Joe Rogan on Gossip

"Some people, they trip themselves... Think about yourself... don't get distracted.... and I think that a lot of that is a distraction, this fixating on other people... There are a lot of people out there who spend a tremendous amount of time hating on other people and very little time working on themselves... There's no commitment to hating on someone. There's no consequences if it doesn't go well, so you put your energy into that."

-Joe Rogan*

This isn't an absolutely direct quote. I took it off a podcast and my rewind function isn't precise. Also he's not expecting to be quoted, he's just working out the idea as he says it. Still, there is a lot of wisdom in this. I'll try my hand at turning it into a maxim:

"Gossip is an easy distraction. Improving yourself is difficult. Weak people will choose to waste their time with gossip."

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*Although I don't subscribe to his every utterance (and I doubt that he would want me to) I think that Mr. Rogan is a modern philosopher. He is a generalist who wants to teach people how to live better lives. I think that Socrates would find a discussion with Mr. Rogan to be much more enjoyable than a discussion with the head of your average university philosophy department.