Vertical Real Estate | Berkeley Haas | Cal MBB Alum | Former Pro 🏀 🇮🇱
Miami, FL
Joined October 2011
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Sam Singer retweeted
WARNING: Longer post (but worth reading or bookmarking for later).
Your life has seasons.
Each one is unique. Characterized by its own distinct desires, struggles, opportunities, and identity.
But one reflection I've had recently is just how easy it is to completely disassociate with the present season.
To give all your time and energy toward a longing for some nostalgic memory of a prior season or an anticipation for some beautiful state of a future season.
You look back at the past and all you see is sunshine. Because it all worked out. You forget (or glaze over) the struggle you endured. You're here today. You made it. You're alive. You're doing fine.
You look forward at the future and dream on what could be. You'll have so much more. More freedom. More purpose. More health. More deep connection. More everything.
The past is beautiful and the future feels limitless. So, logically, you slowly start to treat everything about the present as the bridge. A dash connecting your past and your future. A gap to be crossed as quickly as possible.
Everything you do today is in anticipation of some eventual end state.
I'm doing this now, so that I can have that later.
Unfortunately, the danger of that dissociation with the present is significant. You may spend your entire life living for a future that has a decidedly mirage-like property. You inch closer, but when it's right in front of you, it disappears and reappears on the horizon.
You may spend your entire life skipping through the present, deferring your presence, your joy, and your very humanity to a future that never comes.
In a classic French fable, a young boy is gifted with a magic ball of golden thread. He's told that if he simply pulls on the thread, time will leap forward. The catch, of course, is that once it's pulled, it can never be put back.
The young boy takes advantage of the newfound powers. Each time he's faced with a boring day at school, a frustrating set of chores, or a scolding from his parents, he pulls the thread, skipping through to the good parts.
As an adult, he continues, leaping through mundane struggles in his marriage, the friction of having a newborn, and the boredom at work. He finds himself pulling on the thread more and more, avoiding even the most minor inconveniences of his life.
But when he wakes up one day and sees an old man looking back at him in the mirror, he's filled with regret. He realizes in that moment that as he chose to skip through the boredom, struggles, and friction, so too did he miss the real texture of being alive.
How often do we all do the same? How easily do we default into this disassociation? Disconnecting from the present in anticipation of some future.
A mentor recently asked me this:
"Where are you going and why are you in such a rush?"
It hit me hard.
And to be honest, I haven't stopped replaying those words since he said them.
Why are you in such a rush?
The world wants you to rush into everything. Rushed decisions. Rushed conversations. Rushed relationships. Rushed timelines.
In doing so, you slowly relinquish your agency. You give up your claim on your own life. Surrender authorship to a pen that was never even yours.
In a world that wants you to rush, the ultimate act of rebellion is presence.
Be in the season you're in. Don't romanticize the past, don't fantasize the future. Be here. Be now. Be in this. All of its texture, depth, and struggle. All of its joy, tension, and pain. Sit with the uncertainty. Become friends with it. Fall in love with it.
Because every single thing you do today is something your younger self dreamed of and something your older self will wish they could go back and do.
The good old days are happening, right now.
And the next time you find yourself skipping through the present, remember these words:
Where are you going and why are you in such a rush?
Sam Singer retweeted
Can’t believe this happened exactly 10 years ago. This is why I love Cal basketball.
Sam Singer retweeted
One of the most bizarre things about Hamas is that it states explicitly that it's an Islamist movement aiming to replace Israel with an Islamist state, and the Western left insists that it's just a "resistance" movement dedicated to the Palestinian cause fighting "occupation."
Sam Singer retweeted
HORRIFYING: The family of former hostage Noa Marciano, z"l, revealed that they were sent a video of their daughter being executed by a doctor in a Gazan hospital.
Her father still wakes up from nightmares about the video.
The doctor injected air into her veins.
Noa was murdered so that Hamas could lie about her being killed in an Israeli airstrike.
May her memory be a blessing 💔
Sam Singer retweeted
During the Holocaust, the population of Jews globally went down by about 35%. Nothing the Jews did would have stopped it from occurring. The intent was to wipe out the Jewish people.
