On “successful people”:

It’s raising your hand and asking a teacher to explain, once again, a concept you still don’t understand. It’s calling up a former boss for advice. It’s announcing to your team that you’re stuck on an important problem.

Source: https://nytimes.com/2026/08/28/opinion/successful-people-help.html

True. But it does leave out that money can buy success, but since most people don’t have that much money, I guess this is accurate enough. If you don’t have money, you need people is probably the most honest way to say it. Anyway, yes, support helps, and that’s why only accepting normal people (mainstream people) is a problem. Always rejecting certain people keeps them stuck where they are. But some low-income people can get support from others and “be successful”.

I would love to see stats on low-income and “outcasts”. I’m guessing they have a really hard time doing anything and getting stuff done. In the US (or in the West, I guess), we blame the outcast. But that’s poor thinking. lol. Typical BS, capitalism, no-logic crap. But that’s the normal way of seeing it. Some can easily see the barriers. It’s obvious, and the research shows it too.

Most people seem fine with the alienation, until something happens…The real term is the sanctioning of deviance, or as I call it: my daily life. (Not really – I’m gladly not around people that much anymore. So, it used to be my life when I had to be around people.)

The Escape: Because they are blocked from succeeding legitimately, but their internalized morality prevents them from turning to illegitimate innovative methods (such as crime), they experience a severe, paralyzing conflict. Feeling defeated, frustrated, and structurally handicapped, they resolve this tension by abandoning the “race” entirely, essentially choosing to “drop out” of the game

Deviance studies

And yes, it’s obvious that people need others’ support to succeed. But if you ask the average American, they rarely attribute their success to this. They will say, “I worked really hard.” It usually takes a little digging to admit they had help. And admitting financial help will take a couple of hours, so sit back and let them talk about all the “hard work” they did when others are working equally as “hard,” but their parents didn’t know the CEO of that business.

Uh-huh. If they can’t be honest with themselves, then why would they tell the truth to others? But I already know.

I asked for very specific help. They said no. But not going there now.

---

I had more quotes I wanted to mention but didn’t get around to it. I saw this quote this morning and grabbed it. More later.

This Week in Media & Other Things

Music of the Week

Books of the Week

^{One of Us Must Die by Zelly Ruskin  (Fiction). My rating: ★★★ (3 stars). This book makes me never want to review a free book again. Being able to not read a crappy book is an underappreciated gift.  Having to review a book when you don’t want to be cruel is hard because faking it is so hard. It’s excruciating. But I did. I tried to be neutral rather than lie and say it was well written. Some of my review: “The book touches on various interesting themes like family, unreliable perceptions, family expectations, revenge, and self-discovery. Yet, I struggled to connect with the main character or invest in her relationships.” Ugh. I just didn’t care. No more reviewing bad books. Life is way too short, and my brain is near gone.} 

^{Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by Jim Schutze (nonfiction). My rating: ★★★★ (4 stars). After I finished reading this, or rereading it, apparently, I noticed I read it in 2013!! I thought I’d seen the movie or documentary. Nope, I read the book. Still haven’t seen the movie. Anyway, tough book to read. I can’t possibly sum up my thoughts. I think I took more notes on this book than any other book in 2026. The murder was overly detailed, so I would warn people to skip that part of the book if they are easily disturbed by descriptions of violence. It was brutal. What sticks out most is the vicious murder and the way the author ended the book, which was the opposite of the first half. BTW, I’m calling the way the person was murdered vicious, not the people who did it.}

Quote of the Week

I probably shared this quote before. If so, oops. I have a bad quote from someone. “I have empathy for those who deserve it.” At least this person is being honest, but it’s an interesting definition of empathy. I won’t say who said it. I have enough empathy to protect this person from saying things that don’t make sense.