Curt Doolittle

Category: Personal Reflections and Diary

  • (No muse today. The weather has changed? Is that it? Fall is here? I woke at six

    (No muse today. The weather has changed? Is that it? Fall is here? I woke at six and it was not yet light? Today I’m jealous of all the writers that use muse-enhancing drugs to produce their works. But I’m not into amphetamines or cocaine, so I have to make due with exercise, sleep, and coffee.)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-28 03:03:00 UTC

  • (personal silly stuff) (diary) (the construction of dreams) ( Recurring nightmar

    (personal silly stuff) (diary) (the construction of dreams)

    ( Recurring nightmare that I’m in a play but cant remember my lines – which in a dream state makes perfect sense – then flows into a rehearsal for a movie with the same scene from the play, and i’m trying to tell the other actor – who is supposedly dying in this scene – that it feels like he’s supporting my weight instead of me his, and it doesn’t make sense, only to have the director tell me that this is the movie set, not the play, and rob lowe plays this character, and what is wrong with me? And unaware that I am dreaming, I think I’ve had a cognitive episode and apologize. Then I realize that I’ve lost my iPhone and credit card, and in a panic I retrace my steps through various shops that I visited in a sequential endless hell of home-depot’s and discount retailers – i don’t like big stores with lots of bad quality merchandise because it overwhelms my ocd reaction to ugliness – in this strange city that I’ve constructed in memory through repeated dreams, merging boston, new york and london with bits of venice, so much so that I can’t distinguish this city from reality. Then as panic increases, I think about my loss of grip on reality, and what that will mean for my business, work, and my friends. And then I start thinking about all the problems losing this iphone and credit card is going to cause me, and I finally wake up. I have a lot of recurring ‘nightmares’ if you can call them that. This ‘city’ is the most recent one of developed. The oldest is from a fear of cellars, basements, caves, tunnels and the fact that in the relative’s funeral homes, there were bodies downstairs and I never really adjusted to that fact. I am afraid these two will eventually merge into a dream world so complete that I can’t leave it. And while awake, I know what caused me to dream each of those things today – understanding that dreams are the product of free association with whatever is accumulated in your memory during the day. And the fact that through recurrence, they increasingly feel real, is disturbing. I mean, I can navigate through that dream city as clearly as I can navigate through a favorite video game level. I have had dreams of video game levels, and I’ve also looked at old video game clips and been horrified how real I remember them to be. The real world, video game worlds and dream worlds, and dreams combining them. When I was younger I seemed to be able to lucidly dream and control my dreams a bit. I’ve lost it. But when I am in some cave deep underground and all of a sudden I realize that there are bodies under the floorboards, I wish I still had it. )

    We went shopping at a new mall last night that wasn’t finished.

    She left her phone upstairs at the restaurant, and I was worried – a lot.

    I took a taxi to a different part of the city with a driver I didn’t trust.

    Met a lot of new people I couldn’t speak with.

    Listened to a brief about a (russian) startup that sounded pseudoscientific.

    Nervous about making a toast and not knowing what to say.

    Writing a bit on the executive summary.

    Thinking about travel costs for the next month.

    I couldn’t seem to keep my phone charged today because the external battery kept coming unplugged.

    Fell asleep watching a movie thinking the director was not coaching his actors.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-27 18:28:00 UTC

  • Do Rich People Ever Fly Coach?

    I fly coach if I’m paying for it and if my performance won’t suffer, and business or first class if I’m stressed and my performance will suffer, or if I’m working and want to circumvent the lines.  I don’t fly it to feel privileged.  Generally speaking, if you want to avoid the unwashed masses, stick to better airlines and pay slightly higher coach fees rather than just the lowest ticket price.

    Flying is very stressful on your body, on your senses, on your mind because of the high volume of background noise.   No amount of catering in first class will change that.  DRINKING WATER WILL.  First class and business class travel is less taxing on the body, and on the mind.

