What is my individuality good for?
If it’s only to help myself (the "I"-dentity feeding the "me"), and everyone else follows the same example, it seems we only quicken the solipsistic fracturing community, and hence the world.
Tag: identity
- Theme: Self
The Crowd and You
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1–2 minutesYou can merge with society to fit in and gain solidarity and comfort. But only you can be you, and great innovation comes from the fringes, not the middle.
Vacillating between solitude (singularity) and solidarity (belonging) is a practice we must cultivate. - Theme: Self
The paradox of self-compassion
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1–2 minutesThe paradox of self-compassion is that it is not selfish: once you fully face your flaws and accept you are merely human, you more easily forgive others for their foibles.
- Theme: Self
Self-narration prison
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1–2 minutesWe spend the majority of our lives in our head, crafting our dramas, articulating rebuttals. We are not happy there, yet refuse to leave.
Meanwhile nature is rustling. The minute you let go and pay attention, a supreme peace can be upon you.
- Theme: Self
Empathy wins, and loses
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1–2 minutesOne enlightenment tactic is broader and broader empathy: if you are empathetic for a person, I am empathetic for people; if you are empathetic for animals, I am empathetic for rocks as well.
To win, move from the individual particular, to the abstract universal.
Going meta is not love: true empathy is staying here in the messy particulars. - Theme: Growth
For Progress Revert
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1–2 minutesTo progress we can revert. This seems contradictory: to move into the future by embodying our past self rather than attempting to become something new.
Yet, often there is a conceit in novelty that side-tracks us for decades, while a reversion to core alignment is more beneficial than continual wandering. - Theme: Self
Death is Lucky
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1–2 minutesDo not forget, amidst your self-becoming, the foundational mystery that you are alive and aware in a bizarre universe. Ground yourself in the realization that to “realize” is lucky.
To die is lucky: in one sense because you ever lived, and in another because you are not immortal.
“Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?/I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.” ~ Walt Whitman - Theme: Self
Protect yourself from yourself
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1–2 minutesDon’t wear yourself out.
Seriously. It just isn’t worth it to gain praise or even self-affirmation. Work hard, but know your limits.
(This comes from a continual battle with migraines.)
- Theme: Self
Empathy transforms individuals into us
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1–2 minutesComforting a hurting friend hurts, because we support (share and enable) their emotions to support them.
Empathy is taking on their hurt. We lose ourselves for solidarity, in order to pull them from solitude, transforming the distinct people into “us.”