Does the player exist
In any human endeavour
Who's been known to resist
Sirens of fame and possessions?
They will destroy you, not rivals, not age, not success

About a third of my cases are not suffering from any clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and aimlessness of their lives.

- Carl Jung

Nietzsche claims that man is composed of two parts – a creative part and a part that is created – in other words, mind and body. According to him, the body is meant to suffer, and the mind is meant to fashion something beautiful out of the suffering of the body. “In man creature and creator are united: in man there is material, fragment, excess, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but there is also the creator, the sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divinity of the spectator, and the seventh day – do you understand this contrast? The body must be fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, and refined – it is meant to suffer.”

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The body is an extension, an expression, of the mind. Like the flood carves the valleys, so does the soul cast the body in its image.

The mind is a function, an organ, of the body, for the whole body thinks and feels. One thinks with his hand as much as with his head. And a body afflicted with sickness poisons the mind.

الجَسَدُ صورةٌ عن العقل: كما يَنزِلُ المَطَر، فَيَنحَتُ فَيضُه الوديان، عَلى صورَتِه يَخلُقُ العقلُ الجَسَدَ.

العقلُ عضوٌ مِنَ الجسد، فالجَسَدُ كُلّه يُفَكِّرُ ويَشعُر، والمَرءُ يُفَكِّرُ بيَدَيه مِثلَما يَفعَلُ برأسِه. والعقلُ يَسقَمُ إنْ ابْتُلِيَ الجَسَدُ بِعِلّةٍ.

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Otherwise you'll end up like St. Denis

The philosophy of individualism only applies to those who, in Nietzsche’s evaluation, are capable of becoming individuals – and that excludes the majority. Ironically, then, the worthy recipients of Nietzsche’s individualistic philosophy are those who would approach it critically. They would, at best, adapt it to their personalized needs, refusing to accept it in totality.

- Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul, by Leslie Thiele

Truly, I advise you: go away from me and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.

Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.
Truly, with other eyes, my brothers, I shall then seek my lost ones; with another love I shall then love you.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Interesting + Inspiring = Inspiresting

Robots are interesting. Using them to eat trash in Nairobi is inspiring. Put the two together, and you have a TED talk. 
I like to call this fusion “the inspiresting.” Stylistically, the inspiresting is earnest and contrived. It is smart but not quite intellectual, personal but not sincere, jokey but not funny.

- Oscar Schwartz

TED has been deeply implicated in broadcasting and championing the Silicon Valley version of the future. TED is probably best understood as the propaganda arm of an ascendant technocracy.

- Oscar Schwartz

TED talks are self-help taken to a mass-production level, since the both offer:

• the belief that "you can change the world/yourself if you want." And only "if you want to."
• just like illegal drugs, they offer a feel-good dose of optimism, inspiration, and encouragement without doing anything useful really (or doing anything at all).

المشكلة ليست في أنّ [وسائل الإعلام والتواصل media] توفّر لنا مواضيعًا ترفيهية وممتعة، بل في أنّ جميع المواضيع صارت تُقَدَّم بصفتها مواضيعًا ترفيهية.

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