The Rambler is a place for posting random or rambling thoughts, sayings, words of wisdom, famous and not so famous quotes, wishes, confessions, secrets, my next tattoo or messenger status. Ramblings you create are private by default and you can choose to make them public if you wish.

Recent public ramblings
  • Η Ελλάδα δεν εξαπλώνεται διασπείρεται.
    by Alexander
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  • That’s what ritual gives me now. Not a guarantee, not an outcome, not a transformation on a deadline, but a means of staying in motion without hardening, to keep my balance without gripping so tightly.
    by Alexander
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  • we are nothing more than cups destined to shatter endlessly through time until there is nothing left to break. This, according to the conclusions of scientists over the past two centuries, is the quiet horror that structures existence itself.
    by Alexander
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  • What repels you at first can stir interest over time. Often it’s a question of context. We are wary of what we don’t have context for. Look for the triggers that push you away and experiment...
    by Alexander
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  • The neuroscience from that zero article is relevant here: your brain needs to perceive absence to understand presence �. Without silence, you can't hear the music. Without empty space, you can't see the composition �.
    by Alexander
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  • The Psychology of Fun
    by Alexander
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  • The key to its success was not just the joy of making music, but the shared laughter and connection among the people who discovered it together.
    by Alexander
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  •  ever wondered why something you once loved slowly lost its spark, psychology has a name for it: hedonic adaptation. It’s the process by which repeated exposure to the same pleasure leads to a gradual drop in emotional response. What once felt exciting becomes ordinary. What once stood out fades into the background.
    by Alexander
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  • Enjoyment doesn’t need to be engineered with precision. It benefits more from light design than relentless control. Small shifts, used occasionally and intentionally, tend to work better than sweeping changes applied everywhere.
    by Alexander
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  • Enjoyment doesn’t need to be engineered with precision.
    by Alexander
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  • What mattered wasn’t the snack. It was the way it was consumed.
    by Alexander
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  • This idea is often described through the hedonic treadmill. The notion that we move forward, chasing enjoyment, but emotionally we stay in roughly the same place. New pleasures give us a lift, but over time the mind adjusts, expectations rise, and the boost levels off. Then we look for the next thing.
    by Alexander
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  • This isn’t a personal failure, and it isn’t a lack of gratitude. It’s a feature of how the brain works.
    by Alexander
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  • The “first-time” feeling isn’t usually lost. It’s just obscured by efficiency, familiarity, and habit.
    by Alexander
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  • "Your goal in life should be to reduce the amount of time it takes you to get out of a bad state."
    
    The ability to bounce back quickly is a key skill in life.
    by Alexander
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  • Fritz Heider described schadenfreude as “malicious joy,” 
    by Alexander
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  • While reflection can help us learn and adapt, it becomes destructive when it stops moving forward. Yet there is a point where reflection hardens into rumination. The same mental replay that once offered understanding begins to loop endlessly, trapping us in self-criticism and regret.
    by Alexander
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  • The space between stimulus and response, as Frankl noted, is where growth and freedom reside
    by Alexander
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  • Polymath and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reminds us to live and work with a calm persistence:
    
    "Without haste, yet without rest."
    
    Note: Goethe's original example was a star orbiting the sun: steady and unhurried, but always in motion.
    
    Source: Gedichte. Ausgabe letzter Hand (1827) 
    by Alexander
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  • Real satisfaction isn’t about how much you squeeze in; it’s that quiet “yep, I did what I said I was going to do” feeling at the end of the day
    by Alexander
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  • In the future, we might be able to tap black-hole physics to construct quantum computers of our own.
    by Alexander
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  • It's ok to be a late bloomer as long as you don't miss the show
    by Alexander
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  • As we moan the moan past and dread the future we forget to live now!!!!
    by Alexander
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  • Steak: a slice of heaven on a plate.
    Anthony Bourdain
    by Alexander
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  • I don't have a fear of the unknown, if anything I have a fear of the known. 
    by Alexander
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  • torn between collapse and discovery
    by Alexander
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  • is there such a thing as mental illness? His answer is no. For Szasz, real disease must be grounded in pathophysiology. If the brain is diseased, that is neurology. What psychiatry calls “mental illness,” he argues, is better understood as problems in living that unfold in ethical, social, and legal contexts. Once you label conduct as illness, you turn value conflicts into medical problems and invite medical solutions that cannot address what was defined in nonmedical terms.
    
    
    by Alexander
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  • Focus on improving not proving. 
    Chase progress rather than perception 
    by Alexander
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  • It's wise plan for the future but if we have one eye at the future we are not living fully now therefore when tomorrow comes we won't be able to enjoy our plans since we would be preoccupied with the future 
    by Alexander
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  • How to make someone feel seen and heard
    by Alexander
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  • A classic example is to imagine a stream running by, carrying along some leaves – and then to mentally ‘place’ each thought on a leaf and watch it drift downstream. ‘The thoughts are still there, but you’re relating to them a little bit differently,’ Solomon says.
    by Alexander
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  • When people come to you with a problem they want to be 
    * heard
    * hugged 
    * helped
    
    figuring out which one is appropriate one in each occasion determines how well you can communicate
    by Alexander
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  • Za-zen (Sitting Meditation)
    
    The core practice involves sitting quietly without trying to achieve any particular state. The instruction is simple: "In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble." This isn't about emptying the mind but rather observing thoughts without attachment or control.
    by Alexander
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  • To succeed is always to fail, in that the more one succeeds in anything, the greater is the need to go on succeeding
    by Alexander
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  • Space shapes perception. It provides the conditions through which experience unfolds. Before meaning is formed, spatial relationships already guide how bodies move, how attention is focused, and how presence is felt. Architecture organizes these conditions. It defines proximity, enclosure, elevation, and direction. These spatial arrangements establish the grammar of interaction.
    by Alexander
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  • The Paradox of Liberation
    by Alexander
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  • your depression is not a malfunction is a symptom, a signal of unmet psychological needs
    like going out into nature and forming social bonds 
    you are not broken just depleted from love and affection, meaning in your life 
    by Alexander
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  • Humans have always harbored this contradiction: they crave knowledge yet fear being transformed by it.
    by Alexander
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