496 notes and writings
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- liminal spaces
Liminality, from the Latin limen, threshold, is the state of being between identities, states or worlds.
- intellectual orthodoxy of science
Willis Harman held that consciousness and matter are intertwined and that science’s mechanistic assumptions had become self-limiting.
- breath of inspiration and individuality
Two breaths may be similar but never the same: each inhale and exhale makes a new connection with the world around us.
- confused dictatorships of prosperous liberal democracies
Those who have never known tyranny can mistake their own elected governments for evil dictatorships conniving to take away their rights.
- maturity vs means of obtaining approval
Good looks, absolute unselfishness, superman ideas: habits that once won affection and approval turn compulsive when they threaten to fail.
- brain spinal column pelvic nerves information transfer
The spinal column carries emotions down the same pipe as sexual signals, so “What the hell am I doing here?” can drown out arousal.
- authoritarian regimes engineer desires
Authoritarian regimes win not when they control people’s actions but when they control their desires, teaching prisoners to love their cells.
- spiral of silence
People fall silent when they believe no one shares their opinion, and their silence deepens the very isolation it springs from.
- this is why artists are modest
Artists are modest because they know they are not doing the work, only taking dictation.
- Senex and puer in Hillman
Senex is heavy with time, order and tradition; puer is light, adventurous and idealistic, raising the spirits but prone to crashing down.
- all work and no play
The expression “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” dates to 1659 and became a disturbing motif in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
- right systems negotiate price of success
If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it, and the right system makes that price negotiable.
- The Courage to Be Disliked
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga present Adlerian psychology as a philosophy of individual empowerment.
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