I once heard a philosopher tell a story about a student who asked him what he ought to do with his life. “Do what you want,” the philosopher said. “But I don’t want to do what I want to do,” the student protested. “I want to do what I ought to do.”

My vision of retirement has always been to move someplace hot, and sit out on a patio reading (or re-reading) 19th century Anglo-American books (Stevenson, Melville, Conrad, Hawthorne, Kipling, Chesterton, etc.) That’s all I want to do.

The two saddest words in the English language: “What party?”

A good life is not a life without problems. A good life is a life with good problems.

Green Eggs and Ham
by Dr. Seuss

Tom has finally made his peace with this book, but it took a while.  He used to enjoy having it read to him right up to the point where our hero is finally forced, by ‘Sam I Am’, to try the titular dish.  Then Tom would grab the book and throw it across the room.  He had heard what happened after that, and didn’t like the message the book was trying to impart.  So, for Tom, this was for a while the tale of a proud individualist who even having been forced into a train wreck by a pseudonymous terrorist, possibly working for Big Ham, then lost at sea, would still not give in and submit to the ham agenda.  

As someone who finds that part of ‘Cars’ where Lightning McQueen is forced to stay in a small town and learn about values to be a paranoid nightmare in the tradition of ‘The Prisoner’, I must say I rather supported Tom’s stance.  However, it’s probably for the best that he’s now started to let us read the book to the end.  Like Winston Smith in ‘1984’, he now loves ‘Green Eggs and Ham’.

What their return to health will look like: As the INTJ returns to health, they will shift their focus away from petty details and regain their big-picture mindset. They will develop an increased concentration on goals and long-term projects, which will bring them steadily closer to what they want out of the future. A healthy INTJ is an INTJ who can synthesize and carry out long-term projects – in as efficient a manner as possible.

No, in common with my father, my friends and people I know professionally, the desperate desire to find something to say and not sound like an idiot just makes you do jokes all the time. Jokes are a nervous reflex. Sometimes you can end up being irritating or seeming facetious or like you’re showing off, and all you’re trying to do is justify the fact that you spoke at all. I’ve come to understand that charm isn’t being funny. Charm is finding other people funny.