Fight or Flight

I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification. Reality continues to ruin my life. Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw. I understand my tests are popular reading in the teachers' lounge. Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words. Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom? # CALVIN That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria! In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks. You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help. Its no use! Everybody gets good enemies except me. What's the point of wearing your favorite ro...

CIO Insight: How do you convince someone your approach isn't just a nice idea, but a good idea? Semler: There are three things people have always asked. One, is it really true? Is Semco operating the way he says? And, two, how has Semco done with it? Then we'll get to three: "So what?" And that's the difficult one, because the first two are easy. We've been at it now for 25 years, and probably everyone who cares in the world has come down to see if it's true or not. And our numbers are indisputable. But if you ask, "So what?"—well, I think what we've done is being emulated because of the amount of dissatisfaction that is rampant among workers, but also among stakeholders. Basically, most career opportunities are fraudulent. The idea that I will hire you, I will train you, I will want to know where you want to be in five years, and then I will give you that better job is totally out of the question. And the other things [besides offering job s...

IN LONDON’S CAMDEN Market there’s a stall for everything. From discarded cutlery twisted into modern works of art to thirdhand Levi’s to gothic tattoos. None of these caught my fancy that autumn afternoon in 1996. Instead, I gravitated towards a curious hand-written sign that read ‘Silver and nearly precious gems’. A sliver of a man with an enormous smile held out one of those triple interlocking rings and before I could protest, made me try it on. “There you go dearie: one ring for you, one for him and one for…” And then I heard myself say: “The baby… we’re expecting a baby.” Just like that; hope was born.My husband and I had been married for eight years and had lived in almost as many cities. It’s not like we didn’t want children. On the contrary, they loved us and we loved them. When our nephew was born, we clicked every expression that made its way across his tiny face. Then we’d blow up and laminate our efforts as constant reminders of his perfection. Along came the second nephew ...

Tenzin Tsundue is a Tibetan leader of rare fire and eloquence. He speaks to SHOMA CHAUDHURY about how it is now time for the Tibetan movement to show its grit Poet and writer Tenzin Tsundue, 33, is perhaps the most acetylene and mesmeric new voice of the Tibetan struggle. A slight man — spectacles held in place with cellotape — he first shot to limelight in 2002 when he declared his “personal war again st China” by scaling the Oberoi Hotel in Bombay while the Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji was visiting, and unfurling a Free Tibet banner down its fac ade. He won the court case that followed; the banner was returned with dignity. In 2005, Tsundue repeated this in Bangalore while the Chinese Premier was visiting. Always dressed in jeans, black shirt and a red bandana he says he will not take off till Tibet wins back its freedom. Tsu...

The Conscience of a Hacker by Mentor Written on January 8, 1986 Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"... Damn kids. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world... Mine is a world that begins with school. I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn underachiever. They're all alike. I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a s...

If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If y...

Frodo: Aaarrgghh!!! Sam: It’s me. It’s your Sam. Don’t you know your Sam? Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam. Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? Sam: But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam? Sam: There’s some good in this world, ...

Speech by Bill Watterson Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio, to the 1990 graduating class. SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED Bill Watterson Kenyon College Commencement May 20, 1990 I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going. As I walk up the steps to the postoffice, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? ...Wait, didn't I graduate already?? How old AM I?" Then I wake up. Experience is food...

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out the...