“You need find your dragons, look them in the eye, and destroy them.”
Julien Smith (The Flinch)
wrabel – flicker
Magnus Carlsen won today’s Round 4 Game 2 Classical chess must-win match with Vincent Keymer on FIDE World Cup AzerBaijan 2023.
He lost to the 18 year old phenom yesterday and had to produce a win out of thin year in this highly stressful game of mind.
This game is such a grind tweets @kyle_is_lurnking.
Magnus.
He slayed his dragon, and for sure learned a bizzilion dollar lesson of ‘situational awareness and patience’ but most importantly he had a taste of overcoming the flinch on and off the chess board right on-time before the crucial matches of world cup is due to begin.
Let’s see what happens on tomorrow’s tie breaker game.
Without an exception, we also have and will most certainly come face-to-face with many dragons in our lives
given a life’s purposeful,
given a life’s not a garbage,
given we’re alive in our mind & heart
and, when we did and would eventually confront one in coming future — deal with the flinch at face value and give our all to not turn the other way around.
It’s been couple of weeks I’ve been out of instagram, facebook grid. I don’t know if I will ever be back. Although my X (formerly Twitter) usages has gone up.
Since Elon Musk took over X, residing in San Francisco and closely following his works, intentions and personality as a whole has personally made my life more purposeful.
In all sincerity, every-time I walk around the financial district, especially around the market street in the course of going towards my fitness center, or every-time I take a walk to the Ferry Building through Embarcadero, through Montgomery Street, every-time I take an Uber to go visit my best friend at El Cerrito; being able to afford all this, being able to have all of these experiences utterly enriches my heart. Not that this is the first time I’m saying I feel grateful to be living at this phase of my life. Yes, I’m grateful.
The center of it all, without-a-doubt is the ‘Solution’.
Sometimes I wonder, only had I not h.e.r in my life, how all of these was even a possibility.
Sometimes I wonder what if I lose her, that she leaves me on my own to be.
Sometimes I wonder what if I have to leave this city that I’ve fallen heads over heels with.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
scars (ft. mishaal) [also on spotify]
There’s a beautiful saying, “You can’t win if you’re not in the game.”
So, Walk the talk.
Today, in a conversation I’ve had with one of my former student (now a brother alike) who recently completed his Chartered Accountant exam after more than 7 attempts; He for sure is a fucking warrior; We went on to touch upon the idea of “when will one’s life be better at all?” To which I finished off with a quote by one of my mentor Naval Ravikant — “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
Implying the fact that for any kind of noble progress pursuit, it does demand suffering, it does sought sacrifice, it does crave commitment, it does call for patience.
That, Life for all good intents and purposes rewards action than the intelligence as James Clear clearly puts it.
That to live a life of purpose, that to be able to take up more responsibilities is more worthy that to merely wish for life to get better.
That so many great people fail to get even started in the first place, and signaling plastic virtuousness in absence of clear actions is obvious stupidity!
Grades don’t measure tenacity, courage, leadership, guts or whatever you want to call it. Teachers or any other persons in a position of authority should never tell anybody they will not succeed because they did not get all A’s in school.
Thomas J. Stanley
Patrick Watson – The Great Escape
Yes, that’s straight A for my Masters in Computer Science Program.
This Thursday, I wanted to write about Gpa 4.0. Not so much about the grades though.
Not at all to brag about how great I am.
For the record — I am not!
Looking back.
To me Gpa 4.0 is a story,
of so many sleepless nights,
of so many sacrifices,
of so many nerve-alarming exam preparation days,
of so many ‘on-repeat’ Joker track I’d listen to compose myself before every exams,
of so many nerve-wrecking exam hours,
of so many results published days too.
To me Gpa 4.0 is a story,
of so many spell-binding Professors,
of so many kind colleagues who I have learned from; and more importantly of so my pals who supported me and helped me in the heartfelt and most selfless way possible,
To me Gpa 4.0 is a story of
of so many little victories,
of crazy losses too,
of my fears,
of all those relieved days,
of tears too (hmm.. did i cry at any point? .. Sure, I did)
Had I not sealed my Masters program with Gpa 4.0, would the narrative of my story have changed?
No.
Does the grade tell anything about me?
No.
Gpa 4.0 is not about the grade for real.
Gpa 4.0 is all about this beautiful, bitter-sweet experiences I was fortunate to have lived.
At the end of the day, if i can say i had fun, it was a good day.
Simone Biles
Tommy Ashby – Closer
I’ve smoked twice in life.
Once, while I was barely hitting my puberty. I was perhaps 10 years old and wanted to try the thing. I have to confront I already knew it was a bad thing to get into but we do crazy things all the time.
That time, I remember taking a long, unbeknownst puff, swallowing shit tons of smoke into my lungs, which led me to vomit my soul out, and then I was done. I could barely breathe!
The second time I smoked was perhaps two years ago (though I’m not sure about the timeline).It was when I went to Pokhara with few of my friends for a 5 days trip. And, since I had always wanted to experience first-hand how it feels to be high on cannabis (marijuana), I didn’t know until that time that you had to smoke that thing out ‘again‘ to be able to fly.
I vividly remember, I really really didn’t like the feel of keeping that cigarette butt between my fingers while I was being taught the skill of smoking by the few around me. I wasn’t surprised, I failed that time around as well. I fxckxng couldn’t learn how to smoke and thus, didn’t get high — after multiple, multiple tryouts on act-of-smoking.
Which is why, my bucket-list of having an experiencing of being high on marijuana is still unchecked.
One thing is for sure, I will never smoke in my life… ever!
Likewise, Alcohol was a bliss. I purposefully started to drink it (be it beer, wine, whiskey, whatever that gets you high) just to have the feel of having grown up. Just to signal people around me that I am old enough to rock and steer my own boat.
Truthfully, I never, never liked the taste of the Beer or Vodka. Wine was an exception because it was sweet mostly, and yes so was Jack. Contrarily I enjoyed the height of high it can get you into. Plus, If I am not wrong, the last time I drank was perhaps a month ago with Sam and his wife at their apartment while we played cards and b.a.s.i.c.a.l.l.y enjoyed. They didn’t drink much but I know I was the one who poured in the last glass. On the inside I felt like I was as drunk as the Bear on the trailer of Cocaine Bear, on the outside I tried pretending as cool as a perfectly plastic wrapped cucumber.
The next morning I decided, I am done with drinking alcohol too!
Let’s see if this intentional resolution remains a resolution.
