Behind your individuality (that is, your sensations unified into experiences that constitute your personality) lays life itself.
It was there before you were you.
As a child, you exhibited peculiarities but not subjective identity, yet life itself was valued before the complication of personality coalesced.
Tag: fear
- Theme: Self
Don’t be afraid to lose yourself.
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1–2 minutes - Theme: Self
Anxiety as Control
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1–2 minutesSharing your anxiousness has a goal: forcing others to take note and show their caring.
The loss of control that causes anxiety is relieved by reaffirming your status with others: your pain controls others; thus, you have some agency in the world.
- Theme: Self
The Fight Only Lasts a Minute
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1–2 minutesConfrontation is a fight. A fight only lasts a minute, but how you feel (scared or content) can last your whole life.
You can avoid the minute for decades, letting it haunt and shape you, or spend one minute to know you took action to save the rest of your life.
~ Teddy Atlas - Theme: Self
The problem of wanting nothing
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1–2 minutesPersonal realization: I don’t want anything. I only wish to feel no discomfort.
The unfortunate aspect of this epiphany is the corresponding lack of drive and a tendency towards avoidance.
It is not life-affirming, and without active purpose, I am subconsciously afloat and vulnerable to manipulation.
- Theme: Growth
Locomotive Ambition
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1–2 minutesMotion, that is, movement or locomotion, is necessary to perceive our environment. Thinking evolved from mapping out space: finding what the environment affords and pursuing goals based on your previous location.
The reversal is when we think we move: if anxious or neurotic, we compulsively fidget.We are (mostly) not coerced to move for survival. Instead, we have internalized the threat of expulsion and channeled it into ambitious energy, productivity, and discontent… often marked by a compulsive twitchiness.
- Theme: Self
size matters: don’t sweat the small stuff
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1–2 minutesThe small stuff may be insignificant, but how do we know which daily actions impact our character, and which to release?
Consider who you want to be in the future and if your present self is mirroring those values or being pulled into anxiety.
We tend to gravitate towards small things because we can control them to soothe our insecurity. However, if we can control them they truly are small things, probably unworthy of anxious behavior that can shift into manipulating or discounting others.
- Theme: Self
Control Controls You
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1–2 minutesControl sounds appealing until it has you: you earned it, now you must submit to the drudgery of maintaining control. There is no longer a challenge of achieving. You are trapped in endless maintenance, which makes the novelty of chaos suddenly appealing.
- Theme: Self
The good boy
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1–2 minutesBeing a ‘good little boy’ keeps us in place, acquiescent to authority. But my little boy is also the one throwing a tantrum at injustice and unfairness.
My little boy is a sensitive optimist overridden by a scared man. Sometimes, I need to forgive the man and allow him to become the child. - Theme: Self
Politeness
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1–2 minutesCivilization functions because of impulse control to such a degree that ‘politeness’ is a virtue. Non-reaction is vital, yet this is not non-judgment.
Our society’s value placed upon the visible appearance rather than the internal struggle condemns us to a cycle of schizophrenic repression and angst in the populace. Hence, we have our meltdowns with a smile. - Theme: Politics
Politics: from Material Conditions to Ideology
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1–2 minutesOnce upon a time, politics was about material conditions: more food or fuel. We have transcended survival into arguing over ideology. This is a success.
Yet, ideology is firmly bound to identity.
When you lose an ideological battle, your material conditions remain relatively stable, yet a vital blow has been struck at how you relate to the world. This makes our politics more dangerous by being less grounded.