Preoccupation with the self consumes psychic energy because in everyday life we often feel threatened.
Practically every desire that has become part of human nature, from sexuality to aggression, from a longing for security to a receptivity to change, has been exploited as a source of social control by politicians, churches, corporations, and advertisers.
It is usual to explain the motivation of those who enjoy dangerous activities as some sort of pathological need: they are trying to exorcise a deep-seated fear, they are compensating, they are compulsively reenacting an Oedipal fixation, they are “sensation seekers.” While such motives may be occasionally involved, what is most striking, when one actually speaks to specialists in risk, is how their enjoyment derives not from the danger itself, but from their ability to minimize it.
In the past few centuries economic rationality has een so successful that we have come to take for granted that the “bottom line” of any human effort is to be measured in dollars and cents. But an exclusively economic approach to life is profoundly irrational; the true bottom line consists in the quality and complexity of experience.
Jefferson’s uncomfortable dictum “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” applies outside the fields of politics as well; it means that we must constantly reevaluate what we do, lest habits and past wisdom blind us to new possibilities.
It is within each person’s power to decide whether its order will be restored from the outside, in ways over which we have no control, or whether the order will be the result of an internal pattern that grows organically from our skills and knowledge.
Ask yourself whether you are happy,” said J. S. Mill, “and you cease to be so.
Whosoever is delighted in solitude,” goes the old saying that Francis Bacon repeated, “is either a wild beast or a god.
Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life either rich or miserable.
The worst solitude,” wrote Sir Francis Bacon, “is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
One can survive solitude, but only if one finds ways of ordering attention that will prevent entropy from destructuring the mind.
To transform the biological necessity of feeding into a flow experience, one must begin by paying attention to what one eats. It is astonishing – as well as discouraging – when guests swallow lovingly prepared food without any sign of having noticed its virtues. What.
I am free, free in my work, because I do whatever I want. If I don’t do something today I will do it tomorrow. I don’t have a boss, I am the boss of my own life. I have kept my freedom and I have fought for my freedom.
Altius, citius, fortius – is.
The roots of the discontent are internal, and each person must untangle them personally, with his or her own power.
This paradox of rising expectations suggests that improving the quality of life might be an insurmountable task. In fact, there is no inherent problem in our desire to escalate our goals, as long as we enjoy the struggle along the way. The.
Shaping one’s own reality, living in a world one has created, can be as enjoyable as writing a symphony. No.
But symbols can be deceptive: they have a tendency to distract from the reality they are supposed to represent.
Developing a discriminating palate, like any other skill, requires the investment of psychic energy. But the energy invested is returned many times over in a more complex experience. The.
How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.