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After many months of failing to make progress, Mr. Adams scheduled a solo writing retreat for several weeks at a country manor. Unfortunately, he ended up befriending the hosts, and he spent most of the trip drinking wine. Just weeks before his manuscript was due, Mr. Adams had produced just 25 pages. “I love deadlines,” Mr. Adams has said. “I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”
I suspect we will long debate what would have been, in retrospect, the right time to ban Donald Trump from Twitter. What cannot be seriously debated, watching how this ugly week in American history has unfolded, is that the man had any legitimate claim left to using the platform. Increasingly, he has no legitimate claim to any social media platform at all.
To determine the color scheme of the homes, Duffield remembers using Necco wafers as a reference point, adapting the candy’s pastel yellows, pinks, and blues to act as his base. “We wanted to make a statement in color, but not so strong that it took you out of the movie,” Duffield says, “[like] if Leningrad tried to copy an American suburban housing development.”
Trump is now and always has been delusional. He lives in an imaginary world. His insistence that he won the last election in a “landslide” is psychologically indistinguishable from his declaration on his first day that his Inaugural crowd was larger than his predecessor’s. For four years, the actual evidence did not matter. It still doesn’t. Any rumor that helps him, however ludicrous, is true; every cold fact that hurts him, however trivial or banal, doesn’t exist. For four years as president, any advisor who told him the truth, rather than perpetuating his delusions, had an immediate expiration date. For four years, an army of volunteer propagandists knowingly disseminated his insane, cascading torrent of lies.
People say that your house is the biggest purchase you’ll ever make, but it won’t be the most consequential negotiation. If you’re sane only about 25% or so of your gross income is subject to the results of real estate negotiations. Close to 100% is subject to the results of salary negotiations. Thus, your salary negotiations are probably going to be the most important financial decisions you will ever make.
The Trump Administration jettisoned the Obama playbook. In 2019, H.H.S. conducted Crimson Contagion, a simulation examining the government’s ability to contain a pandemic. Among the participants were the Pentagon, the N.S.C., hospitals, local and regional health-care departments, the American Red Cross, and twelve state governments. The scenario envisioned an international group of tourists visiting China who become infected with a novel influenza and spread it worldwide. There’s no vaccine; antiviral drugs are ineffective.
Pasteurization these days is classified in three broad categories:
"Hell yes or no" is a good mantra to apply to almost everything. Every "maybe in the future" and "I'm not sure" fills me with anxiety and regret, even if it's not always obvious.
2020: Look, it’s not just one Year that kills someone; it’s all the Years combined. That’s how Time works.
And just remember: it’s not enough to remove the negative. That simply creates a void. Get the positive things on the calendar ASAP, lest they get crowded out by the bullshit and noise that will otherwise fill your days. Good luck and godspeed!