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When we think of selfish people, we tend to think of egotists: people who disregard our feelings in favor of their pride.
However, a self-centered person could also care too much about what others think of them. An insecure, self-centered person needs your feelings.
It may look like compassion at first, but this is only to build rapport before they reaffirm themself through your feelings.
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An old idea, but a good one: being crazy (or psychotic) is based on looking at a point of normalcy outside yourself, reflecting upon an internal point, and discerning how well you align.
The difficulty is, when you are a sane person in a sick world, you must perform sickness to appear sane.
And to go further: "You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.” Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
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Hosteter’s law says projects you undertake will always take longer than you think, even when you account for adding time.
And yet another adage is "the time you allot to do any task is how long it will take," if you will work within the time you are given.
For example, if decide to spend one hour, it will take an hour and a half, but if you plan for an hour and a half it will probably take 2 hours. Yet if you allot 2 hours (thinking it will take one) it will take more time. But even if you allot four hours you will stretch the project into the four hours, and probably not be done.
Reality seems to fight back in an exponential fashion, in which we always lose. Planning seems not to coincide with how we see reality.
Yet the conundrum of not planning is never to achieve.
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An analogy to life through art: the path to completion is always more effort, more thinking, more networking, and, of course, more rebuilding and refinement of the object and practice. And yet sometimes you simply fail, and the unfinished piece is the archive of failure.
There is a moment that tells you this process/object/relationship can never be salvaged, and yet some of the greatest works are when you irrationally push through.
Yet, this is also a recipe for burnout.
Distinguishing between the two is the art.
True failure is not recognizing when failure is inevitable.
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There is a tendency to grasp tighter as something slips away: fight harder to retain what was.
Another approach to loss is through sports: you give it all you have and leave it all on the field. Shake hands and walk away. You just need to know when the final buzzer is sounding.
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When you are anxious, or under anxiety, you don’t feel profound. You just feel like you need to be speaking or doing something.
Aggravation generates action. This is a bodily response springing from a psychological state.
Soothe the mind to soothe the soul, and the body will follow.
The first step, of course, is recognition, and then allow yourself to map out the stress into what you can solve and what you can’t.
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Don’t get stuck in your subconscious patterns: you are worth more than you think.
There are places we do not go unless prodded by a concerned party. Don’t shrug off positive prodding.
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To believe in rationality (the empirical process of science) is to establish the virtue of logic. This tends to defend against mythical narratives, such as God/Heaven and cult promises of the super-sensory variety.
However, to dedicate yourself to a purpose (a grand common task) from which we can achieve more often requires irrational motivations: to go to the moon is silly. Still, the scientific byproduct has been eminently practical.
Leaving room for inane thick desires is often irrationality, but that does not mean it does not serve a rational purpose retroactively.
