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Michael Foley

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“Imagine someone sitting alone in a room without television, radio, computer or phone and with the door closed and the blinds down. This person must be a dangerous lunatic or a prisoner sentenced to solitary confinement. If a free agent, then a panty-sniffing loser shunned by society, or a psycho planning to return to college with an automatic weapon and a backpack full of ammo.”

Solitude
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“But who, in the Western world, has not been deranged by a toxic cocktail of dissatisfaction, restlessness, desire and resentment? Who has not yearned to be younger, richer, more talented, more respected, more celebrated, and, above all, more sexually attractive? Who has not felt entitled to more and aggrieved when more was not forthcoming? It is possible that a starving African farmer has less sense of injustice than a middle-aged Western male who has never been fellated.”

WorldDesireFeltMiddleWesternMalesInjusticeAttractiveFarmersToxicResentmentEntitledStarvingSexuallyDissatisfactionCocktailsRestlessnessMiddle AgedWestern WorldDerangedForthcoming
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“So the absurdity of happiness is that it is embarrassing to discuss or even mention, impossible to define or measure, may not be achievable at all - or, at best, only intermittently and unconsciously - and may even turn into its opposite if directly pursued, but that it frequently turns up unexpectedly in the course of pursuing something else. There is no tease more infuriating...It is tempting to forget the whole thing and simply fall back on the couch with a remote control in one hand and a beer in the other.”

IfsMayWholeHandsTurnsFallCoursesForgetImpossibleOppositesBeerAbsurdityEmbarrassingPursuedCouchesTeaseFall BackTemptingInfuriatingRemote Control
Author:Michael Foley
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“It may well be that an analysis of figures would reveal a law - the duration of a marriage is inversely proportional to the cost of the wedding. Or, to put it another way, any union celebrated with personalized toasting flutes is doomed.”

WayWellsMayLawFiguresCostUnionsAnalysisWeddingDoomedAnother WayDurationFlutesPersonalized
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“However, the serious seeker of detachment will have to embrace the Holy Trinity of Ss - Solitude, Stillness and Silence - and reject the new religion of Commotionism, which believes that the meaning of life is constant company, movement and noise.”

BelieveLife IsSilenceCompanyMovementSeriousHolySolitudeEmbraceConstantNoiseMeaning Of LifeRejectsStillnessSeekersDetachmentTrinityHoly Trinity
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.”

HumansSelfActionImaginationHuman BeingsBrainTalentFlowerEvolutionAchievementAcquireJustificationFinestSubtletyHuman BrainHuman EvolutionGreatest AchievementJesuitSelf Justification
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“Being constantly the hub of a network of potential interruptions provides the excitement and importance of crisis management. As well as the false sense of efficiency in multitasking, there is the false sense of urgency in multi-interrupt processing.”

WellsImportanceManagementCrisisExcitementEfficiencyUrgencyProcessingInterruptionsMultitaskingHubSense Of UrgencyCrisis ManagementMulti Tasking
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“Put any two people together and each will seek ways of feeling superior to the other. If a ship went down in the Pacific and a single sailor managed to swim to a desert island, would he be pleased to see, ten minutes later, another sailor emerging from the surf? Quite possibly - but only if the new arrival accepted that the first man was now a landed aristocrat while he himself was an illegal immigrant.”

PeopleIfsMenWayFirstsTwoFeelingsTogetherMinutesTenAcceptedSuperiorsShipsDesertIslandsImmigrantsIllegalSwimEmergingSailorPacificArrivalsSurfIllegal ImmigrantsNew Arrivals
Book:Embracing the Ordinary: Lessons From the Champions of Everyday Life
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“It is not possible to be original by trying to be original - those who attempt this in the arts will be merely avant-garde. Originality is the product of an impulse to intense and overwhelming that it bursts the conventions and produces something new - again more by accident than design.”

TryingArtDesignProduceProductsOriginalsAccidentsIntenseImpulseSomething NewOverwhelmingConventionsOriginalityAvant Garde
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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“Employees hate meetings because they reveal that self-promotion, sycophancy, dissimulation and constantly talking nonsense in a loud confident voice are more impressive than merely being good at the job - and it is depressing to lack these skills but even more depressing to discover one's self using them.”

SelfJobsHateVoiceTalkingSkillsMeetingsBe GoodLoudEmployeeNonsenseDepressingPromotionImpressiveHate MeSelf PromotionTalking Nonsense
Author:Michael Foley
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“The 1970s was the decade of liberation, of anger at injustice and demands for recognition and rights. But over time, the demand for specific rights degraded into a generalized sense of entitlement, the demand for specific recognition into a generalized demand for attention and the anger at specific injustice into a generalized feeling of grievance and resentment. The result is a culture of entitlement, attention-seeking and complaint.”

FeelingsCultureResultsAttentionRightsDemandInjusticeSeekingDecadesRecognitionLiberationResentmentComplaintsEntitlementGrievanceSense Of EntitlementAttention Seeking
Book:The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy
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