Once you’ve accepted that you’re ultimately on your own in life, and demanded that people accept your for who you are — not just select bits and pieces that fit comfortably in with their ideal, but all of you, shadows and dirt included — it makes living happily and freely a much easier process.

I do my best to live my actions and speak my words in such a way that I will never regret any of them.

If nothing else, no one will ever have power over me by threatening to reveal a secret that I hold. Make that threat, if you want, but go ahead and hand me the phone so that I can dial your intended caller for you.

When Sir Walter Scott said “What a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive” (Marmion) (not Shakespeare — there’s your trivia for the day), I think he was talking about the mess you find yourself in when you lie, and how it draws you in deeper the more you try to untangle yourself from it. I could be wrong; I’m functionally illiterate, and obscure Scottish novels are never published with pictures.

But I think that there are many forms of lying, and hiding or not revealing information is just as powerfully sticky as a blatant mistruth.

I’m not a good chess player, because the strategy comes in-game, and I’m terrible at adjusting my plans on the fly when it involves other thinking beings. But goddamn if preparation isn’t the key to winning — or at least never having to play the fucking game.

“Live never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world, even if what is said is not true.” -Richard Bach