https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/All Is Well in the Great MessHugoen-USThu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260910181824/Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260910181824/<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
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<p>‘<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2331100/">Walk With Me</a>
’ is a meditative film about a community of Zen Buddhist monks and nuns who have dedicated their lives to mastering the art of mindfulness with their world-famous teacher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh">Thích Nhât Hanh</a>
.</p>
<p>This clip from the documentary shows a young girl whose dog has died and who is telling him about it.</p>
<p><em>“I had a doggy and my doggy died and I was very sad,”</em> she said. <em>“So I don’t know how to be not so sad.”</em></p>
<p>Thích Nhât Hanh looked at her with great compassion and he said, <em>“This is a very difficult question. Suppose you look up into the sky and you see a beautiful cloud, and you like the cloud so much, and suddenly the cloud is no longer there.”</em> He added, <em>“And you think that the cloud has passed away. Where is my beloved cloud now?”</em></p>
<p>But he then offered, <em>“So if you have time to reflect, to look, you’ll see that the cloud has not died, has not passed away. The cloud has become the rain. And when you look at the rain you see your cloud.”</em></p>
<p>And he continued, <em>“And when you drink your tea mindfully, you can see the rain in your tea, and your cloud in your tea, and you can say ‘Hello, my cloud! I know you have not died. You are still alive in a new form.”</em></p>
<p><em>“So doggy is the same,”</em> he said as he looked to her. <em>“And if you look really deeply, you can see doggy in its new form.”</em></p>
<p>He words were met with an understanding smile from the girl. You could tell she really got what he had said.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260909211427/Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260909211427/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/S5xo3KCg.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260620100000/Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260620100000/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/wOoJE2Nh.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260910160800/Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/20260910160800/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/NKHXb89f.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-egg/Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:28:29 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-egg/<p><em>By: Andy Weir</em></p>
<p>You were on your way home when you died.</p>
<p>It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.</p>
<p>And that’s when you met me.</p>
<p>“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”</p>
<p>“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.</p>
<p>“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”</p>
<p>“Yup,” I said.</p>
<p>“I… I died?”</p>
<p>“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.</p>
<p>You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”</p>
<p>“More or less,” I said.</p>
<p>“Are you god?” You asked.</p>
<p>“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”</p>
<p>“My kids… my wife,” you said.</p>
<p>“What about them?”</p>
<p>“Will they be all right?”</p>
<p>“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”</p>
<p>You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”</p>
<p>“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”</p>
<p>“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”</p>
<p>You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”</p>
<p>“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”</p>
<p>“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”</p>
<p>“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”</p>
<p>I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.</p>
<p>“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”</p>
<p>“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”</p>
<p>“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”</p>
<p>“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”</p>
<p>“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”</p>
<p>“Where you come from?” You said.</p>
<p>“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”</p>
<p>“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”</p>
<p>“So what’s the point of it all?”</p>
<p>“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”</p>
<p>“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.</p>
<p>I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”</p>
<p>“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”</p>
<p>“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”</p>
<p>“Just me? What about everyone else?”</p>
<p>“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”</p>
<p>You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”</p>
<p>“All you. Different incarnations of you.”</p>
<p>“Wait. I’m everyone!?”</p>
<p>“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.</p>
<p>“I’m every human being who ever lived?”</p>
<p>“Or who will ever live, yes.”</p>
<p>“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”</p>
<p>“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.</p>
<p>“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.</p>
<p>“And you’re the millions he killed.”</p>
<p>“I’m Jesus?”</p>
<p>“And you’re everyone who followed him.”</p>
<p>You fell silent.</p>
<p>“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”</p>
<p>You thought for a long time.</p>
<p>“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”</p>
<p>“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”</p>
<p>“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”</p>
<p>“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”</p>
<p>“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”</p>
<p>“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”</p>
<p>And I sent you on your way.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/dont-quit/Sun, 12 Mar 2023 17:25:58 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/dont-quit/<blockquote>
<p>When things go wrong as they sometimes will,<br>
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,<br>
When the funds are low and the debts are high<br>
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,<br>
When care is pressing you down a bit,<br>
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit</p>
<p>Life is strange with its twists and turns<br>
As every one of us sometimes learns<br>
And many a failure comes about<br>
When he might have won had he stuck it out;<br>
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow<br>
You may succeed with another blow.</p>
<p>Success is failure turned inside out<br>
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,<br>
And you never can tell just how close you are,<br>
It may be near when it seems so far;<br>
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit<br>
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.</p>
<p>For all the sad words of tongue or pen,<br>
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”</p>
<cite>
<b>John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- 1892)</b>
</cite>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/when-your-bow-is-broken/Tue, 20 Sep 2022 17:24:28 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/when-your-bow-is-broken/<p>Interestingly, “<em>The Book of Mu</em>” cites the following as a waka poem written by an old Japanese Zen Master.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When your bow is broken and your arrows are exhausted,<br>
There, shoot!<br>
Shoot with your whole being!</p>
<p>– <cite>The Book of Mu</cite></p>
</blockquote>
<p>While an internet search has the following line written by Roger Zelazny, an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent,<br>
then shoot,<br>
shoot with your whole heart.</p>
<p>– <cite>Roger Joseph Zelazny</cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/leaves/Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:22:35 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/leaves/<blockquote>
<p>The prisoners of infinite choice<br>
Have built their house<br>
In a field below the wood<br>
And are at peace.</p>
<p>It is autumn, and dead leaves<br>
On their way to the river<br>
Scratch like birds at the windows<br>
Or tick on the road.</p>
<p>Somewhere there is an afterlife<br>
Of dead leaves,<br>
A stadium filled with an infinite<br>
Rustling and sighing.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the heaven<br>
Of lost futures<br>
The lives we might have led<br>
Have found their own fulfilment.<br>
<cite><br>
<b>Derek Mahon</b>, The Snow Party (Oxford University Press 1975).<br>
</cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/do-not-believe-in-anything/Sun, 19 Jun 2022 16:48:14 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/do-not-believe-in-anything/<blockquote>
<p>Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not<br>
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do<br>
not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your<br>
religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of<br>
your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have<br>
been handed down for many generations. But after observation and<br>
analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is<br>
conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and<br>
live up to it.</p>
<p>– <cite><a href="https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/do-not-believe-in-anything-simply-because-you-have-heard-it/">Sayagyi U Ba Khin</a></cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/a-cloud-never-dies/Sun, 19 Jun 2022 16:39:35 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/a-cloud-never-dies/<div class="video-container">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stop-chasing-after-so-many-things-ryokan-and-wang-wei/Sun, 19 Jun 2022 16:16:13 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stop-chasing-after-so-many-things-ryokan-and-wang-wei/<p>When I am in need of a sense of perspective, I often turn to the poetry of Ryokan (1758-1831) or Wang Wei (c. 701-761). Ryokan was a Zen monk who lived much of his life in a hut in the wooded hills near the coast of the Sea of Japan. (Present-day Niigata Prefecture.) He is one of the most beloved of Japanese poets, valued for his humility, his simplicity, and his integrity.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;<br>
Every year the green ivy grows longer.<br>
No news of the affairs of men,<br>
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.<br>
The sun shines and I mend my robe;<br>
When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems.<br>
I have nothing to report, my friends.<br>
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.</p>
<p>– <cite>John Stevens (translator), One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan (1977)</cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/kintsukuroi/Sun, 12 Jun 2022 10:19:11 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/kintsukuroi/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/zyZ1xkwG.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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<p>(n.) (v. phr.) “to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that piece is more beautiful for having been broken</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.</p>
<p>Barbara Bloom</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Japan, broken objects are often repaired with gold. The flaw is seens as a unique piece of the object’s history, which adds to its beauty.</p>
<p>Consider this, when you feel broken.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/look-closer/Sun, 10 Apr 2022 14:21:10 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/look-closer/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/1sLXkvAO.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/you-dont-matter/Tue, 15 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/you-dont-matter/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/YJx3OQci.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
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https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-old-man-in-the-park/Sun, 06 Feb 2022 10:57:36 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-old-man-in-the-park/<p>Once there was a young man walking in the street, he was 25 years old and was lost in his thoughts. He was thinking about the future, about his goals, about his purpose in his life, about his family’s health, and also he was thinking about his past, his mistakes, his embarrassments, his bad decisions, and all of these thoughts were making him very anxious and frustrated. He didn’t know what to do with his life, he was 25 years old and going nowhere, with no prospects, no real goals, with nothing planned, his life was passing him by like a flash and he couldn’t keep up. Then he reached a park, the park was huge and had a lot of vegetation, and this intrigued him since he never saw anything quite like that before, and this young man decided to enter the park and explore.</p>
