Sublime

Faulty alarm systems lead to blowups or shutdowns in response to innocuous comments or facial expressions.

Albrecht studied the experiences of persistent drought and large-scale open-cut coal mining on individuals in Australia. In both cases, people exposed to environmental change experienced negative emotions, exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness and a lack of control.

The defense strategy is to hunker down by pulling their energy in and sending it down into the ground beneath them. By stopping all internal movement and action, enduring-patterned people become able to tolerate almost anything.

The fear that segregation inspires among the weak in turn breeds fear among the strong and the dominant.

At Levels 1 and 2, people have few reservations about blurting out a bleak worldview. They could do this as a martyr (Level 1) or with anger and disgust (Level 2).

1. WENN SIE EIN CLEANER SIND … … verlassen sich alle auf Sie, wenn es brenzlig wird.

If anything can happen to us in spite of our best efforts to make things go the way we want, where does that leave egocentricity? One of ego’s threats is, “If you don’t do exactly as I say, something awful is going to happen to you.”

Stay ordinary. Stay grey. Keep your head held low and your shoulders bowed, do what they say and say what they want, and you can get on with your life.