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It is not in anyone s political interest to stand up for you. To do so incurs risk without expedient reward.
We must live beyond expediency: it makes cowards of us all.
The evil consequence of waiting (i.e., letting others fight their own battles) hardens those we should cherish into callow monsters and slick-talking relativists.
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To know who you are, quit chasing and adding. Try restricting your activities. Your increase in focus will be more revealing.
By quitting most things, you give the remaining items more importance and intensity, and in their growth, you find yourself.
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What does it mean to “live in fear?” How does fear misshape us over time into petty and cruel things?
Can we redeem ourselves with one moment of bravery at the end? If so, your redemption could more easily take place right now: being brave now (looking within) saves a lifetime of inflicting pain around you.
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Going into the lion’s den is entering a space of performance seeded with risk: a situation where you cannot be who you are.
It is a space where victory is survival. Yet the lion’s den can function as a crucible or oracle of insight: this is the world and us within it.
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To achieve we must be productive, garnering accolades which reaffirm your role and status within society. Achievement grants respect, and perhaps a kind of love.
The darker side is that the more you do the greater the odds of failure or attacking polarization, which can lead to a cycle of more achievement to stabilize and counteract your compromised role (respect).
Unfortunately, doing “even more” also increases the odds of second order consequences and unintended harm. Yet, to refuse the challenging cycle of achievement (to do nothing) robs any potential for positive consequences.
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We are trained since childhood to be users, and by this I mean owners… not necessarily makers or thinkers.
We are prepared by "choice architectures" designed to train us how to be, how to fit pieces together, and how to enact roles. Even "creativity" is an act designed for us, a role we play.
To be creative we must see the role, and move beyond it.
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Serious, grave people full of concern, caring, and -most importantly-compassion often attempt to decide how the world should be for everyone else.
The trap is obvious: considerate goodness is, of course, something we must support. But whose goodness leads to whose sacrifice, for whose "greater good?"
As promising, judgmental people rush to out-empathy each other, there are ways to help the greater good that do not decide, but provide options.
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Decisions are made for you through design. We tend to be unaware (or unreactive), and so we are pliable to the "nudges" and manipulations of others. Since nothing is neutral, what are the implications of each decision? If we make something easier, more convenient, what does that teach?
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Many mistakes are made because we skip the basics of reality and perception.
Try to stay curious and start off engaging at the most basic level. When you skip forward into your complex biases and preferences, it is all about you, not reality.
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Fluctuating moods come from caring about others: to connect is to risk stability.
Simplistically, you can sit on the shore, drown, or learn to surf. The problem is that surfing requires an inhuman mastery of persistent balance.
There must be an effortless way to do all three simultaneously: collapse the wave.
