You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
That it is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people...That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Low-IQ individuals might find it easier to overcome addiction, while higher-IQ individuals can make mundane tasks more engaging through focused concentration.
David Foster Wallace reflects on the paradox of intelligence in relation to addiction and the perception of boring activities. He suggests that those with lower IQs may have simpler cognitive processes that allow them to break free from addictive behaviors more readily. Conversely, he posits that higher-IQ individuals may struggle more with addiction due to their complex thought processes. Additionally, he points out that attention and concentration can render even the most mundane tasks fascinating, highlighting the power of focus in changing our experience of the world.
Themes
AddictionIntelligenceFocusConcentrationMundaneThoughtEngagement
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech addressing addiction recovery, one might use this quote to highlight how different cognitive approaches influence the capacity to overcome obstacles.
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
David Foster WallaceRead
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
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
Similar quotes
Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly composed.
Viktor KorchnoiRead
Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Gratitude is a sign of maturity...Where there is appreciation: there is also courtesy and concern for the rights and property of others.
Gordon B. HinckleyRead
Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
Lillian HellmanRead
Take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you scew everything up the next time. And that repetition of suffering - that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understand - there's where you'll find heaven.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
Steven SpielbergRead