not just San Francisco, but the entirety of Earth, is becoming uninhabitable to anyone who doesn’t make their living writing code all goddamned day

--- comedian/writer Megan Koester, quoted in The boho-drain: bohemians say goodbye San Francisco, hello LA, The Guardian, 26 September 2016

In context

A tip for newcomers: don’t marvel at cheap LA rents, because they’re not. Rents have soared in recent years. They still lag San Francisco but average incomes lag even more, so on that basis LA is actually less affordable.

 “Whenever anyone, from anywhere, moves into my city with a Camry and a dream, I can feel my cost of living increase,” Megan Koester, a comedian and writer, said via email. Even unglamorous San Fernando Valley has become pricey. “I tried to find an apartment there ... and everything was out of my range. Do you know how humbling it is to be priced out of the fucking Valley?”

San Francisco-esque cafes and restaurants were mushrooming, lamented Koester. “The kinds of places where pour over coffee is $7 and every table has a succulent on it. I don’t know if this can be blamed on the transplants, or on the fact that not just San Francisco, but the entirety of Earth, is becoming uninhabitable to anyone who doesn’t make their living writing code all goddamned day.”

Reforms by advances, that is, by new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dearly paid for

--- CG Jung, from The Tower, chapter VIII in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961,revised edition,  ppbk 1989), recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé, transl. Richard and Clara Winston

In context:

… We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is canceled out by increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us. The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity. 

Reforms by advances, that is, by new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dearly paid for. They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole. Mostly, they are deceptive sweetenings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before. Omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est—all haste is of the devil, as the old masters used to say.

The goal of personal growth should be to gain that deathbed clarity while your life is still happening so you can actually do something about it.

--- Tim Urban, in Religion for the Nonreligious, Wait But Why 2014

In context:

Nothing clears fog like a deathbed, which is why it’s then that people can always see with more clarity what they should have done differently—I wish I had spent less time working; I wish I had communicated with my wife more; I wish I had traveled more; etc. The goal of personal growth should be to gain that deathbed clarity while your life is still happening so you can actually do something about it.

An interesting resonance with S.N. Goenka's book, The Art of Dying.

Just as a pot filled with water if overturned by anyone, pours out all its water … when you see those in need … then give like the overturned pot

--- The Buddha, Jātaka Nidānakathā 128, 129, quoted in Gemstones of the Good Dhamma, An Anthology of Verses from the Pali Scriptures, compiled and translated by Ven. S. Dhammika, The Wheel Publication No. 342/344

31. Yathapi kumbho sampunno
yassa kassaci adhokato
vamate udakam nissesam
na tattha parirakkhati.

Just as a pot filled with water
if overturned by anyone,
pours out all its water
and does not hold any back.


32. Tath'eva yacke disva
hinamukkatthamajjhime
dadahi danam nissesam
kumbho viya adhokato.

Even so, when you see those in need,
whether low, middle or high,
then give like the overturned pot,
holding nothing back.