Supposedly punitive self-flagellation trains you not to make the same mistakes. However, the cycles of rumination embed negativity, leading to repetition and catastrophizing.
Equally, these behaviors happen internally, pulling you out of the present reality to focus attention inward.
Attention is a precious light: by focusing you prioritize. By beating yourself up you miss out on the world, the only place you can find redemption.
Tag: identity
- Theme: Self
Self-flagellation alienates you from the world
°
1–2 minutes - Theme: Self
Self-interest v Equality
°
1–2 minutesAdam Smith said our economy is based on self-interest, which seemingly relegates equity, equality, and altruism to symbolic social cries.
The story goes that material reality (foundational) allows contradictory wishes and dreams (philosophical/ideological) to ride atop it. Our economy encourages the symbolic virtues as a distraction and abundant energy source.
Yet, let’s consider that cooperation and collaboration maintain functional economies. Virtues of trust and loyalty (beyond self-interest or reason) are the foundation upon which parasitic, disruptive economies establish themselves. In this reversal, the parasite has convinced us it is the host, and every man must be for themself. - Theme: Self
Impulse to manufacture
°
1–2 minutesWhen we have a spare moment, it is a survival imperative to look around and act: to plan or consume, to create.
Thoughtfully progressing from the external inward, we self-assess and label our feelings to more deftly acknowledge and manifest them.
We constantly manufacture and work to maintain a state instead of just being here.
- Theme: Self
Emotional you: your best self
°
1–2 minutesThere 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.
- Theme: Growth
Destruction for Difference
°
1–2 minutesIndividualism is not building-up-towards or revealing-the-self, but destruction of the common, which translates as novel difference.
The seduction of new knowledge is arcane insights, which dissolves social norms for self separation. The knowledge -an alchemical agent for change- need not be new, merely distinct.
(Those who do not destroy the common are conformists, hence not individuals in this sense.)
- Theme: Self
if uniqueness is penultimate, then…
°
1–2 minutesWe assume more liberty will allow unique individuality to flourish.
But what if freedom primarily promotes libidinal fulfillment, which is entirely predictable and unoriginal?
What if, instead, uniqueness comes from neuroticism? What if repressive constriction, inane repetition, and no-win contradictions lead to novel differences?
Then liberal progress may not be the path to originality. - Theme: Self
Don’t be afraid to lose yourself.
°
1–2 minutesBehind 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. - Theme: Self
Is happiness simply not being stuck in your head?
°
1–2 minutesTo become happy, self-center by engaging your body.
Open yourself (mentally and bodily) to the outer world instead of the inner monologue. - Theme: Self
Defensive much?
°
1–2 minutesWhy would you ever defend yourself? To explain enriches a narrative, both revealing and contextualizing, but when justifying one assumes there is a "self" (ego/identity) that needs protection or forgiveness.
The defense of an illusory ego invites reliance on the opinion of others as a guiding principle. Over time "you" cease to be a genuine individual and become a supplicant for their acceptance.
- Theme: Self
Therapize Everything
°
1–2 minutesWe therapize everything. We use language to displace feelings and concepts, recognizing them by naming them. The naming convention allows solutions through distance, but it also alters self-perception and dissuades real solutions.
For example, your pain and anxiety are diagnosed as depression, yet naming and medicating shifts focus to the individual’s inability to cope, alleviating the need to alter the more extensive societal structure of poverty that generates chronic anxiety.
For example, your rage against the machine is justified, but rather than harnessing that empowering emotion for change, you should cultivate self-love until you can bear the brutality.