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77a7320
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My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
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reading
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A.J. Jacobs |
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864b73b
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Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.
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christianity
love
unconditional-love
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A.J. Jacobs |
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60c9363
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my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong ..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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3c30933
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Plus, in one of his e-mails, the guy said he didn't like pancakes. What kind of asshole doesn't like pancakes?
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A.J. Jacobs |
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c33b39b
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I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverant agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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d800e6c
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There's a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one
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A.J. Jacobs |
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8c74a3f
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I am officially Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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8340068
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I've rarely said the word "Lord," unless it's followed by "of the Rings."
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A.J. Jacobs |
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b2865f7
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Scrabble - The game is available in Braille. That's a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can't really explain why.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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fc181ab
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This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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086133b
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I can't help but notice that you keep writing love poetry to my wife. Well, you see, I married her, which makes her my wife. You know what you might want to try? Writing some poems about the sunset. The sunset isn't fucking married.
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marriage
poetry
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A.J. Jacobs |
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5b3ae93
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I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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c89906d
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The whole bible is the working out of the relationship between God and man. God is not a dictator barking out orders and demanding silent obedience. Were it so, there would be no relationship at all. No real relationship goes just one way. There are always two active parties. We must have reverence and awe for God, and honor for the chain of tradition. But that doesn't mean we can't use new information to help us read the holy texts in new ..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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e91829c
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Did you hear about the middle Eastern potentate?" he asked me. "This potentate called a meeting of the wise men in the kingdom, and said, "I want you to gather all the world's knowledge together in one place so that my sons can read it and learn."The wise men went off, and after year, they came back with twenty-five volumes of knowledge. This potentate looked at it and he said, "No. It's too long. Make it shorter." So the wise men went off ..
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life
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A.J. Jacobs |
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146bd90
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philosophy I studied philosophy for four years. But I'd trade everything I learned for this passage... quoted in the Britannica: 'But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, ho..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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2f9e5b6
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The Bible is right: A deluge of images does encourage idolatry. Look at the cults of personality in America today. Look at Hollywood. Look at Washington. I'd like to see the next presidential race be run according to Second Commandment principles. No commercials. A radio-only debate. We need an ugly president. I know we're missing out on some potential Abe Lincolns because they'd look gawky and gangly on TV.
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politics
graven-images
page-106
second-commandment
elections
president
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A.J. Jacobs |
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f93d2fd
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I always thought the name of Utah's major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word "desert." But no, Deseret is the "land of the honeybee," according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years."
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A.J. Jacobs |
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caa07dd
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It's a different way of looking at the world. Your life isn't about rights. It's about responsibilities."--Mr Bill Berkowitz" --
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A.J. Jacobs |
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da84810
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Behavior shapes emotions.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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e4972ed
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Sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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d182639
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The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones.
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choice
religion
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A.J. Jacobs |
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52e115f
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Ecclesiastes This is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible - I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot of the other parts. Here, the Britannica provides a handy Cliff Notes version of Ecclesiastes: [the author's] observations on life convinced him that 'the race is not swift, nor the battle strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intel..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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bb2f861
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A few weeks later, I'm in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I'm sitting next to a guy who's doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we're about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He's neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he's not a genius.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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e6ed6b2
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In trying to avoid one sin I've committed another.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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af87ce7
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It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
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A.J. Jacobs |
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62f4536
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The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.
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healthy
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A.J. Jacobs |
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f187bde
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If the Britannica has taught me anything, it's to be more careful. I don't want to turn into an unseemly noun or verb or adjective someday. I don't want to be like Charles Boycott, the landlord in Ireland who refused to lower rents during a famine, leading to the original boycott. I don't want to be like Charles Lynch, who headed an irregular court that hung loyalists during the Revolutionary War. I can't have "Jacobs" be a verb that means ..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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f87d3a7
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Ezekiel and his fellow prophets have become my heroes. They were fearless. They literalized metaphors. They turned their lives into protest pieces. They proved that, in the name of truth, sometimes you can't be afraid to take a left turn from polite society and look absurd.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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c23ba20
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Each cherry took about three seconds to eat. Three seconds to eat, but at least five years in the making. It seemed unfair to the hard-working cherry tree. The least I could do was to devote my attention to the cherry in those three seconds, really appreciate the tartness of the skin and the faint crunching sound when I bite down. I guess it's called mindfulness. Or being in the moment, or making the mundane sacred. Whatever it is, I'm doin..
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religion
wisdom
cherries
cherry-tree
page-172
attention
sacred
paradox
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A.J. Jacobs |
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b19cce4
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What seems terrible at first may turn out to be a great thing. You can't predict.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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0a46c9a
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Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn't easy. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obs..
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A.J. Jacobs |
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d31ba1e
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Huh. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Is Alex Trebek black? He sure doesn't look black. He looks pretty white to me. He looks like the quintessence, the very incarnation, of whiteness.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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e57ba94
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Jealousy is a useless, time-wasting emotion that's eating me alive.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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79ec245
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The literal Greek translation is "school for naked exercise." Which made toweling off the stationary bike even more important."
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A.J. Jacobs |
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417ef27
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You tell them you have a hunger and a thirst. You don't sit at the same table but you have a hunger and a thirst.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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a48171a
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When I get it home and start to read it, the first thing I notice is that Warren has copyrighted the phrase "Purpose-driven." It has a little (r) after it. This makes me angry. Did Jesus copyright "Turn the Other Cheek"(r)? Did Moses trademark "Let My People Go?"(tm)"
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A.J. Jacobs |
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08a8fd9
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I'm hungry enough that I started to salivate at the sight of lettuce. I repeat: lettuce.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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75091a7
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Back to the books. The world's largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang--it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations--then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure. I have a moment of silence for the silent bell.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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88a6e57
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Why should we always try to be true to our natural selves? What if our natural selves are assholes? Stalin was true to himself
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A.J. Jacobs |
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cd3ccc6
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I did get a colonic, but I've decided not write about it at length. I didn't find it helpful or enlightening. I can tell you want it felt like, though: It felt like someone shooting water up your butt.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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d4df4ec
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The MRI has a repertoire of noises that resemble, in no particular order: a game-show buzzer for a wrong answer, urgent knocking, a modem from 1992, a grizzly-bear growl, and a man with a raspy voice shouting what sounds like "mother cooler!"
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A.J. Jacobs |
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c1452bd
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Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It's not until the second year that they learn the cures.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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c749aa5
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Mormons were the first settlers. Not sure Joseph Smith would approve of today's topless showgirls and liquor. Though he would like the volcano at the Mirage. Everybody likes the volcano.
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A.J. Jacobs |
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850be09
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I think there's something to the idea that the divine dwells more easily in text than in images. Text allows for more abstract thought, more of a separation between you and the physical world, more room for you and God to meet in the middle. I find it hard enough to conceive of an infinite being. Imagine if those original scrolls came in the form of a graphic novel with pictures of the Lord? I'd never come close to communing with the divine..
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graven-images
text
divine
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A.J. Jacobs |