You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
He knew what the Beats know and what the great tennis player knows, son: learn to do nothing, with your whole head and body, and everything will be done by what's around you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of being fully present in the moment to allow life to unfold naturally.
David Foster Wallace suggests that true mastery involves immersing oneself completely in the present experience, akin to how athletes focus on their game or artists immerse themselves in their craft. By doing so, we align ourselves with the environment and circumstances, allowing everything to unfold organically without force or distraction.
Themes
MindfulnessPresenceImmersionLifeFocus
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting to encourage focus on the task at hand.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
David Foster WallaceRead
Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
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