“Working hard at something that doesn’t work doesn’t make it work.”
John Alston on PBS June 21, 1992
“There’s just gotta be a place up ahead where men ain’t low-down and poker’s played fair. If there weren’t, what are all the songs about? I’ll see y’all there and we can sing together, and shake our heads over all the meanness in the Used-To-Be.”
The last words of Buster Scruggs as he approaches heaven with his harp and the duet fades out, in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
“the decade that taste forgot”
Regarding the 1970s, and attributed to “one journalist” by David P. Deavel in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (9-10/22) (in a piece saying the late Fr. James V. Schall “never succumbed to the 1970s habit too many of his Jesuit confreres had of wearing the intellectual and spiritual (not to mention sartorial) clothing of that decade”.
“The next revolution is always perfect.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly Vol. 8 (September, 1928 – March, 1929) quoted in “Chesterton University An Introduction to the Writings of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (9-10/22)
“Boomers, we know, didn’t appreciate getting long in the tooth. They’re the ones who started this whole fight against Old. But as a Gen Xer, I have to assume it’s worse for us. Our entire gestalt is built around an aura of disaffected youth. There is no natural progression for that energy into middle age. I don’t see us easing into words like ‘seasoned’ or ‘mature.’ Millennials will no doubt take their own kind of offense to aging when it’s their turn, but that is not our cross to bear.”
Pamela Paul “Wait, Who Did You Say Is Middle-Aged?” opinion piece in New York Times October 16, 2022
“An acquaintance who worked in United States Air Force intelligence tells the story of a pilot who was imprisoned in North Vietnam for many years, and lost eighty pounds and much of his health in a jungle camp. When he was released, one of the first things he asked for was to play a game of golf. To the great astonishment of his fellow officers he played a superb game, despite his emaciated condition. To their inquiries he replied that every day of his imprisonment he imagined himself playing eighteen holes, carefully choosing his clubs and approach and systematically varying the course. This discipline not only helped preserve his sanity, but apparently also kept his physical skills intact.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow [though if I spent every day imagining myself playing what passes for golf in my life I assure you it would not help preserve what passes for sanity in it]
“‘People with bad eating habits have “devilish” brains that prevent them exercising self-control, a study has shown. Researchers in the United States have discovered an “angel” centre in the brain which holds back a “devil” region to stop us giving in to temptation. It allows a person to weigh abstract considerations such as “healthiness” against basic desires such as a craving for rich food,’ Britain’s The Independent reports. The study’s co-author, Prof. Colin Camerer of the California Institute of Technology, said: ‘After centuries of debate we are making big strides in understanding self-control from watching the brain resist temptation.’ The ‘angel’ centre is called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), while the ‘devil region’ is known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The researchers hope to engage the DLPFC under normal conditions in people with poor self-control.’”
“Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 7, 2009.
“This is a barrel loaded with fish, but let’s take a brief shot anyway…”
Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen June 8, 2004 [specifically re young people who don’t see politicians who represent their interests but of much wider application IMHO].