Expand Into the Power Vacuum

"He had come to two beliefs. One was that in any organization there is always a lot of loose, unused power lying about which can be picked up without alienating anyone. 

The second rule is, if you want power and want to expand, never encroach on anyone else's domain; open up new ones. 

"I call it 'Expanding into the power vacuum'" Demara proudly explains. "It works this way. If you come into a new situation (there's a nice word for it) don't join some other professor's committee and try to make your mark by moving up in that committee. You'll, one, have a long haul and two, make an enemy." 

Demara's technique is to found your own committee. 

"That way there's no competition, no past standards to measure you by. How can anyone tell you aren't running a top outfit? And then there's no past laws or rules or precedents to hold you down or limit you. Make your own rules and interpretations. Nothing like it. Remember it, expand into the power vacuum!"

-Ferdinand Waldo Demara, "The Great Imposter"

Politics

"Politics is too important to be left to politicians." -Fmr. Senator Warren Rudman

We Could Be Wrong

This internal sense of right-ness that we all experience so often is not a reliable guide to what is actually going on in the external world. And when we act like it is, and we stop entertaining the possibility that we could be wrong, that's when we start doing things like dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Or torpedoing the global economy.

- Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong

Forgetting is About Editing

Forgetting well is almost as important as remembering well. Forgetting is about editing. It's about taking the flood, the ocean of sense information coming at you, and forgetting everything but what's important.

- Gavin E. Crooks, The Botany of Desire

The Inhumane Context

"Any truly effective therapeutic approach, however, would require a thorough examination of the inhumane context in which minds function - and, presumably, a comprehensive systemic rewiring." - Belen Fernandez

Arrogance/ Aswang

"Too much belief in the supernatural makes us ignorant, but too much reliance on science and logic would make us arrogant." - "The Aswang Phenomenon"