Azad

The sun was free. They sold you SPF 50 and a vitamin D deficiency. Sleep was free. They sold you an app, a pill, and a wearable that tells you your sleep was bad. Walking was free. They sold you a treadmill, a fitness tracker, and a £180 pair of trainers. Fasting was free. They sold you meal replacement shakes and the anxiety that skipping breakfast would wreck your metabolism. Cold water was free. They sold you a £3,000 plunge barrel and a podcast episode about it. Silence was free. They sold you a meditation app with a premium tier. Animal fat was cheap. They sold you seed oils, then supplements to replace what the animal fat contained. Tallow was cheap. They sold you a seventeen-step skincare routine and a clinical trial proving your face needs ceramides. Meat was cheap. They are currently selling you the idea that you shouldn't eat it. The 20th century removed access to everything the body needs to function. The 21st century is selling it back, one subscription at a time. Your great-grandmother had none of the products. She had all of the things.

"A crooked tree lives its own life, but a straight tree is turned into wood." —Chinese Proverb

“When your education limits your imagination, it is called indoctrination.” - Nikola Tesla

💯😂

📍Tehran, Iran — In a final interview before his 1979 overthrow, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi warned the West was dangerously naive about extremist movements. He argued you can’t reason with groups willing to massacre opponents, and that trying to apply Western logic or empathy to them is a fatal misread of reality.

Warren Buffett on the best advice he ever received: “It’s more important…what’s on your inner scorecard than your outer scorecard. Some people get in a position where they’re thinking all of the time of what the world’s going to think of this or that instead of what they themselves think. If you’re comfortable with your inner scorecard, I think you’re going to have a pretty happy life. I think the people that strive too much for the outer scorecard sometimes finds that it’s a little hollow when they get all through.”

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Do not use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe, to create, to learn, to think and to grow.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook: "I don't want people looking at their smartphone more than they're looking in someone's eyes." "If they are just scrolling endlessly, this is not the way you want to spend your day. Go out and spend it in nature."

Milton Friedman, 4 ways to spend money: 1. Your money on yourself (you’re careful about both cost and quality) 2. Your money on others (you care about cost, less about quality) 3. Someone else’s money on yourself (you care about quality, not cost) 4. Someone else’s money on others (you care about neither) Hint: #4 is the government

Speaking about the deep contradictions in human nature, Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada said: “Some people dream of having a swimming pool at home, while those who have one barely use it. Those who have lost a loved one feel a profound sense of loss, while others often complain about the relatives still in their lives. Those without a partner long for one, while those who have a partner often fail to appreciate them. The hungry would give anything for a meal, while the full complain about the taste of their food. Those without a car dream of owning one, while those who have a car are always looking for a better one. The key to happiness is gratitude—to truly see and value what we already have, and to understand that somewhere, someone would give everything for what we take for granted.”

“Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I accomplish my 10-year plan in 6 months? You will probably fail but you will be a lot further ahead of the person who simply accepted it was going to take 10 years” -Elon Musk

The people who wait until they feel ready never feel ready. ㅤ Readiness is not a feeling you discover; it's a state you create through action.

Steve Jobs: “My model of business is The Beatles” “[The Beatles] were four very talented guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. And that’s how I see business. Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Steve continues: “The Beatles — when they were together — they did truly brilliant, innovative work. And when they split up, they did good work, but it was never the same. And I see business that way too. It’s really always a team.”

⚡️A salary colonizes your time horizon. That is the deeper truth. Once your life is built on recurring payroll, you stop making decisions from conviction and start making them from continuity. You do not ask what is right, what is true, what is worth building, or what future you actually want. You ask what keeps the stream uninterrupted. That shift is everything. It turns a human life from directional into maintenance-based. The goal stops being creation and becomes non-disruption. That is why salary is such an effective control technology. It does not need chains because it installs self-censorship. The employee learns to pre-eliminate dangerous thoughts before they ever become actions. Do not say that. Do not risk that. Do not leave yet. Do not start now. Do not offend the wrong person. Do not become unrecoverable. The system does not merely purchase hours. It shapes the boundaries of imagination. And the trap gets tighter the more “successful” the person becomes. Higher salary often does not mean more freedom. It often means higher burn, higher social obligations, higher identity fusion, and a more expensive prison. The person mistakes rising compensation for rising sovereignty while their true dependence deepens. They can afford more and choose less. That is one of the cleanest lies in modern professional life. The darkest layer is that salary reorganizes courage. It turns bravery into an unaffordable luxury. A person with no cushion can still be bold for a moment. A person whose entire household, status, family identity, and psychological stability depend on one stream usually cannot. The wage relation trains a person to fear interruption more than deadness. That is how people spend ten or twenty years living lives they privately know are wrong. Not because they are weak. Because the architecture around them has made deviation feel catastrophic. And that is why most salaried people become defenders of structures they do not love. They are not paid enough to become free. They are paid enough to become invested in the avoidance of rupture. That is a very different thing. The monthly deposit becomes a pacifier for deferred grief. Each paycheck says the same thing: not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Then a life passes. That is the real leash. It turns fear of losing income into fear of becoming who you actually are.

To some European or NATO leaders: No one said, Go to battle against Iran. But come, defend your bread, your water, your medicine. Fight your own fight and do not expect the hand of another, neither the Americans nor any, to do it for you. You are timid. Liars. Pharisees of diplomacy, preaching virtue while sowing death through inaction. Yes, Iran is dangerous with its missiles and drones. But when the nations marched against Libya to strike down Qaddafi, no fear of danger stopped them. Yet Libya did not close the Strait of Hormuz, did not choke 13% of EU gas, 4% of its oil, and did not hold humanitarian aid ransom. Compare the deeds! One dictator killed far fewer than the regime in Iran, which has spilled the blood of millions, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Americans, French, Germans, all nations under heaven. And you, O Europe, you want all the fruit but fear the thorns. You tremble at terminology, yet your deeds cry louder: timidity. You would let the region burn beneath the Iranian scourge, yet wag a finger and preach restraint. Grow up, leftist leaders. This is not revenge on Trump for his Ukraine stance. For once, act like leaders, not teenagers with hormones. Act like shepherds of your people, not goats led by whims. The UAE said it: we can stand, alongside the nations, to guard the Strait of Hormuz. Iran hurled its darts and fires upon us. We stopped Iran where it tried to stop us. Call us the Sparta of the Middle East, for we guard the gates while you hide behind scrolls and speeches. Remember: the flow of trade and the lifeblood of nations is a trust for all, not a responsibility for the idle. The river of commerce flows only when the hands of the brave keep the way clear, not when the timid pray from afar.

MUST-SEE: President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele - "What about the human right of the women who don't want to be r*ped? What about the human right of kids to play, or to be free?" "But no, they were worried about the human rights of the k*llers."

“To be happy you must eliminate two things: The fear of a bad future and the memory of a bad past.” — Seneca

Life is strange. You arrive with nothing, spend your whole life chasing everything, and still leave with nothing. Make sure your soul gains more than your hands.