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To desire is to want something beyond you, and in approaching it your psychology dredges forth all the pains of wanting and not receiving, all the failures of the past.
Even if we receive what we crave it disgorges the toxins simultaneously, causing us to flinch away as we grasp, causing sabotage as we approach fulfillment.
This desire/repulsion creates a loop of approach and retreat: a self-frustrating and painful cycle.
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We need reason in order to have conversations. The shared ability to equate symbolic sounds with objects and concepts allows societies to build and thrive. Good faith in normative standards of discourse is known as "communicative rationality."
Yet, emotion is vital to focus: to be competitive (to feel threat or joy and pride) drives us to learn faster, and generate results.
To sever reason from emotion is to no longer have a reason to reason.
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Society 1: In a mad scramble to survive, every action must produce results, so any experimentation is out of desperation. If your risk pays off, you realize your lucky gains, consolidate, and undercut any competitors.
Society 2: With a social safety net, your risk is mitigated. Knowledge (gleaned through failure) becomes a practice of re-application, collaboration is commonplace, and overall success flourishes.
Fear of failure in an individualistic society engenders competition and sabotage. Support societies encourage communal progress rather than taking out your opponent.
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When life is too good or rich for too long, we experience a complete flattening.
At the extremes, it is anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure.
While pressures perpetually increase, humans function in cycles (or seasons), not in ever-escalating trajectories. Withdrawal from "the good" is necessary to reset and enable yourself to experience joy.
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There are moments of renewal, where you have returned to a generous version of yourself: the thing that would’ve disrupted you yesterday is a laughable matter today.
The ability to recognize that you are not a consistent self, but an emotionally driven collection of circumstances is vital to maintaining the best version of yourself.
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When you’re fed up and want to break the system, introduce and perform what is lacking.
Our current capital-driven system praises intelligence and polite compromise.
To counter it, you can manifest an inversion tactic that embodies disenfranchised values (for instance) by effectuating emotional irrationalities and unwavering integrity.
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To become happy, self-center by engaging your body.
Open yourself (mentally and bodily) to the outer world instead of the inner monologue.
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Images sway us more than concepts.It is easier to find emotional resonance with a visual symbol cut free of context because the image does not correct you the way reality would.
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Please return to something you were once good at and rediscover joy.
The world can taint and warp our desires, turning spontaneous happiness into capitalized products and behaviors. Going back to that one thing from childhood can cut through the enveloping layers of despair, cynicism, and falsity to recover the glow inside.