    First and Business class is largely for business travelers who must preserve their energy, because they cannot rest or relax when they land, and other people depend upon them being productive when they do land. It is not so much for the catering, which people who are wealthy come to simply expect, or ignore, but not feel special about.   If you travel a great deal airplane business class becomes your only place to relax, because it is the only space that is familiar. Sometimes we confuse the fact that the calm look on business class travellers’ faces is because they are more familiar with the experience of flying, not because the seats are so much better.

    READ THE MILLIONAIRE MIND: Rich people are rich because they work hard, and are patient. Most people cannot suppress their desire to ‘daydream’ or avoid work as long as people who are rich do (this is called time preference).  The rich outliers are statistical anomalies who have won a life lottery.  Most people who are balance sheet wealthy saved money or grew and sold businesses over very long periods of time, while training themselves to “appreciate present goods over future perfections”. 

    This is something that it is difficult to train humans to do, but it is possible. And as such, it is possible to train yourself to do.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-rich-people-ever-fly-coach

  • Do Rich People Ever Fly Coach?

    I fly coach if I’m paying for it and if my performance won’t suffer, and business or first class if I’m stressed and my performance will suffer, or if I’m working and want to circumvent the lines.  I don’t fly it to feel privileged.  Generally speaking, if you want to avoid the unwashed masses, stick to better airlines and pay slightly higher coach fees rather than just the lowest ticket price.

    Flying is very stressful on your body, on your senses, on your mind because of the high volume of background noise.   No amount of catering in first class will change that.  DRINKING WATER WILL.  First class and business class travel is less taxing on the body, and on the mind.

    First and Business class is largely for business travelers who must preserve their energy, because they cannot rest or relax when they land, and other people depend upon them being productive when they do land. It is not so much for the catering, which people who are wealthy come to simply expect, or ignore, but not feel special about.   If you travel a great deal airplane business class becomes your only place to relax, because it is the only space that is familiar. Sometimes we confuse the fact that the calm look on business class travellers’ faces is because they are more familiar with the experience of flying, not because the seats are so much better.

    READ THE MILLIONAIRE MIND: Rich people are rich because they work hard, and are patient. Most people cannot suppress their desire to ‘daydream’ or avoid work as long as people who are rich do (this is called time preference).  The rich outliers are statistical anomalies who have won a life lottery.  Most people who are balance sheet wealthy saved money or grew and sold businesses over very long periods of time, while training themselves to “appreciate present goods over future perfections”. 

    This is something that it is difficult to train humans to do, but it is possible. And as such, it is possible to train yourself to do.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-rich-people-ever-fly-coach

  • THE GAMES WE PLAY, AND THE ONE THAT MATTERS You play the career game. Then the c

    THE GAMES WE PLAY, AND THE ONE THAT MATTERS

    You play the career game. Then the company game. The house game. Then the exotic car and travel game. And then all that’s left is the beautiful woman game. And then you figure out that only the last one is interesting. Of course Italians have known this for centuries. But I am English. We are stupid that way. It’s genetic.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 17:42:00 UTC

  • HOPE IS NOT A TACTIC Sorry. But hope is not a tactic and faith is not a strategy

    HOPE IS NOT A TACTIC

    Sorry. But hope is not a tactic and faith is not a strategy. They are simply means of avoiding action while comforting yourself that you’re moral because of your beliefs instead of your actions.

    Violence is a virtue when put to virtuous ends.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 15:55:00 UTC

  • ( So. Johannes has to catch a plane just as hottie friend of a friend decides to

    ( So. Johannes has to catch a plane just as hottie friend of a friend decides to catch him. I can’t figure out whether to laugh or not… lol )

    UPDATE: 12:41AM – She took second best. Shoulda changed that ticket. lol

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 15:10:00 UTC

  • Hope this is true

    Hope this is true.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 13:09:00 UTC

  • No control over the muse at all. Some days it’s gone. Other days I can’t write i

    No control over the muse at all. Some days it’s gone. Other days I can’t write it all down fast enough. Today is the latter.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 08:31:00 UTC

  • Curt Doolittle shared a photo

    Curt Doolittle shared a photo.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-09-25 07:09:00 UTC