We're artists. We cry out to be exploited on some level. Write a dissertation on my work. Write a biography about me.
Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it
Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.
Solve problems, make art, think deeply.
The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal.
Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
Solitude matters. And for some people it's the air they breathe.
Where there is no conflict, there is no fault.
My failures have made me look at myself in a way I've never wanted to before.
Epidemiologists study patterns in order to combat infection. Stories about epidemics follow patterns, too. Stories arent often deadly, but they can be virulent: spreading fast, weakening resistance, wreaking havoc.
Growth is improving the lot of the poor in many countries, reducing poverty by half since 1981. Freer trade could accelerate progress.