gain-and-loss Archives - Page 5 of 10

Tag: gain-and-loss

Theme: Growth
self-bondage and choice
decision making, escape, gain-and-loss, identity
July 17, 2023
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1–2 minutes
Hard bondage is coerced and abusive, while soft bondage is when we choose our imprisonment, restricting ourselves, or self-enslaving.
Often there is an aspect of survival in subjugation (soft bondage): the position will help me emotionally, socially, or economically traverse the world’s hardships.
It is familiar to imagine a destitute wife reliant on a callus, abusive husband. But we can also consider the Knight or Soldier, who offers allegiance and loyalty. In both positions, they must self-abnegate and tolerate 1,000 cuts against their personhood to maintain their status.
While the examples are extreme ranges of context, disposition, and agency, we must consider what is voluntary versus compulsory (or obligatory).
The knight undertakes strife for God and King, gaining personal valor, purpose, and authority: the tribe promotes the sacrifice. The dominated individual’s sacrifice is seen not as a sacrifice but as permitted subjugation or failure of choice, thus not a gain or loss to the tribe.
In either case, the role of the submission (self-bondage), according to Erich Fromm, is a choice to escape freedom; that is, the freedom from making choices.
Theme: Growth
Education vs Behavior
gain-and-loss, learning, psychology, willpower
June 21, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
Education is no longer about knowledge acquisition: knowledge is ubiquitous and readily accessible.
Those who succeed acquire skills in “way finding,” which is the direction you will go and the discipline (behavior) that will allow you to get there.
Education is now about equipping people with the tools for “how to succeed” (process) rather than information transmission (download).
Theme: Growth
The Herculean image
gain-and-loss, identity, purpose, self-sabotage
June 14, 2023
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1–2 minutes
The Herculean hero is striving for depth. Constrained by external challenges or internal heroics they are either slaying dragons or destroying themselves.
During times of peace, the hero enacts images of salvation or expiation.
If the image is read shallowly, the hero must conquer the motif repeatedly (continually becoming) leading to self-destruction.
However, if the hero can embody the image with depth, that is to remain within the image rather than use it as instruction, the fantasy image can save rather than destroy.
from James Hillman
Theme: Growth
Freedom is slavery is absurdity
existentialism, freedom, gain-and-loss, purpose
May 29, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
To be free, you must find a purpose beyond yourself. Which is slavery to a purpose.
It will be championed (and reflected) by your friends, which provides a sense of joy.
This freedom that is not freedom, providing you with reflected joy, is absurd. Wallowing in purpose can create a disgusting bureaucrat or motivated altruist, or any manner of thing between.
Be cautious: see it, be wary of it, and yet still maintain a disposition beyond contradictory futility.
Theme: Growth
next time
gain-and-loss, time, willpower
May 21, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
You won’t be perfect. Just try harder and do better next time.
Try to make sure there is a next time.
Theme: Systems
the immanent improvement impulse
escape, gain-and-loss, metaphysics, order
May 11, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
We have an internal compulsion that comes from the survival imperative: perpetual striving.

Even periods of sloth end or become obsessive in as sophisticated, ordered, and avoidant compulsions.
To order our life is a struggle: a persistent fight that burns our energy. Even when there is no witness, which means it is not only a social construct of achievement but an immanent (innate) means of relating to the world.
Theme: Growth
Perfect Procrastinating
gain-and-loss, insecurity, procrastination, productivity
April 6, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
A common trait of the procrastinator is an inability to prioritize.
They can be productive and busy without achievement.
One method is to be a “perfectionist” who can never release your projects into reality, constantly tweaking and rebuilding, and worrying.
By blaming the project, we can hide our insecurity. A flawed product released into the world will provoke criticism, and prove our lack of talent. A theoretical project never realized shelters our ego: I may not be successful, but you can’t say I am not talented.
More than likely, the procrastinator is hiding rather than perfecting, but occasionally a masterpiece is achieved, which only empowers more procrastination.
Theme: Self
Tech progress as fragility by design
art, gain-and-loss, strength-and-weakness, technology
April 4, 2023
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1–2 minutes
A car that uses computers and plastics to achieve more miles per gallon but only lasts ten years, and can only be repaired by highly specialized technicians, has a higher overall cost than its purported savings.
There are still VW Beetles running nearly 100 years after production. The cost of making an object one time (rather than ten objects), which can be repaired by a neighbor with a bit of savvy, has proven more cost-effective, human-empowering, and environmentally beneficial than all of our refined tweaking and regulations.
Our habit of promoting "advancement" or "progress" robs the populace of agency. We have created a society where we outsource problems and purchase for shallow novelty: by design, these traits create fragility through dependence.
Theme: Self
The proximity trap of sin
connection, ethics, gain-and-loss, isolation
April 3, 2023
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1–2 minutes
To sin is to "miss the mark," and the consequence of sin is the distance from God.
However, in God’s shadow, the close proximity creates hell.
The further we wander, the more extravagantly we "miss the mark," and the freer we become by escaping the gravity of the goal. The mark becomes impossible to hit at some magical distance, thus irrelevant.
Theme: Growth
the time problem with saving environment
gain-and-loss, nature, productivity, time
March 17, 2023
°
1–2 minutes
People have a difficult time living out a set of principles that will bear fruit in 200 years.
It is difficult to sacrifice your life today (and endure the pain now) for a distant future that you will not know. More difficult is assuming your sacrifice in the present will be appreciated with a commensurate level of responsibility by future generations.