Thought provoking
I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses.
To sit alone without any electric light is curiously... See more
To sit alone without any electric light is curiously... See more
Jeanette Winterson • Why I Adore the Night, by Jeanette Winterson
It seems odd to look at achievement through this lens, not as the thing the newspapers tell us it is, but – very often – as a species of mental illness. Those who put up the skyscrapers, write the bestselling books, perform on stage, or make partner may, in fact, be the unwell ones. Whereas the characters who – without agony – can bear an ordinary... See more
The School of Life • Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional
Keltner became convinced that awe could be a counteragent to these immiserating modern neuroses. Notably, not a single respondent in Berkeley’s 26-culture study cited consumer purchases as the source of their awe-story. In “Awe,” Keltner writes: “Awe occurs in a realm separate from the mundane world of materialism, money, acquisition and status... See more
We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It's the reason... we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that
... See morecheryl strayed • Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar
But no one has ever started over from scratch by devising a wholly new conceptual structure, an entirely new vessel. Why? Because we cannot step outside of our own thought. We think in terms of the conceptual structure that we happen to have. Thought changes from within, step by step, in the harsh and continuous confrontation with its object:
... See more"For me, that’s pretty much it: waking up and being excited and curiously restless to face the day ahead, and being very present with that day, and then going to bed feeling like it actually happened, that the day was lived. There’s nothing more than that, really."
Maria Popova • Maria Popova — Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age
That’s what commitments are—alternatives to self-obsession. Commitments free us to dedicate ourselves to something bigger than ourselves—to something beyond our shells. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain said that the meaning of life is “self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving.” This is the challenge of growing up—to turn the corner from... See more