“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” —Stephen Hawking

I have decided to use Wordpress.com to host Indigo Spot. Please pardon the mess while I clean up some old mark-up and mistakes. The decision was prompted by the need to focus on writing and get away from screwing around with self-hosting tools and other backend tools. Time to return to content creation.

Go read it and absorb it. Beautiful, simple, profound. [via: The Oatmeal]

Aeon has a good short post about money and debt and the impact on our happiness or perceived levels of happiness. The summary is that it is best not to assume more debt than you can manage (obvious), but that incurring debt is not necessarily a reason to be sad. I have a hard time reconciling that as debt stresses me out whether it is manageable or not, but this may be good news for those with a stronger stomach for owing money to others....

The internet and social media have provided platforms where “everybody’s unintelligent ideas are flying in circles like mosquitoes around the digital campfire,” he wrote. “So now, in the world of online commenting, it’s all stupidity, all the time.” —John DeSanto, 65, of Warwick, N.Y. I prefer to keep my unintelligent ideas right here around my own campfire where others can choose to come read them. [via The New York Times: How to Log Off of Facebook Forever, With All Its Perks and Pitfalls]

The stoic says the universe Is leagued to try the sage’s virtue. If evil smites you, look for worse, And if it hurts you, let it hurt you. Let Nature, with its crowd of woes, In vain endeavor to defeat us; Impassive, let us bear its blows Like Seneca and Epictetus. I met a stoic in a bar Who argued much for resignation. He pushed the stoic faith so far...

“To live a good life: We have the potential for it. If we can learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference. —Marcus Aurelius

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” —John Muir

“There is no human being who may say that he has not failed, that he does not suffer, and that he will not die.” —Viktor Frankl

“It is literally painful to write this sentence, but the president of the United States is a pathological liar. The president of the U.S. is a racist (it also hurts to write this). He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power. He fired an acting attorney general who held a differing opinion from his own and accused her of “betrayal....