<p>The young man loses himself in the magnificence of the park, and wonders how come he never even saw this park before, how is it that this park has always been there and he never saw it. And he saw several animals in that park just wandering around, just like he was doing. And at some point, he reaches the center of the park, and he notices that there’s only one person at the very center of the park, sitting next to a tree on the floor. He approaches the person and realizes that it’s an old man meditating next to the tree. This old man looked so peaceful and relaxed, like he wasn’t even part of the world, and at the same time like he was in perfect tune with the tranquility and serenity of the park and the wind. The young man was very intrigued by this old man and wanted to ask him how he was so peaceful, but he understood the old man’s meditative state and decided to sit in front of him and wait until the old man finished his meditation.</p>
<p>10 minutes passes, and the old man opens his eyes. To the old man’s surprise, there was a young man in front of him also meditating. The old man didn’t notice the young man approaching him and didn’t hear his footsteps. He was so focused and immersed in his meditative state that he didn’t notice the young man until he opened his eyes. The young man quickly opened his eyes and said hi to the old man, the old man replied back with another hi. The young man excused himself for interrupting his meditation, and explained to the old man that he was so intrigued by his peace that he wanted to ask him about it. The young man asked the old man: How come you are so peaceful? What kind of life have you lived to achieve such peace in this wretched world? I would like to achieve the level of peace that you have achieved.</p>
<p>The old man looked at the young man as if he was studying him, and was silent for about 10 seconds, as if he was thinking very carefully about his words of choice and how he was about to answer the young man’s questions. “Young man”, said the old man, “my life has been a wild ride. I’ve fought in 3 wars. I’ve survived 2 car accidents, my wife died right in my arms as she was battling with cancer and lost, my mother died right in front of me as she was crossing the street and a truck hit her, my father died shortly after my mother, he commited suicide. I was laid off from my job in the middle of my wife’s passing. I was drowned in debts and at some point I lost everything I had. I was homeless. I was a homeless man, with no wife, with no parents, with no money, without any indication of things getting any better in the foreseeable future, with no friends, nothing. The only thing I had at my disposal was my suicidal thoughts and crippling depression and anxiety. My breakfasts consisted of suicidal thoughts. My lunches consisted of panic attacks, and my dinners consisted of pure despair and hopelessness.”</p>
<p>“Until I reached my limit. At that moment I just asked life why? Why is it all happening to me? What did I do so wrong that I have to go through all of this? Why did I lose everything? I was asking all of these questions and the only answers I got was the cold of the street and the even colder looks of the people walking by. So I decided it was enough and I went to the tallest bridge and climbed it to the very top. I was determined to jump, so much so that I already took it for granted, I was already dead and I was just going to make it a reality. My conviction of taking my own life was so great, that right before I jumped, I felt such bliss. I was feeling liberated and blissful, and I was so confused because I was at the worst lowest of my life and yet, at that moment, right before taking my own life, I was feeling the very best I’ve ever felt in my life.”</p>
<p>The young man was intently listening to the old man’s story. The old man continued: “At that very moment I realized what was happening, it’s like a divine answer came right from the heavens. Do you want to know why I was feeling so good at that moment, young man?” the old man asked. The young man replied: “Yes, please tell me sir.”</p>
<p>The old man said: “It was being detached from everything. Right as I was about to take my own life, nothing mattered anymore. Nothing was important to me anymore. At that moment, money was not a concern, my pain was not a concern, not having any friends was not a concern, nothing was important, since I was about to die anyways. At that moment I understood that we feel pain because we are attached to things and people, that having desires is what creates pain in us since by not having something that we want, we feel bad about it. At that moment, since nothing mattered anymore, I was the happiest man alive. Having realized this, I wanted to try my new realization with life and see what happens, afterall, I was going to die anyway, so I had nothing to lose. ”</p>
<p>The old man makes a pause, and thinks profoundly for a moment. After a little while, the old man continued: “The first thing I did was get down from the bridge. Then I decided that the very next thing I was going to do was to let go of all desires. I no longer wanted my wife back, I accepted her departure and let her go. I no longer wanted my parents back, I accepted their departure and let them go. I no longer wanted to have money anymore, I accepted life as it was and continued to move on. I no longer wanted anything anymore. The only thing I wanted was just to sit in a place and feel my own breathing, feel my own body and be still, to sit with my own thoughts and be with them, with my emotions, not trying to understand them nor trying to hide them, but just being with them. And so I did just that. I sat in the corner of a shop where the shadow of the shop was guarding me from the sun, and I started meditating. Then after some time I start to hear money dropping into a plastic cup that was coincidentally just next to me. When I opened my eyes, there were people getting out of the shop and dropping money into that cup. So I had money to eat that day. The same kept happening day by day and I was not worrying about it at all. And then one day a man approaches me and asks me if I want a job at gardening, which I then accepted. So now not only was I having money everyday to eat, but now I had a job. With that job, I managed to save 100 dollars and started a little business of buying candies and I started reselling them in the streets when I was not working. So now I had 2 sources of income. With the money I was earning, I managed enough to get a haircut, several products to clean myself and take care of my hygiene, I bought some clothes, and other goods. Then my sales with the candies doubled after I made that change to my look. I was not worrying about my sales and about tomorrow and about my job, I was just doing what I had to do without worrying about the outcome, completely detached from it. One good day a man saw me selling the candies and he wanted to hire me to be a door to door salesman for his company, I accepted immediately. 1 year passed and I was making 50k in sales, I was doing so well that my boss gave me a promotion to manager. Another year passed and I was making 150k base salary + commissions from sales. At this point in my life, I had regained most of the things I had before, I had new friends, a very nice house, a car, the respect of people, health, money, insurances, practically everything. But there was 1 thing different this time, I was not worrying about any of that this time, I was not worrying about my job, about my friends, about my house, about paying the bills, I was just being, without a care in the world of what was going to happen tomorrow, I just focused in the present and didn’t worry at all about the future. I only wanted to meditate in the free time I had. Then with the clearance of mind that this mindset and meditating had brought me, an idea occurred to me. With the money I was earning, I started an online business. It was not doing very well in the beginning but I just kept going without worrying about the results, just focusing on improving the sales and improving the product and quality of the business, without caring about how it was going to result. And a couple of years pass and voila, the business is making more than a million dollars a month in sales. So there I am with a lot of money, being able to do practically anything I want, and the only desire I had at that moment was to just sit and be, and that, young man, is the reason why I am so peaceful, despite the kind of life I have. I am not attached to anything in this world. I do not care if my business tomorrow goes bankrupt, or if I go homeless again, or if I die. I understood that worrying is pointless and it solves nothing. Everyday I live in the moment and enjoy it as much as I can without worrying what will happen in the future or what will happen with the things I have. It doesn’t matter, you will deal with it eventually when they happen, but you are here now, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow but you do know what is happening now. Enjoying the present and being detached from everything is the reason why I am so peaceful and content.”</p>
<p>The young man was mesmerized by the old man’s story. The young man thanked the old man for his story and his answer, and now with this new wisdom, the young man stopped worrying about the future and about his life, and started to focus on what he had in front of him, on what he could do right now. He stopped thinking about what ifs and focused on creating a plan to better his life. He started to eat healthier, to do exercises, to meditate, he stopped distractions, and eventually he came up with a plan to make his dreams come true. The young man was not affected by anything anymore after that, and was able to make progress in his life without worrying about the outcome of it. The young man at last, found peace.</p>
<p><em>Source: unknown</em></p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/anyway-the-paradoxical-commandments/Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:21:32 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/anyway-the-paradoxical-commandments/<blockquote>
<p>People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.<br>
<strong>Love them anyway.</strong></p>
<p>If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.<br>
<strong>Do good anyway.</strong></p>
<p>If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.<br>
<strong>Succeed anyway.</strong></p>
<p>The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.<br>
<strong>Do good anyway.</strong></p>
<p>Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.<br>
<strong>Be honest and frank anyway.</strong></p>
<p>The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.<br>
<strong>Think big anyway.</strong></p>
<p>People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.<br>
<strong>Fight for a few underdogs anyway.</strong></p>
<p>What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.<br>
<strong>Build anyway.</strong></p>
<p>People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.<br>
<strong>Help people anyway.</strong></p>
<p>Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.<br>
<strong>Give the world the best you have anyway.</strong></p>
<p>– <cite><b><a href="https://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/">Kent M. Keith</a></b>1968, renewed 2001</cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/please-call-me-by-my-true-names/Sat, 22 Jan 2022 14:02:43 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/please-call-me-by-my-true-names/<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1201574362&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess" title="All Is Well In The Great Mess" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">All Is Well In The Great Mess</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess/thich-nhat-hanh-please-call-me-by-my-true-names" title="Thich Nhat Hanh - Please Call Me by My True Names" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Thich Nhat Hanh - Please Call Me by My True Names</a></div>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —<br>
even today I am still arriving.</p>
<p>Look deeply: every second I am arriving<br>
to be a bud on a Spring branch,<br>
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,<br>
learning to sing in my new nest,<br>
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,<br>
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.</p>
<p>I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,<br>
to fear and to hope.</p>
<p>The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death<br>
of all that is alive.</p>
<p>I am the mayfly metamorphosing<br>
on the surface of the river.<br>
And I am the bird<br>
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.</p>
<p>I am the frog swimming happily<br>
in the clear water of a pond.<br>
And I am the grass-snake<br>
that silently feeds itself on the frog.</p>
<p>I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,<br>
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.<br>
And I am the arms merchant,<br>
