#192: Annihilation of the selfie
to live an “entirely private life means above all to be deprived of things essential to a truly human life,” by which she meant that one is “deprived of the reality that comes from being seen and heard by others, to be deprived of an ‘objective’ relationship with them that comes from being related to and separated from them through the intermediary... See more
L. M. Sacasas • From Common Sense to Bespoke Realities
The real path to happiness, they were telling me, comes from dismantling our ego walls—from letting yourself flow into other people’s stories and letting their stories flow into yours; from pooling your identity, from realizing that you were never you—alone, heroic, sad—all along.
Johann Hari • Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions
Anonymity might feel like liberation, isolation like relief. For the same reasons that a city can be alienating, it can also be a site of freedom. For Baudelaire’s flâneur, the loss of self is not agony, but ecstasy. He becomes a “kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness” in “an immense reservoir of electrical energy.”
Evan Puschak • Escape into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions
“Our self-alienation,” he said, “has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.”
Andrew Boyd • I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor
By letting go of identification with the self who knows things and controls things, I feel lighter inside—both in terms of feeling less bogged down and feeling more full of light.
Kristin Neff • Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive
“To live externally is to live more dangerously,” Moskowitz writes, of giving up the constant inward gaze. “It is to live a life that takes up public space, a life that is messy and confusing and thus a life that is often frowned upon, especially in an era in which everyone is accustomed to control and curation over social space and affect.”