How will you ever find yourself if you don’t practice?
Most of life is training us how to conform to social standards.
To be unique you must practice strengthening your spontaneity and openness.
Tag: strength-and-weakness
- Theme: Culture
Creativity: to rebel against your foundation
°
1–2 minutesOur attempt for surety (or fixity) is a draw to stable descriptors of the world by which we may navigate.
We may push off from these mythologies and extend ourselves further.
This leap is the creative impulse: to rebel directly against the foundation on which we stand.
To cling desperately to the foundation without jumping is not life. Adhering to tradition as salvation is death.
- Theme: Growth
Is Comfort Cowardice?
°
1–2 minutesWhat is the relationship between comfort and cowardice?
It seems the trap of comfort provokes cowardice: doing the easy thing as a way to avoid doing the right thing.
There may be times when the easy thing is the right thing, but do not allow yourself to mistake the "feeling of ease" as a sign of a decision’s rightness. - Theme: Self
The Evil of Expediency
°
1–2 minutesIt is not in anyone s political interest to stand up for you. To do so incurs risk without expedient reward.
We must live beyond expediency: it makes cowards of us all.
The evil consequence of waiting (i.e., letting others fight their own battles) hardens those we should cherish into callow monsters and slick-talking relativists.
- Theme: Self
Strength Erasing Diversity
°
1–2 minutesWe are taught "absolute power corrupts," but simplify the concept into a more daily reality: strength leads to abuse.
We can further simplify the concept of strength into physicality (a more Spartan view of strength). At the same time, mass consensus (The Cultural Revolution in China) leads to tyranny by "cutting down the tall poppies;" the strong or unique.
It is easy to attenuate "strength" into a physical characteristic, but the more insidious power is to erase diversity in the name of unity. - Theme: Self
The cure for pain
°
1–2 minutesWhen you are the center of the world, every emotional pain is amplified. The pain gets trapped in a loop becoming stronger and more hurtful.
The cure is to care more about something outside of yourself.
- Theme: Self
The danger of being within reach of success
°
1–2 minutesWhen we feel close to successful completion is when we are the most vulnerable, most prone to error.
We do not pause or re-orient, we simply push harder. - Theme: Self
Vulnerability solutions
°
1–2 minutesOption 1: Become a sponge, solvency requires absorption
Option 2: Neutralize toxicity by sharing commonality - Theme: Self
The strength of vulnerability
°
1–2 minutesThe paradox: to be secure you must open up.
One year ago, I was too fragile to be vulnerable, which led to more isolation and fragility: protective defense doesn’t work. - Theme: Self
Vulnerability for Trust
°
1–2 minutesVulnerability reveals brokenness, and this allows for trust.
Recognition of mutuality leads to communion. Not hierarchy or perfection, not abstractions of should and good.