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Someone put me on to this quotation today. Food for thought. Not easy to digest though.

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Acting Student Uses Absurd Dr. Evil Speech for Dramatic Monologue, Nobody Notices

https://www.thedad.com/acting-student-dr-evil-monologue/

Accordion to research, 9 out of 10 people don't notice when you replace words with the names of random musical instruments.

Other spudies suggest that most people don't notice potato puns either.

This movie came to Netflix in September 2020.

I watched Ryan Gosling play the part of Neil Armstrong. I think he does a great job of playing the steely eyed missile man. The movie opens with some high drama - quite literally - as Armstrong uses all his wits to control a high altitude test flight.

Gosling portrays a man who contains his emotions, concealing them from everyone more and more as the moon shot approaches. He is not a man to engage much in small talk.

Interestingly, the movie portrays Buzz Aldrin as a bit of a douche bag, who blurts out insensitive things at the wrong moments. And you really feel for the wives in this adventure, as they bear the strain of their spouses going off to space and risking their lives.

It struck me that the somewhat Aspie personality traits that these men possibly had may have contributed ultimately to the success of the Apollo program and the landing on the Moon.

While it was hardly an unalloyed "feel good" movie, this was an ultimately uplifting and optimistic watch.

I note there is some chatter about whether someone is a true American based on whether he is a Democrat or a Republican. I watch from the other side of the Pond. From the UK, it's seemed for a long time that there was little serious difference between Democrats and Republicans. How times have changed...! I am sure there was a time, not so long ago, when left-leaning/Democrat people and right-leaning/Republican people could both be called true Americans.

For example, wasn't John F Kennedy, who launched the triumphant American mission to the Moon, a true American and a Democrat? And wasn't Ronald Reagan, who despite being a controversial president nevertheless stood up to the Soviet Union and probably hastened its crumbling, a true American and a Republican?
Partisan politics in the USA appear to have become openly dirty. I suspect there are many "conservative" (small 'c') Democrats who are now struggling to identify with their party, seeing it getting infected with Marxist-inspired doctrines that are not traditionally popular in America. I would not be surprised if Glenn Greenwald ends up walking across the aisle to join the Republicans in the near future.