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.</p>
<p>I am the twelve-year-old girl,<br>
refugee on a small boat,<br>
who throws herself into the ocean<br>
after being raped by a sea pirate.<br>
And I am the pirate,<br>
my heart not yet capable<br>
of seeing and loving.</p>
<p>I am a member of the politburo,<br>
with plenty of power in my hands.<br>
And I am the man who has to pay<br>
his “debt of blood” to my people<br>
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.</p>
<p>My joy is like Spring, so warm<br>
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.<br>
My pain is like a river of tears,<br>
so vast it fills the four oceans.</p>
<p>Please call me by my true names,<br>
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,<br>
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.</p>
<p>Please call me by my true names,<br>
so I can wake up,<br>
and so the door of my heart<br>
can be left open,<br>
the door of compassion.</p>
<p>– <cite><b>Thich Nhat Hanh</b>, *11 October 1926 - †22 January 2022</cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-zen-awards/Wed, 12 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-zen-awards/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/Cc3rSFnE.png" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-daily-stoic/Sun, 12 Dec 2021 19:50:29 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-daily-stoic/<p>The new year is coming to an end and for next year I already have a little surprise for all <em>German speaking visitors</em>:</p>
<p><a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/ryan-holiday-der-tagliche-stoiker">Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living</a>
</p>
<p>Enjoy reading and practicing. And if you like it and can afford it, please support the author by buying the book.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-road-not-taken-by-robert-frost/Sun, 05 Sep 2021 11:16:27 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-road-not-taken-by-robert-frost/<p>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,<br>
And sorry I could not travel both<br>
And be one traveler, long I stood<br>
And looked down one as far as I could<br>
To where it bent in the undergrowth;</p>
<p>Then took the other, as just as fair,<br>
And having perhaps the better claim,<br>
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;<br>
Though as for that the passing there<br>
Had worn them really about the same,</p>
<p>And both that morning equally lay<br>
In leaves no step had trodden black.<br>
Oh, I kept the first for another day!<br>
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,<br>
I doubted if I should ever come back.</p>
<p>I shall be telling this with a sigh<br>
Somewhere ages and ages hence:<br>
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—<br>
I took the one less traveled by,<br>
And that has made all the difference.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1915/08/a-group-of-poems/306620/">Robert Frost, “A Group of Poems”, The Atlantic Monthly (August 1915).</a>
</em></p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/invictus-by-william-ernest-henley/Fri, 03 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/invictus-by-william-ernest-henley/<p>Out of the night that covers me,<br>
Black as the pit from pole to pole,<br>
I thank whatever gods may be<br>
For my unconquerable soul.</p>
<p>In the fell clutch of circumstance<br>
I have not winced nor cried aloud.<br>
Under the bludgeonings of chance<br>
My head is bloody, but unbowed.</p>
<p>Beyond this place of wrath and tears<br>
Looms but the Horror of the shade,<br>
And yet the menace of the years<br>
Finds and shall find me unafraid.</p>
<p>It matters not how strait the gate,<br>
How charged with punishments the scroll,<br>
I am the master of my fate,<br>
I am the captain of my soul.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwk9sr">Henley, William Ernest (July 17, 1889). A book of verses. New York.</a>
</em></p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-source-of-all-my-problems/Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:30:50 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-source-of-all-my-problems/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/d0aX7k4W.png" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/huh/Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:51:43 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/huh/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/KSrsZ2OE.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/where-do-you-think-we-are-headed/Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:50:30 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/where-do-you-think-we-are-headed/<p><img src="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/images/aJMpn7TB.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-das-leben-ist-kurz-announcement/Wed, 21 Jul 2021 17:00:18 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-das-leben-ist-kurz-announcement/<p>Heute habe ich Marion Giebels Übersetzung von <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-das-leben-ist-kurz/">Senecas <strong>“Das Leben ist kurz”</strong></a>
 hinzugefügt. Der Text ist auch über den Menüpunkt <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/stoicism/">“Stoicism”</a>
 erreichbar.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/if-by-rudyard-kipling/Sat, 03 Jul 2021 14:10:48 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/if-by-rudyard-kipling/<div>
<div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">If you can keep your head when all about you   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     But make allowance for their doubting too;   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;"><br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And treat those two impostors just the same;   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;"><br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can make one heap of all your winnings<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 And lose, and start again at your beginnings<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And never breathe a word about your loss;<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     To serve your turn long after they are gone,   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;"><br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     If all men count with you, but none too much;<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 If you can fill the unforgiving minute<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
 Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   <br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;">
     And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!<br></div><div style="text-indent: -1em; padding-left: 1em;"><br></div>
</div>
<p><em>Source: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1943)</em></p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-announcement/Sat, 03 Jul 2021 14:04:05 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-announcement/<p>Today I have added <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations/">Marcus Aurelius’ <strong>“Meditations”</strong></a>
, translated by Gregory Hays. You can also access it via the menu bar in the <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/stoicism/">“Stoicism”</a>
 section.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life-announcement/Thu, 01 Jul 2021 20:02:07 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life-announcement/<p>Today I have added <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life">Seneca’s <strong>“On the Shortness of Life”</strong></a>
, translated by C.D.N. Costa. You can also access it via the menu bar in the <a href="/@alliswellinthegreatmess/stoicism/">“Stoicism”</a>
 section.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/ich-muss-meinem-tag-keinen-plan-mehr-geben/Wed, 19 May 2021 10:32:02 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/ich-muss-meinem-tag-keinen-plan-mehr-geben/<figure><iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/552260727&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe></figure>
<div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess" title="All Is Well In The Great Mess" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">All Is Well In The Great Mess</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess/ich-muss-dem-tag-keinen-plan-mehr-geben" title="Ich muss dem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Ich muss dem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben</a></div>
<p><br>Kulturelles Feature „Ich muss dem Tag keinen Plan mehr geben“<br>Oder: einfach leben!<em><br><br>Von Cornelia Beuel</em></p>
<p>Anne
 Donaths Geschichte entwickelte sich wie die vieler Frauen: Abitur, 
Lehrerexamen, Ehe, drei Kinder, Hausfrau. Heute, sie ist jetzt 58 Jahre 
alt, ist ihr Leben geprägt von Verzicht: keine Waschmaschine, kein 
Kühlschrank, kein Strom, kein Telefon, kein Auto.</p>
<p>Ihr Haus, nach dem sie
 sich immer sehnte, ist eine Hütte aus Holz, kleiner als die Garage des 
Nachbarn. Statistisch gesehen, gilt sie in Zeiten von Hartz IV als arm. 
Sie lebt von 400 Euro im Monat. Sie tut das freiwillig, nicht 
gezwungenermaßen aus einer ökonomischen Notlage heraus, weil für sie 
weniger mehr ist, der Verzicht ein Gewinn. Sie arbeite nur „so viele 
Tage im Jahr, als das Jahr Wochen hat“, sagt sie. Sie hat keine Schulden
 und keine Ängste – erstaunlicherweise auch nicht, wenn sie an ihre 
Altersversorgung denkt.</p>
<p>Anne Donath versteht sich keineswegs als 
Aussteigerin, eher schon als Einsteigerin in ein anderes Leben. Ihr Ort 
sei neben diesem „verrückt rasenden Karussell“, das sich immer nur drehe
 und drehe und uns die Sicht auf die Dinge draußen nehme. „Einfach 
leben!“ sei ihre Devise – im doppelten Sinn des Wortes.</p>
<p>Produktion: Deutschlandfunk 2007 (<a href="https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/kulturelles-feature-ich-muss-dem-tag-keinen-plan-mehr-geben.3720.de.html?dram:article_id=89987" target="_blank">Das Feature vom 05.01.2007, 20:10 Uhr</a>)</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-little-duck-by-donald-c-babcock/Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-little-duck-by-donald-c-babcock/<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/soundcloud%253Atracks%253A2398626633&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess" title="All Is Well In The Great Mess" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">All Is Well In The Great Mess</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alliswellinthegreatmess/edward-espe-brown-the-little" title="Edward Espe Brown - The Little Duck" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Edward Espe Brown - The Little Duck</a></div>
<p>Now we’re ready to look at something pretty special.<br>
It is a duck,<br>
riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.<br>
No it isn’t a gull.<br>
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.<br>
This is some sort of duck,<br>
and he cuddles in the swells.</p>
<p>He isn’t cold,<br>
and he is thinking things over.<br>
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,<br>
and he is a part of it.</p>
<p>He looks a bit like a mandarin,<br>
or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree.</p>
<p>But he has hardly enough above the eyes<br>
to be a philosopher.<br>
He has poise, however,<br>
which is what philosophers must have.</p>
<p>He can rest while the Atlantic heaves,<br>
because he rests in the Atlantic.</p>
<p>Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.<br>
And neither do you.<br>
But he realizes it.</p>
<p>And what does he do, I ask you?<br>
He sits down in it!<br>
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity<br>
– which it is.<br>
He has made himself a part of the boundless<br>
by easing himself into just where it touches him.</p>
<p>I like the duck.<br>
He doesn’t know much,<br>
but he’s got religion.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/canons-of-conduct/Tue, 01 Dec 2020 14:09:33 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/canons-of-conduct/<p>Thomas Jefferson often took the opportunity to advise his children, grandchildren, and others on matters of personal conduct. Over the years he developed a list of axioms for personal behavior. Some seem to have been of his own invention; others derived from classical or literary sources.</p>
<p>Jefferson’s most extensive list is the one he sent to <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/cornelia-jefferson-randolph">Cornelia Jefferson Randolph</a>
, his granddaughter, while she was visiting her <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/ann-cary-randolph-bankhead">older sister</a>
 and <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/charles-lewis-bankhead">brother-in-law</a>
.</p>
