone pretty quick.
Old dogs can't learn new tricks because they don't want to.
Pay attention to where you are and who is there, and why.
If you go on a relationship help forum and find that every post is venting about toxic boyfriends and crazy girlfriends, you'll walk away thinking “there is nobody good left and everybody's relationships suck.”
But who was on that forum? People who are unhappy with their relationships. Happy people don't use that forum.
Sometimes ambition is not a big, shocking, creative thing. Sometimes ambition is just a refusal of the way things currently are.
I have taken a lot of risks in the last 4 years and dramatically changed (improved) my life.
It's not because I have some magical world-shaking itch inside me. I just wasn't happy and didn't have anything better to do.
I mean, really: what do you have to do that's better than fixing what's wrong with your life?
That's not a judgment, it's a question.
You are, on average, an average person. And that comes with a lot of biases, blind spots, and misbehaviors.
If you don't have the patience to read a book, you'll never get anything you want out of life.
The fundamental goodness of man is a myth.
If you want to see men abuse their wives, torture each other, deceive and manipulate and harm each other for resources and status, you don't have to erect a totalitarian state or use coercion.
All you have to do is let them.
The only clients you should ever do business with are people who are happy to pay you. Everyone else is a bad customer, and you shouldn't do business with bad customers.
Ask for a raise.
If you're not in the kind of company where you can ask for a raise, do you really want to be there in 5 years anyway?
Where possible, assign probabilities of 70/30 or more to events. This isn't always possible or reasonable, but it can help you to be more decisive. It can keep you from avoiding action due to seeing everything as a coin toss.
Never use a logical argument where a story will do.
Part of Rockstar's marketing strategy is pretending that it takes 10 years to make a game. And it works.
If someone has to bash your head against their thing to show you why it works, it probably doesn’t. People who are actually doing what works don't try to convince others. They simply open their palms and share.
If a restaurant produces disgruntled employees, you shouldn't eat there.
If a construction company produces disgruntled employees, you shouldn't let them build your house.
Men live in a world of facts, logic, data, cause, and effect. Women live in a world of subtlety, nuance, facial expressions, intent, and hidden signals. As far as I can tell, men and women literally do not live in the same reality. We fight because we literally do not understand each other, and most times we have no way to.
90% of anger comes from wishing other people valued exactly the things you value. The other 10% comes from someone threatening to take something you think should be yours.
One way to bestow status on someone, for example a child, is to simply pass them the ball.
The reason I tell you to drink water every week is because it’s the highest-leverage activity a human can partake in. It has more power to improve your day than anything else.
So drink some water.
JDR
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” - Gustave Flaubert