You won’t think for yourself if you feel with the crowd.

If your thinking is stuck, move your body. A mile or two of good walking will alter your mental landscape as much as your physical one.

Cavernous used book stores are dusty treasure chambers full of unfashionable literature and non-trendy ideas. An escape from the monothought of the moment.

Disappointing people isn’t always bad. Living your convictions will disappoint everyone with a different agenda for you.

Image-based social media popularizes many random lifestyle pursuits. Any pastime that can be aestheticized eventually goes viral, gaining trendy new adherents. Many feel compelled to do whatever they’ve seen others do. The instinct to mimic is powerful and often irrational.

To have thoughts that aren’t trending… put away the phone. You won’t hear your inner voice if you invite a million voices to fill every moment of mental silence.

If you know you need to change, do so. Don’t “trust the process.” Don’t “give it time.” Make the change.

Irony-poisoned posters make fun of earnest opinions while taking no stance themselves. They can subtly manipulate the debate by demonizing expressions of sincerity as “cringe” or otherwise gauche. A convenient way to feel superior to others while contributing nothing of value.

People sense intentions better than you might think. They will open up to you in a different way when they know that you truly want the best for them.

Speech is not violence. Speech is the only alternative to violence. Those who cheer the use of violence to silence speech will beget more violence, and that is their aim.

Make truth your guide when the path is unclear.

Pressure reveals character. Some days show us who we are… and who other people are. Try and live in a manner that readies you to pass the trials such a day demands. The hour of testing can arrive at any time.

One possible response to the loss of a brave person is for the rest of us to become braver.

Giving up on debate is not the right response to what happened to Charlie Kirk. Instead, we should follow his example and re-establish free speech as a right people feel confident exercising. There must be more free debate on campus and elsewhere, not less. Give up nothing.

Every terrible event inspires online engagement baiters to try and out-edgy each other with deranged proclamations. When emotions are high the opportunists see their shot to lead “the discourse” off a cliff for attention. Ignore them.

You can always make a bad situation worse. Reason and moral clarity are needed. Your conduct sets a tone for those around you.

Charlie Kirk was probably the most influential American under 40. Young people who went to his college events and watched him on TikTok will see the world differently after his murder. The video all over X is a hideous new media replay of 1960s horrors. Rest in peace, Charlie.

Strong decisions strip out unnecessary complexity. Tangled logic is a sign of weak leadership.

It’s no accident that the free speech social network is the only newsworthy one. Everyone knows the others are just playgrounds.

Concern yourself with the quality of what you do, not what others think of it.