“1,000 mini-heartbreaks everyday for a month is better than one epic one that you don’t understand.”
a text I received from a friend going through a tough time
Category: Self
- Theme: Self
Striving breaks symmetry
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1–2 minutesTo be well-rounded implies balance and symmetry. Yet, symmetry seems antithetical to striving: the focus in one direction distending the form.
This analogical thinking uncovers my implicit bias: mathematical shapes as models for humans contain and reduce us. - Theme: Self
Rethinking politeness
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1–2 minutesPoliteness may be beneficial when navigating social systems, showing deference and respect, and reducing anxiety with decorum.
Yet it is also a set of protocols. It mediates personal interactions until you can no longer be sure exactly who somebody is: politeness can be a mask, disguising the real you. - Theme: Self
Negative Identification
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1–2 minutesHow much of our identity do we form around what we are not? This would be negative identification, keeping us concentrated on what we loathe or despise rather than focused on what we love.
This is not a new idea, just one that I need to be reminded of on occasion: your focus determines who you are and the decisions you make. - Theme: Self
The gift of spite
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1–2 minutesYou can give somebody, your children for instance, the gift of having somebody to spite, allowing yourself to be the target of animosity.
If we say "you can become whatever you want," we abdicate reality for dreams. This locates future failure inside of the person: if they fail, it is shamefully on them for not wanting or trying enough.Can we reverse this? Can we offer the gift of realism from which overcoming is legitimately achievable, though producing short-term spite? And in doing so generate practical self-confidence?
- Theme: Self
Inflationary equality
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1–2 minutesIn a more subtle (often subconscious) version of “deflect deny discredit” the person who initially hurts another will justify causing pain by claiming prior wounding. By inflating their previous pain to match your current pain they are no longer at fault: your pain is retroactively deserved.
Feelings cannot be quantified or objectively measured, which allows for easy manipulation and justification according to personal circumstance. Unfortunately, this allows for someone to be the bully while claiming to be a victim by acting in bad faith.
- Theme: Self
Privileging the subjective
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1–2 minutesSoren Kierkegaard distinguishes between objective truth and subjective truth. We can argue empirical (objective) reality while the felt truth of the (subjective) self must be taken at face value.
To deeply understand faith, Jazz music, or falling in love they must be experienced; they cannot be apprehended only through reading or observing.
This leads to a rich set of challenges for how to share and communicate reality with others.
- Theme: Self
Stepping into the Cave
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1–2 minutes“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek” Joseph Campbell
Retrieving the treasure is not nearly as important as being the kind of person who takes that first step into the cave.
- Theme: Self
Smuggling ideas into maturity
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1–2 minutesOnce established as an authority something becomes elitist, and through it’s inaccessibility it invokes a top-down pressure of wisdom and virtuousness.
One reaction is to affirm the structure, aligning yourself with its importance. Another is to contrarily declaim the authority, assigning yourself as a pure individual outside the sway of an existing narrative.What is taxing is that these social stances (conformity or rebellion) choose to attack or support the minute something achieves beyond the norm: it’s achievement potential threatens the notion before it can fully mature.
Thus we must hide ideas with benefit, garbing them under the guise of non-negotiable banners, such as individuality.