Cover artwork by Anton Biletskyi-Volokh, from an unpublished reusable sketchbook in progress.
A thematic selection of translated notebook fragments.
Adaptation is a balance between capabilities and needs.
— You cannot warm up the frost with nothing but your naked self.
Sometimes the fight response turns against yourself.
Being adaptable does not mean putting up with things. If we are merely enduring them, adaptation is not happening.
Constant rushing is one expression of the flight response.
Our capacity to adapt is a dynamic system, not a rigid structure.
Tell me how you adapt, and I will tell you who you are.
In the long run, resilience without flexibility leads to maladaptation.
Helplessness is for an imagined caretaker.
Not coping for somebody's benefit.
An excessive fixation on experiences eventually turns into exhaustion.
Adaptation means turning the unfamiliar and threatening into something familiar that you can cope with.
It is not fate that makes someone a loser, but choosing quick pleasure over consistent action.
What helps us adapt in the short term often reduces our adaptability in the long term.
A pronounced character helps us adapt in the first half of life and gets in the way in the second.
Discipline means managing and respecting our main non-renewable resource: time.
Adaptation is when encountering a stressor no longer demands a substantial expenditure of resources.
The wish for total control as a sign of distrust in your own ability to handle surprises.
Tolerance of uncertainty rests on faith in your own strength and ability to cope.
Sometimes, to cope, it is important to accept your right not to cope all the time.
Chronic stress is often the result of pressing harder on the accelerator instead of using the brake.