But while some amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by tricking you is no one's fault but your own. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that's forced on you. Things that lure you into wasting your time have to be really good at tricking you. An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online. When someone contradicts you, they're in a sense attacking you. Sometimes pretty overtly. Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself. But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for the world we now live in. Counterintuitive as it feels, it's better most of the time not to defend yourself. Otherwise these people are literally taking your life.
‒ Paul Graham, http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html
Author's note:
I chose this example deliberately as a note to self. I get attacked a lot online. People tell the craziest lies about me. And I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say "Hey, that's not true!"
Mentioned in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33038272
Ochroniarz, który nie dał się zaskoczyć nożownikowi - to on uderzył pierwszy: https://wykop.pl/link/7304465/wytrenowany-ochroniarz-vs-nozownik
Jeśli chodzi o mój dom, to był zbudowany i zaadaptowany na Luftschutzraum, czyli piwnicę przeciwlotniczną. Okiennice są wzacniane, a stop zabezpieczony filarami. Posiada kilka wyjść "ewakuacyjnych" Drzwi były zamykane od wewnątrz na takie dwie wajchy. Pkiennice podobnie, które były bardzo szczelne
Jeszcze gdzieś na zdjęciach są zachowane napisy na elewacji z strzałakmi i napisem LSR. Nawet poźniej nawet po poslku gdzię było "DO SCHRONU" xD i wsm chyba jedynie mój dom we wsi spełniał tą funkcję. A był budowany bezpoeśrednio przed wybuchem II ws czyli lata 1938
‒ https://wykop.pl/link/7307051/obrona-cywilna-jak-wzmocnic-piwnice
Orwell himself could be sentimental about his longing to escape (“Thinking always of my island in the Hebrides,” he’d once written in his wartime diary) or wonderfully blunt. In the aftermath of Hiroshima, he wrote to a friend:
This stupid war is coming off in abt 10–20 years, & this country will be blown off the map whatever else happens. The only hope is to have a home with a few animals in some place not worth a bomb.
– Stephen Metcalf, "Orwell's Escape", in: The Atlantic, May 2024; https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/george-orwell-1984-isle-of-jura/677843/