jonathan eppers

My answer in my YC application

Please tell us something surprising or amusing that you have discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.)

A very recent breakup that basically broke me taught me something that I have come to understand and value more than anything else I have ever understood. Human relationships are the most important thing we have in our lives. Without them, nothing else can exist. Becoming vulnerable and allowing yourself to trust another human being is part of being a human being. 

Prior to coming to this realization, I had not believed that I would ever need to connect with another individual on a level that words alone can’t describe. I believed I could feel complete through my personal accomplishments, my friendships and my family. I no longer believe that these things alone, is enough to live life to the fullest.

Update (10.24.12): The pause is just as important as the note. Mike and I are working on it.

Talent is a Gift. Character is a Choice.

If you become the leader you ought to be on the inside, you will be able to become the person you want on the outside. People will want to follow you. And when that happens, you’ll be able to tackle anything in this world.

- Unknown

The greatest badass & why.

The assassin had trailed the candidate for three weeks through eight states. He saw his chance and fired. The bullet hit the speaker and ran three inches into his chest. Blood seeping into his shirt, Theodore Roosevelt staggered into the auditorium. Unsatisfied with having been President twice, he had formed his ownparty, the Bull Moose Party, and was running for President again. Ignoring everyone’s advice, he mounted the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been shot … but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

He then proceeded to give his planned hour-and-a-half speech.

Roosevelt was then rushed to hospital and kept there for a week. The bullet stayed inside him for the rest of his life.

Flash back to 1884. After his wife died in childbirth, and his mother died of typhoid (On the same day. In the same house), Roosevelt moved out West to work as as a cowboy. A man with intentions on Roosevelt’s ranch hired a killer named Paddock to get rid of him. Hearing of this, Roosevelt armed himself and rode over to Paddock’s residence. He said:

“I understand you have threatened to kill me on sight. I have come over to see when you want to begin the killing.”

Paddock did not bother Roosevelt again. 

Later, in a South Dakota town, a gun-wielding cowboy called Roosevelt “four-eyes.” Though unarmed, Roosevelt was displeased, so he punched the gunman three times in the head in quick succession, knocking him unconscious.

Right now, he’s hunting grizzly. Alone. At dusk. He’s found a big one, and wounded it, but not severely. The grizzly charges. He shoots it a third time, then a fourth, but is unable to get a head shot during the charge. Worse, the smoke from Roosevelt’s antiquated gun conceals the bear’s charge. The next thing Roosevelt sees is the grizzly’s left paw swiping at him. He ducks. The grizzly leaps over him. It turns to attack again, but it’s weakened from the four hits and the failed charge. Roosevelt is able to deal the coup de grace.

Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency was inevitable - he was a war hero after personally leading several assaults in Cuba. He was the youngest US president ever. He earned only two medals:-

• The Medal of Honor;
• The Nobel Prize.

After being blinded in one eye during a boxing match, Roosevelt switched to judo, training 3 times a week in the White House basement under Yamashita Yoshiaki, and becoming America’s first brown belt. 

Roosevelt was the first President to fly in an airplane. He was the first President to go down in a submarine.  He once killed a cougar with a knife. He was also a sensitive man who loved poetry and nature, making Yosemite a national park.

In office, Roosevelt - though a natural conservative - grew to understand and fight the dangerous power of the wealthy. The Supreme Court, in thrall to business interests, battled him every step of the way, handing down decisions whose essential evil has to be read to be believed. Roosevelt’s courage and intellect grew in office. By 1910, he could stand on the site where John Brown launched the Harper’s Ferry raid, and deliver an “anarchist,” “socialist” speech to 30,000 people:

We regard the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. We demand of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare, rather than in property. Whenever the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for property.

(This is a two-term Republican president, I remind you). 

Bored after winning only 4 million votes as the Bull Moose presidential candidate, Roosevelt launched an expedition to find the source of South America’s “River of Doubt.” During the voyage, he mapped a completely uncharted 1000-km long river, now named theRio Roosevelt. He shrugged off flesh wounds, jungle fever, delirium, and infection, but the jungle broke his health. When he eventually died, the Vice President said, 

Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping. If he had been awake, there would have been a fight.

….

Just awesome Quora. Thanks Edwin Kite

To live by

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and
Demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life,
Beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and
Its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
Even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and
Bow to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and
For the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks,
The fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and nothing,
For abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts
Are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes
They weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again
In a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.