to be

The humanist picture asks a different kind of question: how does one become the kind of agent for whom understanding is possible? What posture of inquiry is required? What relation must a learner bear to what is learned such that the learning is not merely an accumulation of correct outputs but a transformation of the knower?

Knowledge is claimed rather than merely had . It requires the learner to become, in some sense, the cause of her belief – to be able to say not only that it is so, but why it must be so

There was a Jesuit preacher, Anthony de Mello, who said if you’re suffering but not willing to do anything about it, you need to suffer more. Suffer until you get sick of your suffering. Which sounds harsh, but it’s true. The transformative moments in my life only came when the pain of staying the same finally became greater than the pain of... See more

we should heed the words of British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott:

“It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.”

In this process, the process of seeking and telling the truth, having values and goals, and taking a stand for something, we’re bound to fail, to fall short, and to make mistakes. This is also hard. Our culture simultaneously demands both perfection and apology, but is notoriously unforgiving.

To put it succinctly: when you take an ironic, negative, or numb attitude to everything, you are by definition not on the line for solutions, and when you stop looking for solutions, you lose all agency and will in your life.

We have all been sabotaged or wounded by others at some point or another: endured a series of unfortunate events, been dumped, needlessly suffered, dealt a bad hand. But, in looking back on it, those were never the things that broke me. The thing that broke me was my own inaction in the face of those circumstances, my desire to lick my wounds, my... See more

It’s not you against the world; it’s you against yourself.