“To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments.
It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity.
To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.”
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (par. 120) (May 15, 2026)
Dostoevsky was 28 when they stood him in front of a firing squad. Blindfolded. Hands tied. He could hear the rifles being loaded.
At the last second a messenger on horseback arrived. The Tsar had commuted the sentence. The entire execution was staged. Psychological torture designed to break him.
It worked. He had a seizure on the spot.
They sent him to a labour camp in Siberia. 4 years. Freezing. Starving. Sleeping on wooden planks next to murderers. His epilepsy got worse. He had no paper. No pen. Nothing.
When he got out he was broke. His first wife died. His brother died. He inherited his brothers debts. He was so desperate for money he signed a contract with a publisher that would have given away the rights to everything hed ever write if he missed the deadline.
He wrote The Gambler in 26 days to make it. Dictated it to a 20 year old stenographer named Anna. Married her three months later.
Then the real work started. Crime and Punishment. The Idiot. Demons. The Brothers Karamazov. The greatest novels in the history of the Russian language. Maybe any language.
The man who stood blindfolded before the firing squad, who convulsed on the ground while soldiers watched, who slept next to killers in Siberia for 4 years, who was buried in debt and grief.
That man wrote: "every minute can be an eternity of happiness."
He earned the right to say it.
its never over. never give up fren.
“Unfortunately, there will be no evidence that you tried if you don't make it. In this world success is the only proof. Your struggles don’t count if there’s no result. So go get it.”
this is exactly why the first thing you should do every morning after you wake up is to tell yourself how lucky you are to live the life you live
that your day will be full of wins, and everything will work out in your favor
that simple act is all it takes to witness magic
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
Repetition rewires the brain.
“But the curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fibre of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful.”
-Teddy Roosevelt
BREAKING:
🇺🇸🇻🇦Pentagon threatened the Pope - The Free Press
The Pentagon summoned the Pope's ambassador, told him the United States has the military power to do "whatever it wants," and warned that the Church better take its side.
They even invoked the Avignon Papacy, a dark chapter in history when a government used military force to bend the Church to its will.
Although Gollum drove me nuts throughout the LOTR, his character represents something beautiful. He's the picture of what sin does when you hold onto it for a lifetime, when you refuse to let go of the thing that's destroying you. You don't die dramatically. You just slowly become unrecognizable.
And yet, Tolkien's mercy shows here. Bilbo could've killed Gollum. Frodo could've killed Gollum. They both chose mercy instead. And that mercy - the one that made no strategic sense, that looked like weakness - is the exact thing that saved the world. The Ring wasn't destroyed by strength. It was destroyed by mercy.
The fact that they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore suggests 1 of 2 things.
1. They still think most people are retarded and obvious, so the playbook still works.
Or 2. They know we know, but no longer care because they are inching towards the grand finale of their millennia old plans.
The simplest rule to blow up your income, followers, etc.. EVEN when you have no idea what your doing is :
"Always Produce"
Paul Graham taught me this, and it changed my life.
overthinking, feeling sorry for yourself, or anything that is not producing will always get you nothing.
If you don't know what to produce ( this is normal ) then just produce anything.
the act of producing will naturally guide you to what you should be producing.
The MORE you produce, the better you get at producing and learning what you should produce.
This is painful because you feel like you are wasting time, and just creating non-sense until one day you produce something that thousands of people love and it changes your life.