<h3 id="a-dozen-canons-of-conduct-in-life">A Dozen Canons of Conduct in Life</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>never trouble another with what you can do yourself</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>never spend your money before you have it</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>we never repent of having eat[en] too little.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happen d</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>take things always by their smooth handle.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>think as you please, & so let others, & you will have no disputes.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>when angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Jefferson sent a slightly shorter version of the above list to Paul Clay, the son of his friend Charles Clay, in 1817. He sent a still more refined version in 1825 to John Spear Smith, on behalf of his son Thomas Jefferson Smith. In his 1825 letter, Jefferson listed a “Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life”:</p>
<ol>
<li>Never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.</li>
<li>Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.</li>
<li>Never spend your money before you have it.</li>
<li>Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.</li>
<li>Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.</li>
<li>We never repent of having eaten too little.</li>
<li>Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.</li>
<li>How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!</li>
<li>Take things always by their smooth handle.</li>
<li>When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.</li>
</ol>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/canons-conduct">https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/canons-conduct</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/zhuangzi/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/zhuangzi/<p>Zhuangzi was one of China’s greatest thinkers. His ancient parables are legendary, designed to free you from society’s damaging constraints and recover your natural spontaneity. Sounds great, but can Zhuangzi’s ancient stories help us find freedom in our modern, complex lives?…</p>
<p>Zhuangzi Illustrated! C.C Tsai’s Way of Nature is now available in English. Available now (Amazon affiliate link supports the work that I’m doing ☺️):<br>
US: <a href="https://amzn.to/35T6ho6">https://amzn.to/35T6ho6</a>
 UK: <a href="https://amzn.to/376Lyxf">https://amzn.to/376Lyxf</a>
 Canada: <a href="https://amzn.to/2Slrins">https://amzn.to/2Slrins</a>
</p>
<p>Professor Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not to Try<br>
Essential reading for understanding Wu-Wei and how to cultivate spontaneity in your life:<br>
<a href="https://amzn.to/2EJuG3m">https://amzn.to/2EJuG3m</a>
<br>
Professor Slingerland’s Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/slingerland3/">https://www.facebook.com/slingerland3/</a>
</p>
<p>Zhuangzi: Basic Writings - Burton Watson<br>
Poetic translation of the Zhuangzi. Closer to original text than C.C Tsai’s: <a href="https://amzn.to/350rZFh">https://amzn.to/350rZFh</a>
</p>
<p>The Way of Chuang Tzu - Thomas Merton<br>
Retelling of the Zhuangzi by Christian mystic, Thomas Merton: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MyAvFa">https://amzn.to/2MyAvFa</a>
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<p>☯ RECOMMENDED READING LIST<br>
🔸Best Book for Beginners - Tao of Pooh: <a href="http://amzn.to/2ERXE3p">http://amzn.to/2ERXE3p</a>
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An accurate translation, getting you closer to Lao Tze’s original meaning. Cross-reference with Wayne Dyer version.<br>
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The second most famous Taoist text after TTC. Profound philosophy told through humorous stories.<br>
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World-famous philosopher, Alan Watts, explores Taoist concepts in his signature witty style.<br>
🔸For personal growth - The Tao of Success: <a href="http://amzn.to/2EVCzoP">http://amzn.to/2EVCzoP</a>
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Derek Lin shows that being a Taoist doesn’t mean becoming lazy. This book explores how to grow in harmony with the Tao. Highly recommended.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piCfNls5gqE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piCfNls5gqE</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-big-five-aspects-scale/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/the-big-five-aspects-scale/<p>You have just completed assessing yourself with 100 phrases. Our systems have compared your-self-ratings to those of thousands of other people. You are being compared to men and women of all ages. This means that if you are young, your scores on neuroticism will be higher and on agreeableness and conscientiousness will be lower than if you were compared to people of your own age (with the reverse being true for older individuals). For men, their scores on agreeableness and on neuroticism will be lower than if they were just being compared to men. We decided to make the comparisons simple, so that you know where you stand in comparison to the typical person (with age and sex regarded as irrelevant).</p>
<p>Here are your results: You will see below where you stand in comparison to others in the general population on the major traits and their aspects:</p>
<p>Agreeableness: Compassion and Politeness<br>
Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness<br>
Extraversion: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness<br>
Neuroticism: Withdrawal and Volatility<br>
Openness to Experience: Openness and Intellect<br>
Remember that each personality trait and aspect (and your relative position with respect to them) has advantages and disadvantages. It is for that reason that variation exists in the human population: there is a niche for each personality configuration. Much of what constitutes success in life is therefore the consequence of finding the place in relationships, work and personal commitment that corresponds to your unique personality structure. Good luck with your expanded self-understanding!</p>
<p>Note also that if you find that the descriptions harsher than you might consider appropriate this may mean that you were more self-critical than necessary when completing the questions (remember, the results are based on your own self-report, compared to that of others). This can occur if you were feeling temporarily or chronically unhappy or anxious, or hungry, angry or judgmental when you completed the questions.</p>
<p>Agreeableness: Moderately High</p>
<p>You are moderately high in agreeableness, which is the primary dimension of Interpersonal interaction in the Big Five personality trait scientific model. Agreeableness has two aspects: compassion and politeness, which will be explained separately. Agreeableness is a very complex trait, with marked positive and negative elements all along its distribution. Because of this, higher scores and lower scores need to be explained at the same time.</p>
<p>People high in agreeableness are nice: compliant, nurturing, kind, naively trusting and conciliatory. However, because of their tendency to avoid conflict, they often dissemble and hide what they think. People low in agreeableness are not so nice: stubborn, dominant, harsh, skeptical, competitive and, in the extreme, even predatory. However, they tend to be straightforward, even blunt, so you know where they stand.</p>
<p>Your score puts you at the 68th percentile for agreeableness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more agreeable than 68 of them and less agreeable than 31 of them.</p>
<p>AGREEABLENESS<br>
68th percentile</p>
<p>You are more agreeable than 68 of 100 people<br>
People with moderately high levels of agreeableness are seen by others as cooperative, warm and considerate. They are likely to look for and even sometimes to see the best in others, and are interpersonally tolerant (an attitude that is much valued by agreeable people). They do not like seeing someone’s feelings get hurt, and are concerned about the emotional state of others, preferring peace and harmony. They tend somewhat towards submissiveness, rather than dominance (particularly if also below average in neuroticism).</p>
<p>People with moderately high levels of agreeableness are somewhat forgiving, accepting, flexible, gentle and patient. They tend to feel pity for those who are excluded, punished or defeated. They generally feel that people should work cooperatively, and are somewhat skeptical of competition, with its losers and winners. However, moderately agreeable people have to be careful not to be taken advantage of, particularly by disagreeable people, including those with criminal or predatory intent. They may also find it somewhat difficult to engage in arguments (and may even avoid discussions) with less agreeable people. They have to work at bargaining for themselves, or at negotiating for more recognition or power. They may have somewhat lower salaries and earn less money, in consequence. All of this can produce a tendency to resentment and hidden anger, particularly among those who are also high in neuroticism. Furthermore, because of their tendency to avoid or reduce conflict, moderately agreeable people may be tempted to sacrifice medium- to long-term stability and function for the sake of short-term peace. This can mean that problems that should be solved in the present can accumulate counterproductively across time.</p>
<p>Women are higher in agreeableness than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 61.5. For men it is 38.5. The fact that men are lower in agreeableness than women helps explain their much higher rates of criminal incarceration (90% male). The primary difference between criminals and non-criminals is disagreeableness. If the typical criminal is more disagreeable than 98% of people in the general population, then almost all those criminals will be male. This difference in agreeableness between men and women is largest in countries such as Norway and Sweden, where the most has been done to ensure equality of outcome between the sexes. This provides strong evidence that biological factors rather than environment and learning account for the dissimilarity.</p>
<p>Agreeableness, per se, is not strongly associated with political liberalism or conservatism, but this is because the aspects of agreeableness predict such political belief in opposite ways, and cancel each other out. Liberals are higher in aspect compassion, and conservatives in aspect politeness. However, alliance with the category of belief that has come to be known as politically correct is strongly predicted by agreeableness (particularly compassion). What this appears to mean is that agreeable people strongly identify with those they deem oppressed, seeing them, essentially, as exploited infants, and demonize those they see as oppressors, seeing them as cruel, heartless predators.</p>
<p>There are large differences between men and women in terms of spontaneous interest, and these also appear associated with agreeableness. Agreeable people, caring as they do for others, are more likely to enter professions associated with people, such as teaching and nursing, which are dominated by women. This is true even in the Scandinavian countries, where attempts to produce gender-equal societies has reached a maximum. Disagreeable people, by contrast, appear to prefer systematizing over empathizing, and are more interested in things – machines and technology. In consequence, professions such as engineering and trades associated with construction and machinery tend to be dominated by relatively disagreeable men.</p>
<p>Agreeableness has two aspects: compassion and politeness.</p>
<p>Compassion: Moderately High</p>
<p>You are moderately high in compassion, which is one aspect of Agreeableness. Your score puts you at the 66th percentile for compassion. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more compassionate than 66 of them and less compassionate than 33 of them.</p>
<p>Moderately compassionate people are interested in the problems of other people, and other living things. They are concerned about helping other people avoid negative emotion. They make time and do kind things for others, even when doing so may interfere with fulfilling their own needs and interests. They have a noticeably soft side. Other people consider them sympathetic and nice, and will turn to them often for a listening ear. They are empathetic and caring. However, because they are so other-oriented, they may find it difficult to negotiate on their own behalf, and may not get what they deserve (for their hard work, for example). This may lead to feelings of resentment.</p>
<p>COMPASSION<br>
66th percentile</p>
<p>You are more compassionate than 66 of 100 people<br>
Those who are liberal, politically, score somewhat higher in compassion than conservatives.</p>
<p>Women are also higher in compassion than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 61. For men it is 39.</p>
<p>Politeness: Moderately High</p>
<p>You are moderately high in politeness, which is one aspect of Agreeableness. Your score puts you at the 65th percentile for politeness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more polite than 65 of them and less polite than 34 of them.</p>
