Quotations Weblog

What is it that your heart is telling you? Has it been so long since you listened to it? How long has it been? Since college? Since high school? Since childhood? It’s time to start listening to what you wanted to be as a child.

There is a dramatic scene in the movie, Fight Club, in which Brad Pitt’s character holds a gun to the head of a convenience store clerk. He aims the gun and calmly talks to the young man.

“Raymond, you’re going to die.” He looks through the man’s wallet, “An expired community college I.D. What’ja study Raymond?”

“Stuff…”

“Stuff? Were the midterms hard?” He smackes him on the head with the barrel of the gun, “I asked you what you studied!”

“Biology, mostly,” the man cries.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hassel?” The clerk is sobbing and Tyler Durden cocks the gun. “The question, Raymond, is what did you want to be?”

“Veterinarian, veterinarian…”

“Animals! That means you’ve got to get more schooling.”

“Too much school.”

“Would you rather be dead?”

“No, please…”

Tyler uncocks the gun and tucks it into his jeans, “I’m keeping your license. I’m gonna check in on you. I know where you live. If you’re not on your way to becoming a veterinarian in six weeks, you’re going to be dead. Run on.” He tosses the man his wallet and the man runs away without looking back.

None of us have a homicidal maniac putting a gun to our heads forcing us to follow our dreams. Should we have to? Take some time to listen to your heart. What do you want in life? What did you want to be? Are you following that dream? Is it what you wanted? Did you let that dream get lost in the convenience store of life? Don’t let life’s distractions deny you of your dreams.

For more information, see Chuck Palahniuk’s Official Website:

• The Cult – ChuckPalahniuk.net</

I like to think of our lives here as just one big video game. It’s an open video game kind of like Sims or Animal Crossing. I get to choose what I want in life. Even when I feel like I don’t have any choices, I still get to choose.

When I look at life like a video game, I have this strange trust that I can do anything. Even though I’m a 37 year-old woman, I can do anything. I just need to figure out how to do it with my character. You see, I may not be a big strong man, but I have other abilities that make up for masculinity and strength. I just need to figure out how to use my abilities to my advantage.

Even if I’m learning how to succeed on the day I die, I think that imagining the world to be like a video game is far more inspiring to me than any other intellectual construct I could imagine.

I learned so much about running a business from the Cashing In or Selling Out session at SXSWi last year. I have almost forgotten that there was a time when I didn’t know about the dangers of venture capital.

With so many burgeoning companies, they accept venture capital from investors. From that point on, they are more focused on keeping the investors happy than keeping the customers happy. Suddenly, the investors are the customers instead of the people who buy your product.

I never knew this before March of last year. Here are some other things I never knew before SXSWi:

• The Quotations Page – SXSW Quotes

The South by Southwest conference is getting started. Get on the list and register to go next year.

Is there something getting you down right now? Maybe you are disheartened by political wrangling. Maybe the suffering in the world is weighing heavily on you. Maybe a more intimate disagreement has hurt you. Whatever it is, identify it. Greed, lust, hate, anger, starvation? Whatever it is, identify what is getting you down.

Now, this is the hard part.

Get rid of it. You don’t have to rid the world of the evil, just yourself. If the greed of corporations who are willing to sacrifice morals for money has angered you, your job is to find the one thing in your life that you are greedy with and eliminate it. If the dishonesty of political characters has made you feel like you can’t trust anyone, you must find how you have been dishonest in your own life and erradicate it. Learn to trust yourself again.

It might sound simplistic. You might feel like you’re not changing what has angered you in the first place, and you will be right. The truth of the matter is, you can’t do anything about the corporations, governments, politicians or even the suffering of others. All you can do is change yourself. It’s the only corner of this universe that you control.

Make the most of it.

“That deep place of silence…”

It’s very rare for me to find that deep place of silence. I call them my Zen Moments. When it comes, I usually spend the entire time telling everyone around me how pretty everything is. I have experienced it at restaurants, in the car and just sitting.

It has NEVER come to me while in prayer or meditation.

I wish I could control it. I wish I could have enough mastery over my mind that I could move into that place of silence whenever I wanted. Instead, it attacks me like a vampire. I have filmed a couple of my Zen Moments. You can see them here:

• Pick Me! » Zen Moment at the Apple Store

• Pick Me! » Zen Moment at Tres Hombres

• Pick Me! » Zen Moment at Caesar’s Palace

• Pick Me! » Zen Moment at Noodles

I know that I can achieve that calm silence that makes the whole world look beautiful anywhere or anytime, but I can’t control it. I guess that’s the next step.