During the war in Gaza, it is unknown what percentage the population has changed because there’s no information on number of civilians vs combatants. That said, according to Grok, the global population of Palestinians has increased approximately 6.3 % since the start of the war. In addition, the people of Gaza could have stopped the war at any time by returning the hostages and disarming. The intent of Israel has always been to bring home the hostages, and disarm Hamas.
Not my “feelings” or “opinions”. Facts.
Sam Singer retweeted
I don't know if I can listen anymore, it becomes much worse.
"He (the captor) says to me: ‘Listen, if you convert to Islam, we’ll bring you lots of food, you’ll live with us.’ And I told him, ‘I was born a Jew, I’ll die a Jew.’ That's when it got much worse.
He came with a note and said, ‘It says here to blindfold you. These are orders from above’
He tied the blindfold over my eyes. Made sure I couldn’t see even a drop of light: tied one shirt around my eyes, and another shirt over it.
Now, my bathroom breaks were only three times a day: 9 a.m., 4 p.m., and 9 p.m. It was a nightmare. I had to hold my urine for hours. He also cut down my drinking water to half a liter a day.
A week passed — and I was still blindfolded.
After a week, he said, ‘There’s another letter. It says to block your ears.’
He came in holding two stones. He took off the blindfold just to show them to me. He was happy, grinning. He said, ‘Look what I brought you. I found these outside, looked for them just for you.’
He pushed one stone into my ear. It didn’t fit well. So he took a nail and started forcing it in with the nail, deeper and deeper.
I screamed, but he didn’t care. He kept pushing it in, deeper. Then he moved to the other ear and did the same thing.
He left the stones inside, the pain was coming from deep inside. Then he retied the blindfold even tighter, wrapping it on top again. I still have a hematoma here to this day.
He tied it as tight as he could. It pressed on me so hard that blood stopped flowing to my head. I could feel pounding in my skull, my brain was throbbing, I could feel my own blood, the pain!
I’ve never in my life felt pain like that. It’s pain I can’t even describe.
And no food. Not even a pita a day anymore.
And that went on for three weeks: blindfolded, no bathroom, hungry, in agony, with stones in my head!
Then he came to me again and said, ‘There’s another letter — it says to tie you up and torture you.’”
Interview with Rom Braslavski by @HazinorX
Sam Singer retweeted
I have just seen the unedited footage of the October 7th attacks. Please read:
What I saw was young men chopping off heads, shooting everything in sight, slaughtering little crying kids calling for their mummy, throwing grenades inside houses and cars and shelters, maiming bodies, playing with them, setting humans on fire, looking like it's the happiest day of their life.
They call their relatives to celebrate how many they have killed. The parents back in Gaza are thrilled. They cheer and ask for more.
"Bring back some heads for the people to play with" - asks a commander. The savages wilfully oblige, using flick knives to remove the skulls from slaughtered bodies like butchers carving up a carcass.
"Bring some home for the people so we can crucify them in the square" the Hamas leaders order.
The mangled, blood soaked bodies of hostages were paraded through the streets. The Gazan crowds cheered and filmed, celebrating or coming to spit on the terrified youngsters in the back of pick ups.
The young Hamas brutes with their ecstatic grins, taking selfies, shouting Allahu Akbar, looked like so many of the young men in dinghies. Trendy clothes, modern phones. Energy and conviction.
The first wave of attackers on October 7th were Hamas soldiers.
The second, amateur conscripts.
The third, Gazan civilians delighted to join in.
What even are these monsters.
I am forever changed, seeing what I have seen. And it isn't fake. It's footage Hamas shot themselves.
Israel must live with that right next door.
I fear we now have it, in hotels and houses around the country
Sam Singer retweeted
A Palestinian man in Gaza has recorded a desperate plea to the world:
“Hamas is killing hundreds of children, women, youths, and elderly people. Today, Hamas is waging terror against the people in Gaza, killing with RPGs. Hamas is 100% ISIS.”
For two years, UN officials, celebrities, human rights groups, Western leaders, and the media howled about Palestinian deaths. Now, as Hamas slaughters Palestinians in the streets - silence.
timesofisrael.com/liveblog_e…
Sam Singer retweeted
It has only been 24 hours since Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza, and the damage Hamas has already inflicted is beyond horrific.