<p>Moderately polite people tend to be deferential to authority, and are generally obedient. They are respectful and do not want to appear (or to be) pushy. They are more uncomfortable challenging other people than average. Moderately polite people will try to avoid conflict, and basically desire to steer clear of confrontations or fights.</p>
<p>POLITENESS<br>
65th percentile</p>
<p>You are more polite than 65 of 100 people<br>
Those who are liberal, politically, score somewhat lower in politeness than conservatives (the opposite pattern is seen with compassion).</p>
<p>Women are higher in politeness than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 59. For men it is 41.</p>
<p>Conscientiousness: Moderately High</p>
<p>You are moderately high in conscientiousness, which is the primary dimension of dutiful achievement in the Big Five personality trait scientific model. Conscientiousness is a measure of obligation, attention to detail, hard work, persistence, cleanliness, efficiency and adherence to rules, standards and processes. Conscientious people implement their plans and establish and maintain order.</p>
<p>Your score puts you at the 75th percentile for conscientiousness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more conscientious than 75 of them and less conscientious than 24 of them.</p>
<p>Moderately conscientious people are dutiful. They tend to slog away at a task until finished. They work reasonably hard and do not want to waste time. They are less likely than average to procrastinate (particularly if they are also low in neuroticism). If a moderately conscientious person promises to do something, they will do it, and rarely be delayed. They tend to be relatively decisive, neat, organized, future-oriented, and reliable. They are not too-frequently distracted.</p>
<p>CONSCIENTIOUSNESS<br>
75th percentile</p>
<p>You are more conscientious than 75 of 100 people<br>
Moderately conscientious people are more likely than average to obtain higher grades in academic settings (particularly if they are also intelligent), and to make competent administrators and managers. They like to have everything in its proper place, but are not particularly obsessed with detail. They tend to do things by the book. Moderately conscientious people are somewhat prone to guilt (although they organize their lives so that they have comparatively little to feel guilty about). They are also more sensitive than average to shame, self-disgust and self-contempt.</p>
<p>Individuals who are moderately conscientious react comparatively poorly to failure (particularly if they are above average in neuroticism). They tend to be judgemental and can be disgusted by their own moral transgressions, as well as those of others. They suffer higher than normal levels of shame and guilt when unemployed or otherwise unoccupied, even when that occurs through no fault of their own. Moderately conscientious people are committed to the idea of personal responsibility. They believe that hard work and diligence will and should be rewarded, and tend to think that those who don’t succeed deserve their failure. They value hygiene, moral purity and achievement. Now and then they might micro-manage and exert too much control.</p>
<p>Moderately conscientious people are slightly more likely to be political conservatives, rather than liberal (particularly if they are also below average in openness).</p>
<p>Women are very slightly more conscientious than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 51.5. For men it is 49.5.</p>
<p>Conscientiousness has two aspects: industriousness and orderliness.</p>
<p>Industriousness: Typical or Average</p>
<p>You are typical or average in industriousness, which is one aspect of conscientiousness. Your score puts you at the 50th percentile for industriousness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more industrious than 50 of them and less industrious than 49 of them.</p>
<p>People of average industriousness are somewhat likely to be successful in school and in administrative and managerial positions (particularly if they are intelligent). They do not live to work, however, and do not always have to be doing something useful. They like their leisure time. Typically, they will do their duty, but they can put things off, and sometimes mess them up. Usually, but not always, they finish what they start, and they do it more or less on schedule, with some exceptions. They are no more concerned than average with efficiency or savings. They can focus on the task on hand, when there are high levels of motivation or pressure, but often find themselves distracted by something more entertaining, or interesting, or worrisome.</p>
<p>INDUSTRIOUSNESS<br>
50th percentile</p>
<p>You are more industrious than 50 of 100 people<br>
People of average industriousness are not particularly judgemental to themselves or others. They like to live and let live. They are somewhat likely to believe that people fail because they don’t apply themselves or work hard enough, but know that other considerations play a role. They tend to feel guilty, but not to an overwhelming degree, if they do not do their duty. They can, however, find themselves in a guilty position because they failed to perform a task on time or properly.</p>
<p>Those who are liberal and those who are conservatives appear equally industrious.</p>
<p>Men are slightly more industrious than women. The mean percentile for men in a general population (women and men) is 51.5. For women it is 49.5.</p>
<p>Orderliness: High</p>
<p>You are high in orderliness, which is one aspect of conscientiousness. Your score puts you at the 88th percentile for orderliness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more orderly than 88 of them and less orderly than 11 of them.</p>
<p>Highly orderly people tend to be disturbed and disgusted by mess and chaos. They keep everything tidy and organized. They tend to think in more black and white terms: things are good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, with little room for grey areas. They make, like and stick to schedules. They want everything where it should be – and want to make sure it stays where it belongs. They are detail-oriented. They are rule-abiding, and tend to insist that rules are observed. They can be judgmental towards themselves and others if and when rules are broken or procedures ignored. They do not like to be without routine and predictability. They can be good at ensuring that complex sensitive processes are managed properly and carefully.</p>
<p>ORDERLINESS<br>
88th percentile</p>
<p>You are more orderly than 88 of 100 people<br>
Excessive orderliness can also constrain creativity (even among those high in openness) as creative endeavours often require mess, disruption and intervening periods of chaos.</p>
<p>Those who are highly orderly are also more likely to be political conservatives. Orderliness is the second-best predictor of conservatism, after openness to experience.</p>
<p>Women are more orderly than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 54.5. For men it is 45.5. This may account for some of the trouble in relation to housework between women and men. Since women are, on average, more orderly, household disorder will trigger disgust and discomfort in them faster. This may happen with sufficient frequency so they end up doing a disproportionate share of such work (even though if they waited a bit longer their less orderly partners, often men, might end up equally troubled and motivated to fix the problem). Orderly people are more likely to have items such as event calendars, drawer organizers, laundry baskets, irons and ironing boards in their immediate environments.</p>
<p>Extraversion: Moderately Low</p>
<p>You are moderately low in extraversion, which is the primary dimension of positive emotion in the Big Five personality trait scientific model. You could also think of yourself as moderately high in introversion. Extraversion is a measure of general sensitivity to positive emotions such as hope, joy, anticipation and approach, particularly in social situations.</p>
<p>Your score puts you at the 25th percentile for extraversion. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be less extraverted than 74 of them and more extraverted than 25 of them.</p>
<p>People with moderately low levels of extraversion are not particularly enthusiastic, talkative, assertive in social situations, or gregarious. They tend to find excessive social contact draining and tiring, and crave time alone to recharge. They are less likely to plan parties, tell jokes, make people laugh, or volunteer for community activities. They are somewhat more likely to be depressed and to have lower levels of self-esteem (particularly if they are high in neuroticism). They are less optimistic about the past, present and future.</p>
<p>EXTRAVERSION<br>
25th percentile</p>
<p>You are less extraverted than 74 of 100 people<br>
People who are moderately low in extraversion find it relatively easy to keep things to themselves. They are not compelled to share everything with everyone. They are not particularly self-disclosing and do not warm up quickly to other people. They are more comfortable with one-to-one interactions than in a group-oriented situation. They are rarely the first to speak in meetings, although they will express an opinion if asked. They are less likely to captivate and convince, and will rarely be the first to act in an ambiguous situation.</p>
<p>People who are moderately low in extraversion are better suited to occupations that require work alone or with a few other well-known individuals (such as computer programming or accounting). Jobs involving sales, persuasion, work in groups and public speaking are unlikely to appeal to them, and they are less likely to be successful at such things (particularly if they are also high in neuroticism).</p>
<p>People moderately low in extraversion are relatively unlikely to be impulsive, even when offered the opportunity to do something exciting or fun. They are therefore less likely to sacrifice the future to the present, when something social or group-oriented beckons. They find it relatively easy to be alone to study and work. They are not easily distracted by opportunities to chat, joke and socialize. This is particularly the case if they are also high in conscientiousness. However, when people are introverted and conscientious, they are less productive than when extraverted and conscientiousness, perhaps because they have lower levels of energy. When introverted and comparatively unconscientiousness, however, they are more productive than when extraverted and unconscientious.</p>
<p>People moderately low in extraversion tend to be less dominant in social situations, particularly if they are also low in agreeableness. Less agreeable extraverts tend to be self-centered – something that can be made worse if they are also low in conscientiousness. More introverted people are somewhat protected against such tendencies.</p>
<p>Those who are politically liberal are slightly less extraverted than conservatives.</p>
<p>Women are slightly more extraverted than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 52. For men it is 48.</p>
<p>Extraversion has two aspects: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness.</p>
<p>Enthusiasm: Very Low</p>
<p>You are very low in enthusiasm, which is one aspect of extraversion. Your score puts you at the 6th percentile for enthusiasm. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be less enthusiastic than 93 of them and more enthusiastic than 6 of them.</p>
<p>Individuals who are very low in enthusiasm are quiet and un-excitable. They can be very hard to get to know, as they are not at all chatty or bubbly. When they do talk – and they do so comparatively rarely – it tends to be about things in which they find exceptional interest. They open up to other people with difficulty, particularly in larger social gatherings or parties. They laugh very much less frequently than others. They typically prefer solitude and find it difficult to enjoy themselves around other people. At most, they can handle social contact in small doses. They are private people, on the loner side of the distribution, and tend not to be positive or optimistic. They actively avoid the spotlight and, if creative, may find performing very much less desirable, even draining. They very rarely seek out stimulation, excitement, activity or fun (and, if they do so, much prefer quieter activities). People very low in enthusiasm are solitary, finding it uncommonly difficult to generate a felt sense of excitement when offered the opportunity to engage in something that others might find engaging or entertaining.</p>
<p>ENTHUSIASM<br>
6th percentile</p>
<p>You are less enthusiastic than 93 of 100 people<br>
Enthusiasm is not strongly associated with political preference, either conservative or liberal.</p>
<p>Women are higher in enthusiasm than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 55. For men it is 45.</p>
<p>Assertiveness: Moderately High</p>
<p>You are moderately high in assertiveness, which is one aspect of extraversion. Your score puts you at the 63rd percentile for assertiveness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be more assertive than 63 of them and less assertive than 36 of them.</p>
