If only! I'm Austrian; if I want to listen to that kind of stuff I just have to go to the village inn on a Sunday after church. We still have enough of those around. To my ears, your scenario of those perspectives getting lost to the sands of times sound overly optimistic.

Ha, I've never been on schedule with any of these things, and I'm also full of doubts and regrets. That said, they might be getting fewer instead of more as I age, because I might be slowly getting used to never being on schedule anyway. (Or it's just because they tend to come in fits and starts and I'm just enjoying…

I'm not a musical person either. I only go if someone else drags me, and I certainly don't listen to the songs at home. But when Hamilton came out and everyone else was so hyped, my curiosity won. I listened to it, and then I immediately listened to it again. Got no more work done that afternoon/evening; almost missed…

people have usually more than one reason for everything they do. Some of Jimmy's intentions are noble, some are problematic. He can hold both at the same time. Sure, he made her laugh. But he also gave her reason to worry that he won't be able to accept her when she's not laughing. What I meant is that there's no…

Trouble is, she can be pretty hit and miss about these things. Half the stuff she says is downright wise and has benefitted me greatly, the other half is either completely ridiculous and/ or actually harmful to internalize. You can imagine the fun I've been having sifting out what's what. But what would be life…

Generalized to all kinds of social interactions: Pick your battles.

Some good ones from my mom:

Honestly, that particular issue is the kind of thing that probably can't be fixed, no matter how much responsibility anyone is willing to take and how many conversations you have about it. She should have ended it sooner, but sometimes people will take a while to do the right thing. It's difficult to be cruel to be…

Letting go of this idea of objective truth in all relevant/interpersonal matters was probably the most important breakthrough in my intellectual development.

Yeah, on reflection my consolation was even weaker than I thought.

I wouldn't say "at all". My guess was that the sex-issue probably has nothing to do with him. The fact that she stayed so long anyway however might have (because he was such a good catch otherwise, that she couldn't bring herself to cut him loose). Or not. (Some people are just desperately afraid of being alone). We…

The idea is that intentions are overrated. Have all the good intentions you want, but don't bother talking about them too much. It's usually a derail and rarely an excuse and mostly completely irrelevant to the debate at hand. (For what it's worth, I also rarely care when people do good things for bad intentions - to…

I'm not at it all that long, so maybe that's still naivity speaking, but I've yet to meet a student who is stupid or lazy. I've met a lot of students who are disinterested, distracted and/or discouraged though. I can't magically conjure interest where there's none - you either have use for my knowledge or you don't…

Time is how you spend your love.

The problem is that women in general are heavily discouraged from prioritizing their own desire in their choice of a mate and stories like this are the logical outcome. It sucks for everyone.

See, that must be the crucial different between me and the marrying kind: I've exactly never heard about anyone's relationship problems without thinking "At least I don't have to put up with that.". Life continues to shower me with an abundance of scenarios to witness that seem so much worse than being single. Or…

no matter how it turns out, you can always be proud of yourself for your emotional honesty.

Fellow out of key singer with a loud voice here - I had it snickered out of me in primary school when other kids would ostentatively cover their ears when I was singing. Didn't necessarily make me any more quiet in general (lots of other uses for a booming voice), but certainly ended my singing career.

Well, Lindsay's curves are "in all the right places", as conventionally defined, and she's certainly got that hourglass-shape. So the sexualization isn't all that revolutionary. But I won't lie - current beauty standards for women on TV are generally so ridiculously narrow, that even a generally very conventionally…

There is no "objectively" in these things. What ultimately matters is that Jimmy learns to make peace with the fact that he can't fix Gretchen - if he can't learn this, the relationship is doomed. All the good times he might manage to give her won't mean a thing if he can't learn to deal with her in her bad times. In…