Challenges are opportunities for insight – the harder the situation the higher the view.
Category: Theme
Talkerism
In the world of work, a meeting without creating an output of value is a drain on energy and time. Incessant thinking is the perpetual meeting in the head; and if it is just going over and over the same issues without providing constructive insight, then it is pointless at best, destructive at worst. Outside this room of perpetual thinking is the freedom to notice and enjoy what is happening, instead of what you are imagining.
Journal 2020-11-13
If you are truly happy, it is impossible to be petty, self-absorbed or unkind. Happiness lives in a much better place.
Journal 2020-11-09
If you choose to share in the happiness of others, rather than compulsively dwelling on negatives, then you have happiness for free.
Journal 2020-11-08
I seem to get satisfaction out of pushing myself physically – maybe because in my mind I am subscribing to the motto “no pain, no gain”. A variation on the theme is that anything initially perceived as negative can be viewed as part of a greater improvement process.
Off and On
The old line with IT is that if you want a problem fixed “turn it off then on again”. The reason is that resetting can untangle mixed-up memory and processes.
The mind if not switched-off will often relentlessly loop on the same set of thoughts, gradually wearing you down, sometimes with its own errors and fictions.
There are exercises that help you apply the IT solution, and they’ve worked for thousands of years.
The Compassion Override
In history there are countless examples where twisted interpretations of beliefs lead to the justification, or even glorification, of murderous and sadistic tendencies. Such beliefs give a person an identity in opposition to and superiority over other people, who can be condemned and abused from a position of personal righteousness.
True compassion serves as a natural safety valve to corrupted belief, for the overriding question is always: am I alleviating suffering or causing it?
Journal 2020-10-30
Original thinkers, artists and spiritual figures often had some of their best insights in the wilderness, in periods of solitude, outside of bustling society. Distance from the current melees gives a person a better perspective of the whole picture. More generally, insiders of the throng who are unaware of their predicament are condemned to behave as they think they are supposed to, blind to anything more than the current array of behaviours, even in extreme cases where it is insane.
Journal 2020-10-29
All human beings are unique.
Uniqueness doesn’t have a category.
Categories confine a life to a label stamped on the head.
Categories are boxed, ordered and under control.
Categories deny humanity.
Journal 2020-10-28
Demanding how other people think is a type of violent control, asserting oneself over them; seeing the multifaceted world, with endless possibilities, through just one dimension.
Rob Walker 