<p>Moderately assertive people are more “take charge” types. They put their own opinions forward, and are somewhat likely to dominate and control social situations. They can be influential and captivating. They have the communication style that is more often associated with leadership. This is good when they are knowledgeable, competent and able, but less good when they aren’t. Moderately assertive people tend to be more action-oriented. They are less likely to wait for others to lead the way. Now and then they might be impulsive, in consequence, acting too quickly, without thinking.</p>
<p>ASSERTIVENESS<br>
63rd percentile</p>
<p>You are more assertive than 63 of 100 people<br>
Liberals tend to be slightly less assertive than conservatives.</p>
<p>Women are slightly less assertive than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 48. For men it is 52.</p>
<p>Neuroticism: Typical or Average</p>
<p>You have typical levels of neuroticism, which is the primary dimension of negative emotion in the Big Five personality trait scientific model. Neuroticism is a measure of general sensitivity to negative emotions such as pain, sadness, irritable or defensive anger, fear and anxiety.</p>
<p>Your score puts you at the 50th percentile for neuroticism. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be higher in neuroticism than 50 of them and lower in neuroticism than 49 of them.</p>
<p>People with typical or average levels of neuroticism have a balanced view of the happiness and sadness of the past, present and future. Sometimes they are unhappy, anxious and irritable, particularly when facing a genuine problem, but they generally cope well and don’t worry too much.</p>
<p>NEUROTICISM<br>
50th percentile</p>
<p>You are higher in neuroticism than 50 of 100 people<br>
They have normal levels of self-esteem, particularly when they are also average or above average in extraversion. They are not particularly at risk for developing anxiety disorders and depression.</p>
<p>People with average or typical levels of neuroticism are able to experience the consequences of success and to be appropriately satisfied in relationships and career. Average levels of neuroticism are associated with no more than average concern about mental and physical health, a typical number of physician and emergency room visits, and an expected degree of absenteeism at work and at school (unless accompanied by very low levels of conscientiousness).</p>
<p>People with average levels of neuroticism appear to neither seek risk out, nor avoid it. They are interested in security, but can also handle recreational, career, financial and social situations where the possibility of loss is higher. Such people appear to be concerned both with maintaining their current status, as well as enhancing it. This is a reasonable strategy in genuinely dangerous or uncertain times and better times alike.</p>
<p>Neuroticism is not a powerful predictor of political belief, either conservative or liberal.</p>
<p>Females tend to be higher in neuroticism than males. The typical woman is higher in neuroticism than 60% of the general population of men and women combined. In part, this may be why women report more unhappiness in their relationships, at work, in school and with their health than men, on average, and why women initiate 70% of all divorces. This difference in neuroticism between men and women appears to emerge at puberty. It is largest in countries such as Norway and Sweden, where the most has been done to ensure equality of outcome between the sexes. This provides strong evidence that biological factors rather than environment and learning account for the dissimilarity.</p>
<p>Trait neuroticism is made up of the aspects withdrawal and volatility.</p>
<p>Withdrawal: High</p>
<p>You are high in withdrawal, which is one aspect of neuroticism. Your score puts you at the 80th percentile for withdrawal. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be higher in withdrawal than 80 of them and lower in withdrawal than 19 of them.</p>
<p>Individuals high in withdrawal may feel above average levels of anticipatory anxiety. This makes it much more challenging for them to approach new, uncertain, unexpected, threatening or complex situations. They are instead substantially more likely to avoid or withdraw in the face of the unknown and unexpected.</p>
<p>People high in withdrawal much more frequently feel sad, lonesome, disappointed and grief-stricken. They have higher than average levels of doubt and worry, become embarrassed easily, are self-conscious and strongly tend to get discouraged in the face of threat and punishment. Their anticipatory anxiety is likely to be general. They are sensitive to social rejection, and can be relatively easily hurt. Once hurt, frightened, or anxious, as well, it takes them longer to recover. They can be argumentative and lose their composure. They can be provocative in a dispute (particularly if also low in agreeableness). Perhaps people high in withdrawal are concerned that something bad might happen, while people high in volatility (the other aspect of neuroticism) get upset if something bad does happen. Technically, withdrawal has been associated with activity in the brain systems that regulate passive avoidance.</p>
<p>WITHDRAWAL<br>
80th percentile</p>
<p>You are higher in withdrawal than 80 of 100 people<br>
Those who are liberal, politically, are slightly higher in withdrawal than conservatives.</p>
<p>Women are higher in withdrawal than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 60. For men it is 40.</p>
<p>Volatility: Low</p>
<p>You are low in volatility, which is one aspect of neuroticism. Your score puts you at the 21st percentile for volatility. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be less volatile than 78 of them and more volatile than 21 of them.</p>
<p>Individuals low in volatility are stable and predictable in their moods. They are not irritable, and feel much less disappointment, frustration, pain and loneliness. People find them easy to get along with and can often relax around them. They rarely express their frustration, disappointment and irritability and appear reasonable when they do so. Even on the rare occasions they become stirred up, upset, angry or irritated, they calm down quickly. They are much less argumentative than average and rarely lose their composure.</p>
<p>If thoroughly provoked in a dispute, a person of low volatility may react in kind (particularly if also low in agreeableness). However, such people remain calm and unperturbed, even when stressed. Volatile people tend to get upset if something bad does happen, while people high in withdrawal (the other aspect of neuroticism) tend to be concerned that something bad might happen. Technically, volatility has been associated with activity in the brain systems that regulate fight, flight or freeze.</p>
<p>VOLATILITY<br>
21st percentile</p>
<p>You are less volatile than 78 of 100 people<br>
Volatility is not strongly related to political preference, either liberal or conservative.</p>
<p>Women are higher in volatility than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 57.5. For men it is 42.5.</p>
<p>Openness to Experience: Exceptionally High</p>
<p>You are exceptionally high in openness to experience, which is the primary dimension of creativity, artistic interest and intelligence (particularly verbal intelligence) in the Big Five personality trait scientific model. Openness to experience is a measure of interest in novelty, art, literature, abstract thinking, philosophy as well as sensitivity to aesthetic emotions and beauty.</p>
<p>Your score puts you at the 97th percentile for openness to experience. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be higher in openness to experience than 97 of them and lower in openness to experience than 2 of them.</p>
<p>People with exceptionally high levels of openness to experience are almost always characterized by others as extremely smart, creative, exploratory, intelligent and visionary. They are extremely interested in learning, and are constantly acquiring new abilities and skills. They are extremely curious and exploratory. They are exceptionally interested in abstract thinking, philosophy, and the meaning of belief systems and ideologies. They live for cultural events such as movies, concerts, dance recitals, plays, poetry readings, gallery openings and art shows. They are very likely to enjoy writing (or even to be driven to write). They enjoy complex, abstract ideas and deeply love to confront and solve complex, abstract and multi-dimensional problems.</p>
<p>OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE<br>
97th percentile</p>
<p>You are higher in openness to experience than 97 of 100 people<br>
They are almost always prolific readers, and are interested in a vast range of topics. They have an exceptionally broad and deep vocabulary. They can think and learn remarkably quickly. They are unusually proficient at formulating new ideas, and can be exceptionally articulate (particularly if average or above in extraversion). People exceptionally high in openness can see old things in remarkable ways. They can think outside of the box. When they hear or come up with an idea, many other ideas are usually triggered. They can formulate any single problem in an exceptionally diverse range of ways, and can generate a tremendously large number of problem-solving solutions. They will constantly seek change, often to make things better, but also just for the sake of change.</p>
<p>People who are exceptionally high in openness to experience are poorly adapted to and do not do well in situations or occupations that are routinized and predictable. They fit badly at the bottom of hierarchies. They are unusually ill-suited to entry-level, repetitive, rote positions, because they are always thinking up new ways to do things, and such ideas are seldom welcome from someone at the bottom. They are extremely radical thinkers. They shake things up, particularly if they are also disagreeable and assertive. They are likely to be revolutionary rebels (particularly if average or below in conscientiousness).</p>
<p>Individuals exceptionally high in openness to experience are entrepreneurial in spirit, as well as smart and creative. They can be overwhelmingly interested in creating new ventures, sometimes for profit, sometimes for curiosity, and sometimes for personal transformation. Exceptionally high levels of openness to experience appear necessary to the formation and leadership of business and other forms of complex organization, although conscientiousness appears required for the attention to detail and process management that such organizations also always need.</p>
<p>Because people who are exceptionally high in openness to experience are interested in absolutely everything, they can find it hard to settle on a single path in life, to specialize to a necessary degree, and to create an integrated identity. This is particularly dangerous if they are above average in neuroticism and/or below average in conscientiousness. People characterized by the combination of high openness to experience and high neuroticism constantly undermine their own convictions and beliefs by incessant questioning and make themselves lost and anxious. Open, unconscientious people tend to be “under-achievers” (particularly if also above average in neuroticism). Such people appear to have the capability to succeed, can learn quickly, and are creative, but they seldom implement their ideas.</p>
<p>Openness to experience is the dimension that best predicts political allegiance (with conscientiousness, particularly the aspect of orderliness, coming in at second place). Those who are liberal, politically, are very much more likely to be high in openness to experience than conservatives.</p>
<p>Women and men differ very little in openness to experience at the trait level, although there are differences in the aspect levels.</p>
<p>Trait openness to experience is made up of the aspects of intellect and openness.</p>
<p>Intellect: Exceptionally High</p>
<p>Note: Do not confuse the personality aspect of Intellect with IQ. Intellect is a measure of interest in abstract ideas, essentially, while IQ is a measure of processing speed, verbal ability, working memory, and problem solving capacity, and is better measured with a formal IQ test. It is perfectly possible to have a high IQ and a low score on the personality trait of Intellect (or the reverse).</p>
<p>You are exceptionally high in intellect, which is one aspect of openness to experience. Your score puts you at the 97th percentile for intellect. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be higher in intellect than 97 of them and lower in intellect than 2 of them.</p>
