

“If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing your limits, and if you’re not pushing your limits, you’re not maximizing your potential”
― Principles: Life and Work
― Principles: Life and Work

“A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
― Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
― Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

“Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn't choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime - by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?”
― Free Will
― Free Will

“A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you no more decide the next thought you think than the next thought I write.”
― Free Will
― Free Will

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.”
― Free Will
― Free Will
Jaafar’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Jaafar’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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