Belly Button Lint

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Tag: vision

  • Theme:

    to de-frag the self is tyrannical

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    1–2 minutes

    There exists within you an "economy of selves." However, let’s call it a community or a troupe, where each personality (or partition) with its concomitant desires proclaims its importance to running the whole self.
    In such a case, to remain entire the whole must sacrifice to save the fragment.

    Some parts of you must do things harmful to other parts, essentially triaging desires. The whole will always be sick (divided against itself) because of this.

    The difficulty of a singular self (or universality) to emerge, or to transcend to an ideal state, is the need to either rid or harmonize discord. Optimizing the self is radically tyrannical to the self.

  • Theme:

    Out maneuver Yourself

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    1–2 minutes

    Our ability to forecast motivations leads us to form expectations. Conforming to our predictions, we extrapolate seemingly rational actions or behaviors.

    This most often looks like a crafted argument dropped onto the unsuspecting. Or we create a routine for optimal results so complicated (obsessive) that we can’t remember.

    This excessive manufacturing and maneuvering becomes second nture: a series of defenses. Unfortunately, they prevent us from encountering the world as it is.

  • Theme:

    the world is no longer yours but you can participate in it

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    1–2 minutes

    When you reach a certain point, you realize this is not your world, not your future, and you may never fit in.
    This does not mean you should retreat. This is the freedom to avoid conformity and participate as the weirdo you are.

  • Theme:

    ambivalence at the end

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    1–2 minutes

    At the end one can rage or approach the inevitable with a clarity that appears as ambivalence.
    It is not ambivalence or complacency but wisdom: dignity and grace in the face of the inevitable.

  • Theme:

    true kindness

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    1–2 minutes

    The unpleasant thing is to be honestly precise rather than passively ambiguous.

    Contrary to the stereotype of kindness, politeness can mask avoidance, producing a pain of confusion far more significant than the sting of a momentary correction.

    It is ultimately kinder to be clear than to allow the delusion that you are kind.

  • Theme:

    First and last impressions

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    1–2 minutes

    First sight overwhelms.
    In between, we hardly look afresh.
    Last sight refreshes the familiar into something clear, enriched with a depth of experience that births it as novel once again.

  • Theme:

    Don’t rush in

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    1–2 minutes

    I always want to jump in, to defend myself or others, interrupting the unfolding tension and drama.

    But just wait. Give the other person the courtesy of completing their tale: rest in the tension because the outcome may surprise you.

  • Theme:

    How you fight is as important as why

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    1–2 minutes

    It is not enough to know why you fight: you must fight the right way.
    The ends can not justify the means unless they are in accordance with the spirit of your values.

    You cannot fight to save lives by taking lives, you cannot fight to save friends by sacrificing friends, you cannot fight for love using hate.
    This seems obvious, but it is far from simple or easy to practice.

  • Theme:

    Feedback from Systemic Distortion

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    1–2 minutes

    The problem with relying on feedback is that it interprets the event and modifies it into an "abstract" (simplified) form.
    Feedback systems are "negative governors" that moderate "positive energy" to attain an equilibrium, but when feedback is distorted, your corrections are distorted.

    The key to destabilizing a system is not a direct attack but warping and weakening the means to sustain it.

    Warping mediating abstractions (such as values or morals) also works on humans. Our social norms are crowdsourced, distort the norms and the values destabilize society.

  • Theme:

    Separating shock from reality

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    1–2 minutes

    Even after a brutal realization, you don’t have to live in it; you can hold it and realize everything that was previously fine is still.
    We tend to retroactively extend trauma into the past while manifesting it into our future, but what if we recognize our discomfort as merely a fleeting, subjective, emotional shock?

    Such insight can prevent us from shaping the world and our relations to fit our moods.