<p>People exceptionally high in intellect are obsessed by engaging with ideas and abstract concepts. They require exposure to novel information, particularly when it is complex and sophisticated. They are extremely curious and exploratory, and actively need to find, tackle and solve challenging problems. They will constantly seek out and initiate issue-oriented discussions, and tend to compulsively read, think about and discuss idea-centered books (generally non-fiction). They are notably articulate, and can formulate ideas very clearly and exceptionally quickly (particularly if average or higher in extraversion). They have a much broader and wider vocabulary, and continually require themselves to learn new things. People exceptionally high in intellect will continually find and generate novel, creative concepts and voluntarily search for and adapt exceptionally well to new experience and situations.</p>
<p>INTELLECT<br>
97th percentile</p>
<p>You are higher in intellect than 97 of 100 people<br>
People exceptionally high in intellect find complex, rapidly changing occupations asbolutely necessary and will excel at them (particularly if they are also high in conscientiousness and low in neuroticism). However, they are not at all suited to stable, straightforward and more traditional occupations, where the rules don’t change, and will experience continual periods of boredom and intolerable levels of frustration in such positions. They are much more suited to entrepreneurial/creative enterprises (particularly if also high in the openness aspect of Opennes to Experience).</p>
<p>Liberals are higher in intellect than conservatives (although the biggest difference between the two is openness to experience at the trait level).</p>
<p>Women are lower than men in intellect (although not in IQ). This is probably a difference in interest: people high in intellect, compared to openness, are more likely to prefer the sciences to the arts. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 45. For men it is 55.</p>
<p>Openness: Very High</p>
<p>You are very high in openness, which is one aspect of openness to experience. Your score puts you at the 90th percentile for openness. If you were one of 100 people in a room, you would be higher in openness than 90 of them and lower in openness than 9 of them.</p>
<p>The closest synonym for openness (rather than openness to experience, which encompasses openness and intellect) is creativity. Very open, creative people love beauty. They require an outlet for their creative ability, or they cannot thrive. They need to be surrounded by art or beautiful crafts. They are strikingly sensitive to color and architectural form. They very much like to collect things, now and then to the point of obsession. They are very imaginative, and love to daydream and reflect on things. They are uncommonly affected by music, often of many genres, and may be musical or artistic themselves (both of these are rare in the general population). They can get unusually immersed in a book, or a movie, or in their own thoughts, and become oblivious to the outside world. They respond very strongly to beauty, creativity and art.</p>
<p>OPENNESS<br>
90th percentile</p>
<p>You are higher in openness than 90 of 100 people<br>
Very open, creative people can be impractical and flighty, however (particularly if low in conscientiousness). It can be extremely difficult to transform creativity into money, or into a career. High levels of openness are, furthermore, necessary for entrepreneurial success, and often prove useful at the top of hierarchies, even in very conservative occupations such as banking, accounting and law, which need creative people in leadership positions to provide new vision and direction.</p>
<p>Liberals are higher in openness than conservatives (although the biggest difference between the two is openness to experience, at the trait level).</p>
<p>Women are higher in openness than men. The mean percentile for women in a general population (women and men) is 56.5. For men it is 44.5.</p>
<p>© 2020 Understand Myself. All rights reserved. 	Sign Out 	christian@christianjunk.de</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stoicism-in-a-time-of-pandemic-how-marcus-aurelius-can-help/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stoicism-in-a-time-of-pandemic-how-marcus-aurelius-can-help/<p>The Meditations, by a Roman emperor who died in a plague named after him, has much to say about how to face fear, pain, anxiety and loss.</p>
<p>A great article from Donald Robertson, published by The Guardian:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/25/stoicism-in-a-time-of-pandemic-coronavirus-marcus-aurelius-the-meditations">Stoicism in the Time of Pandemic</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/someday-never-comes/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/someday-never-comes/<blockquote>
<p>“Some day my prince will come.…” Good old Walt Disney. Well, that may have worked out for Snow White. Back here on Earth, it’s a recipe for disappointment. In flesh-and-blood life, waiting for “some day” is no strategy for success, it’s a cop-out. What’s more, it’s one that the majority follow their whole lives. Someday, when my ship comes in … Someday, when I have the money … Someday, when I have the time … Someday, when I have the skill … Someday, when I have the confidence … How many of those statements have you said to yourself? Have I got some sobering news for you: “some day” doesn’t exist, never has, and never will. There is no “some day.” There’s only today. When tomorrow comes, it will be another today; so will the next day. They all will. There is never anything but today.”<br>
– <cite><b>Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness</b></cite></p>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-13-select-habits/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-13-select-habits/<h1 id="agreeableassertive">Agreeable/Assertive</h1>
<h2 id="select-relevant-items">Select Relevant Items</h2>
<p>Please select habits that apply to you. You can select up to 10 habits, and are required to select at least 2. Be over-inclusive. Don’t worry if some of the bad habit descriptions do not really apply, as you will get to specify the most typical habits later, when you make your final fault selection, prior to writing.</p>
<ul>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Avoid conflict even when it is necessary</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find myself making excuses for other’s inappropriate behavior</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Cannot negotiate for myself very well</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Will sacrifice my own feelings for the comfort of others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can bottle up my feelings until I become resentful</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be overly sentimental</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am polite to a fault</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel sorry for people who may not deserve it</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find myself too upset after I have a conflict with someone</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Would probably help me if I could be more competitive</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am sometimes dominated by other people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t know how to deal with mean people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Trust people too easily</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find myself believing that people are basically good, even when there is evidence to the contrary</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am loyal to a fault</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a hot temper</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be indifferent to the feelings of others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am not interested in other people’s problems</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am too suspicious of other people’s motives</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Will charm people to get my way</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be detached and cold when others are hurt and upset</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am quite critical of others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t generally show gratitude</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be vengeful</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am willing to manipulate others for personal gain</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Infrequently help others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Insult people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be aggressive and domineering</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Tend to always put myself first</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Could be better at cooperating</li>
</ul>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-12-select-habits/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-12-select-habits/<h1 id="emotional-stabilitylow-stress-tolerance">Emotional Stability/Low Stress Tolerance</h1>
<h2 id="select-relevant-items">Select Relevant Items</h2>
<p>Please select habits that apply to you. You can select up to 10 habits, and are required to select at least 2. Be over-inclusive. Don’t worry if some of the bad habit descriptions do not really apply, as you will get to specify the most typical habits later, when you make your final fault selection, prior to writing.</p>
<ul>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am sometimes not afraid of things I should be afraid of</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have found myself in dangerous situations because I was not paying attention</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Might have done fewer stupid things if I felt shame more often</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Things that should bother me don’t seem to</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am easy-going to a fault</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Sometimes think if I was more worried about things I might do better in life</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t appear to learn as well from my mistakes as others do</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can do careless or inappropriate things without seeming to experience guilt</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t worry about things that should bother me</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t pay enough attention to costs and potential future dangers</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am sometimes too calm about things</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am often too optimistic</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Criticism, even when warranted, does not seem to affect me</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Often take counterproductive or unnecessary risks</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not seem to benefit from negative feedback</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am easily disturbed and upset</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am frequently irritable or angry</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am too moody and emotionally unstable</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am too self-conscious for my own good</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Blow little things out of proportion</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel ashamed of my body</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel hurt often, even by little things</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel inadequate when introduced to new people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel too fearful, afraid and anxious</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Compare myself unfavorably to other people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Get stressed out easily</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Grumble and complain about things</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a hard time calming down after becoming upset</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Let my fears stop me from doing things I want to do</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Often feel depressed and blue</li>
</ul>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-11-select-habits/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-11-select-habits/<h1 id="conscientiousnesscarelessness">Conscientiousness/Carelessness</h1>
<h2 id="select-relevant-items">Select Relevant Items</h2>
<p>Please select habits that apply to you. You can select up to 10 habits, and are required to select at least 2. Be over-inclusive. Don’t worry if some of the bad habit descriptions do not really apply, as you will get to specify the most typical habits later, when you make your final fault selection, prior to writing.</p>
