It is a paradox to thrive in the world and be harmless. To thrive means you exceed survival, which means you have some skill. You may choose to appear harmless, but with sufficient skill, you are armed for harm.
Tag: growth
- 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.
- Theme: Growth
Failure is inevitable for growth
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1–2 minutesThe pain of failure is also a sign that you are on the right path, because at least you are challenging yourself rather than languishing in soft security.
From this perspective failure is never really failure, because it is merely the cost of taking a risk to grow. - Theme: Self
Peter Pan’s dark shadow
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1–2 minutesThere are multiple versions of the self we show the world. This engenders a “shadow self” anchored to problems and secrets, binding us to failures.
Peter Pan caught his shadow, unwilling to let the dark trickster slip away. The lesson is to integrate the shadow as a dark reflection of ourselves necessary to becoming whole. After all, it is our shadow… no one else’s.
- Theme: Self
Best intentions to help yourself
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1–2 minutesThe little things you do to help yourself often trip you up.
So I won’t forget something, I put it in my pocket, but then it is “out of sight, out of mind” and I walk around looking for it.
It is only by internalizing our system, so that we no longer remember to remember, that we truly help ourselves.
- Theme: Self
Growth is Pain
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1–2 minutesTo want to grow is to embrace pain.
Growing requires stretching, breaking, and failing so that you become more. Growth can be forced upon you by external circumstances, which are never as kind as taking it upon yourself to start the journey.
A little pain for a little growth everyday seems like no pain, it can even feel like pleasure, while all the pain all at once can crush us.
- Theme: Growth
Writing is learning
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1–2 minutesWriting well means you learn from the writing. Which is why it takes so long, is so taxing, and you end the day exhausted from the good pursuit of growth.
What is amazing is that writing well (with a critical eye) means you learn about yourself, and the thing you write about. No teacher: just writing it down generates insight.