They have redeployed the streets, they have shot innocent people for sport, and they have executed anyone they believe to be allied with Israel.
It is just appalling.
This is not what peace looks like. This was not a part of the deal. The Palestinian people cannot be abandoned in our fight for humanity. It isn’t over until they are free from Hamas, too.
Sam Singer retweeted
“Enter residential neighborhoods and set them on fire with gasoline or diesel from a tanker….Document the scenes of horror, now, and broadcast them on TV channels to the whole world… Slaughter them. End the children of Israel.”
The New York Times revealed that the IDF recovered a six‑page memo in Gaza, believed to have been written by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in August 2022, outlining instructions for the October 7 massacre.
The memo calls for Hamas men to target soldiers and civilian communities, and to broadcast the violent acts in order to instill fear among Israelis and destabilize the country.
Contrary to Sinwar’s public claims, the document shows that he wanted the terrorists to target civilians from the outset, ordering them to enter residential neighborhoods and set them on fire “with gasoline or diesel from a tanker.”
From the start, Hamas planned an attack of rare brutality, aimed primarily at civilians and meant to be broadcast ״to the Arab world to mobilize people outside Gaza to join the fight.״
Hamas’ plan was never to “Free Palestine” or protect Palestinians. Their orders were to burn homes and kill everyone.
The instructions in the memo were consistent with the communications intercepted on October 7.
Intercepts of Hamas battalion commanders said: “I want the whole kibbutz to be in flames.” “Start setting homes on fire.” “Slit their throats, slit them as you are trained.”
This is the truth about your “freedom fighters.”
Sam Singer retweeted
“I’m sorry, I can’t bear this pain anymore. I want the suffering to end. I’m alive, but inside, everything is dead.”
Roei Shalev, a survivor of the Nova massacre, who lost his girlfriend and his best friend on October 7th and his mother shortly after, has tragically ended his life.
Roei went to Nova with his girlfriend, Mapal, and his friend Hilly. At 6:29am, as rockets exploded overhead, they began to run, dodging Hamas bullets as best they could.
When a grenade went off nearby, they realized they were surrounded and had to find cover. Roei, Mapal, and Hilly hid under a car, but Hamas spotted them.
They were shot. Roei was hit twice in the back. Mapal and Hilly did not survive.
For nearly two years, Roei fought to live in their memory. He promised himself he would dance again, for them. But the pain was still too great.
Even after the ceasefire is signed, this war keeps taking more lives, too many lives.
May his and his loved ones’ memory be a blessing 💔
Sam Singer retweeted
For Roi Shalev, every single day was October 7th.
That dark morning at the Nova festival, Roi lost the love of his life — Mapal Adam. He witnessed friends being slaughtered and he himself was critically wounded. His body was shattered, and his heart was broken beyond repair.
Just days after the massacre, his beloved mother ended her own life. She could no longer bear the agony of what her son had endured, or the images that haunted her.
Roi fought to live for two long years, trying to find a reason, trying to rebuild from the ashes of that day. But the weight of grief was unbearable. Yesterday, Roi surrendered. He took his own life.
In the letter he left behind, Roi apologized to those who loved him and wrote that he simply could not go on — not after what he had witnessed, not after losing the two women who meant everything to him.
The world does not understand how October 7th shattered us — how deeply it scarred the soul of the Jewish people.
It wasn’t just one day. It was the day that changed everything.
And for many of us, every day since then, has been #October7th
Sam Singer retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: A young Gazan boy dubbed “Amir,” who traveled to a humanitarian distribution site and was reported killed by the IDF in May, has been found alive and hiding with his mother.
Sam Singer retweeted
🔴 WSJ: “A genocidal army doesn’t take two years to win a war in a territory the size of Las Vegas. A genocidal army doesn’t send SMS warnings before firing or facilitate the passage of those trying to escape the strikes. A genocidal army wouldn’t evacuate, every month, hundreds of Palestinian children suffering from rare diseases or cancer, sending them to hospitals in Abu Dhabi as part of a medical airlift set up right after Oct. 7. To speak of genocide in Gaza is an offense to common sense, a maneuver to demonize Israel, and an insult to the victims of genocides past and present.”
