We are told the integrated, always-on individual is the ideal. But centuries of tested knowledge say otherwise: we need separation and gaps. Worse, "rest" has been colonized by work — valued only as recovery, a derivative of labor. It has lost its own ground entirely.
Tag: self care
- Theme: Self
democracy rests on the noble lie
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1–2 minutesPlato’s ideal, where power serves the state, relies on politicians—driven by ambition and enacting symbolic rituals and fictions—to unify the masses for action.
Platitudes, pleasantries, and noble values mask the lie of nobility, which sustains democracy by thwarting the most outrageous, blunt, strongman tactics as ignoble, undemocratic, and unworthy: the noble lie checks the liar.
Democracy’s strength should be redirecting such pretentious rhetoric (lies) from personal power into state power, thwarting the rise of dictators or monarchs as their ambition is subsumed and sublated for the benefit of all.
- Theme: Self
Struggle is Freedom
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1–2 minutesReality is what pushes back against your agency: the easier it is, the more you belong to someone else.
- Theme: Self
begging for trouble
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1–2 minutesFirst, we should know not to poison ourselves for a high.
We love weird, violent, drama-filled television and media, and yet it upsets our dreams and arouses anxiety and suspicion. We then drink alcohol to mute the feelings that we provoke.
Simultaneously, we don’t work out, which counterintuitively leads us to eat worse: we either rush towards disaster or dive into self-improvement but can’t maintain a moderate stance.Humans are oddly compulsive; even when we move in the right direction, we overdo it, begging for trouble at every turn.
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– - Theme: Self
An alliance with discomfort
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1–2 minutesPain, often perceived as a deterrent, paradoxically fosters growth.
New insights are generated in our attempts to avoid discomfort. Pain, compels, preventative, actions, which, which spurs us to novel actions and behaviors.
Embracing pain as a feedback mechanism, although seemingly masochistic, can generate positive results: a resilience to low-grade discomfort could prevent long-term pain. This shifts the adversarial relationship into an alliance, if kept in check with specific goals.
In our more therapeutic culture, pain, avoidance, is seen as self-care, but it also promotes self indulgence as procrastination. The inability to make a short term ally of discomfort leads to long-term painful consequences in terms of self-worth and reliability.
- Theme: Self
comedic grounding
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1–2 minutesComedy often employs the technique of contrasting highbrow symbols with vulgar ones.
The highbrow symbol, which is essentially a façade, is flipped or inverted to create a sense of ridicule. This juxtaposition allows us to rediscover our humanity by highlighting the absurdity of high-mindedness and the relatability of vulgarity.
- Theme: Self
Freedom comes from restriction
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1–2 minutesWhy should you struggle when you can have a mediocre life for free? To have a great life.
Freedom of possibility comes from growth, not mediocrity. Paradoxically, your options for living expand when you fully engage specific restrictions.
Not all restrictions (not all submissions) help, but those that allow you to maintain focus and process emotions in a non-destructive manner create resilience and wisdom that will enable you to move freely through the world, unhampered by the anxiety and disorders that plague others.
- Theme: Systems
the gremlin in the machine
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1–2 minutesWhen you are working on a complex machine, or maybe even a simple device like a bicycle, its ability to thwart you repeatedly, despite your persistent efforts, feels like you are struggling against the stubborn will of another person.
Machines seem to possess a will: a determined antagonistic force that requires arcane psychological voodoo to overcome.
To get your way and coax the cantankerous machine to abide by your control (temporarily) requires an affinity that finds life in the inanimate: a gremlin or golem soul invested in the stuttering steel to whom relational attunement cedes benefit.
- Theme: Self
Arts and fundamentalism
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1–2 minutesThe artist comes from a mindset of plenty, while a fundamentalist sees society as a fallen place where the only path back to "the good" is through restriction.
These two viewpoints are fundamentally opposed: you cannot have fundamentalist art.
This is not to say that fundamentalists cannot be creative, but their creation is inverted into negation.
from "the war of art" by Steven Pressfield
- Theme: Self
The ease of being known
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1–2 minutesThe ease of being known through long-term relationships provides a day off from appeasement and mediated behavior.
Of course, behavior patterns and concessions (reversals) are made, but the established familiarity does not require the exhausting drives of producing momentary charm or establishing dominance.