<ul>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am too perfectionistic</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Get obsessed with details and lose the big picture</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Insist that everything be in perfect order</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Dislike deviation from the rules, even when it is necessary</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have to plan everything</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Seriously dislike having my routine or schedule upset</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Cannot stand to be late for an appointment</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel that I am being unproductive if I relax</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be very judgemental</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Get upset at myself when I misplace something</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Will work on a project beyond what is useful and necessary</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Believe that I have to be flawless</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Always believe that failure is a consequence of insufficient personal effort</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Cannot tolerate having to finish a task imperfectly or quickly</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be contemptuous of other people and of myself</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do things in a half-way manner</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t like to tidy up</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find it difficult to get down to work</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Make a mess of things</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Leave my belongings around</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Surf the web or watch TV or waste time in other ways even if I have a project due</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am without real ambition</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Neglect my duties</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Frequently make excuses</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Often procrastinate</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Waste my time</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am sometimes willing to bend the truth to get out of an obligation</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel unmotivated to complete my work</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have few clearly defined goals</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have no stable daily routine for sleeping or eating</li>
</ul>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-10-select-habits/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-10-select-habits/<h1 id="opennesstraditionalism">Openness/Traditionalism</h1>
<h2 id="select-relevant-items">Select Relevant Items</h2>
<p>Please select habits that apply to you. You can select up to 10 habits, and are required to select at least 2. Be over-inclusive. Don’t worry if some of the bad habit descriptions do not really apply, as you will get to specify the most typical habits later, when you make your final fault selection, prior to writing.</p>
<ul>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Pursue too many activities at the same time</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am interested in so many things that I don’t know what to focus on</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a hard time planning for the future because I am interested in everything</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am sometimes attracted by ideas that are radical but have not been thought through</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Sometimes see meaning in things that probably isn’t there</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Jump around too much from topic to topic when I am talking to people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a hard time making up my mind because I can always see all the sides of an argument</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am so interested in creative activities that it is hard to concentrate on things that are practical</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can become possessed by an idea</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Daydream too much</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Sometimes every thought I have immediately suggests an overwhelming number of ideas</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have had experiences or thoughts that were strange enough to frighten me</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have had a hard time forming a clear identity</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> See connections between things too easily</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have done crazy things just because I was curious about what might happen</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am good at a too-narrow range of things</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am seldom interested in abstract, philosophical ideas</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Avoid sophisticated fiction and stories</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not attend movies or plays</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am unimaginative</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not care for change</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not involve myself in creative activities</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not like to read challenging material</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not really understand or value art</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Seldom seek out new experiences</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Try to avoid complex people</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Will not probe deeply into a subject</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am unlikely to initiate a new project</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Tend to think that creative people are strange</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Always do things the same way once I have learned how to do them</li>
</ul>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-09-select-habits/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-09-select-habits/<h1 id="extraversionintroversion">Extraversion/Introversion</h1>
<h2 id="select-relevant-items">Select Relevant Items</h2>
<p>Please select habits that apply to you. You can select up to 10 habits, and are required to select at least 2. Be over-inclusive. Don’t worry if some of the bad habit descriptions do not really apply, as you will get to specify the most typical habits later, when you make your final fault selection, prior to writing.</p>
<ul>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Sometimes act without thinking</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Sometimes talk too loudly</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can spend too much money</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> May exaggerate the truth</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> May dominate the conversation excessively</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find it difficult to spend time alone</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Could be a better listener</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> May spend too much time pursuing fun and excitement</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> May attract too much attention to myself</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Do not let the quieter people have a chance to talk</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Try too hard to be the center of attention</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be too theatrical or dramatic</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> May be too dependent on the admiration or attention of others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Can be a little grandiose</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Talk about myself a lot</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Often feel uncomfortable around others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Keep in the background</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have too little to say</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Lose opportunities because I am too isolated</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am too quiet around strangers</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Find it difficult to approach others</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Don’t laugh much or have fun</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Bottle up my feelings</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am a very private person</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Wait for others to lead the way</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Feel drained by social interactions</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Am not very enthusiastic</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Could be more socially skilled</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a difficult time starting conversations</li>
<li><input disabled="" type="checkbox"> Have a social circle that is too small</li>
</ul>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-08-introductions-8/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-08-introductions-8/<h1 id="change">Change</h1>
<p>Personality is reasonably stable over the lifespan, and is also powerfully influenced by hereditary or genetic factors. Despite this, personality can broaden or even transform. As people age, for example, they tend to become more agreeable, conscientious and emotionally stable.<br>
Changing personality means changing habits of action, presumption and perception. Personality change requires the formulation of clear future goals, as well as discipline and practice. People who are too agreeable can learn to stand up for themselves. Disorderly people can become more conscientious. Introverted people can become socially skilled. People who experience paralyzing levels of negative emotion can learn to explore.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-07-introductions-7/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-07-introductions-7/<h1 id="impact-of-personality-traits">Impact of Personality Traits</h1>
<p>There are advantages and disadvantages to each trait, particularly at the extremes. Extremely sociable, extraverted people can be dominant and impulsive, while introverted, quiet people can easily become isolated and depressed. Extremely open people can be scattered and overwhelmed by their own thoughts and ideas, while closed-minded people may become narrow and inflexible. Exceptionally conscientious people can be obsessive about order, judgemental and rigid, while their more carefree counterparts may be messy, undisciplined and careless. People very high in emotional stability may engage in risky, dangerous behavior, while those who are more neurotic can become so preoccupied by anxiety and pain that they are unable to function. Finally, extremely agreeable people may never stand up for themselves, while those who are too assertive can be aggressive, callous and bullying.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-06-introductions-6/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-06-introductions-6/<h2 id="stability">Stability</h2>
<p>Stability, the second higher-order trait, can be further broken down into three sub-traits: Conscientiousness (the tendency to be orderly and industrious), Emotional Stability (lack of negative emotional volatility and the tendency to withdraw), and Agreeableness (politeness and compassion, as opposed to belligerence or aggression).</p>
<h3 id="conscientiousness-conscientious-vs-carefree">Conscientiousness (Conscientious vs Carefree)</h3>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Competent</li>
<li>Orderly</li>
<li>Decisive</li>
<li>Achievement-oriented</li>
<li>Self-disciplined</li>
<li>Deliberate</li>
<li>Industrious</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="emotional-stability-calm-vs-nervous">Emotional Stability (Calm vs Nervous)</h3>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Anxious (reversed)</li>
<li>Angry (reversed)</li>
<li>Hostile (reversed)</li>
<li>Depressed (reversed)</li>
<li>Self-Conscious (reversed)</li>
<li>Vulnerable (reversed)</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="agreeableness-agreeable-vs-assertiveaggressive">Agreeableness (Agreeable vs Assertive/Aggressive)</h3>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Warm</li>
<li>Trusting</li>
<li>Straightforward</li>
<li>Altruistic</li>
<li>Modest</li>
<li>Compliant</li>
<li>Tender-minded</li>
<li>Nice</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-05-introductions-5/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-05-introductions-5/<h2 id="plasticity">Plasticity</h2>
<p>Plasticity, the first higher-order trait, can be further broken down into two sub-traits: Extraversion (the tendency to be enthusiastic and dominant) and Openness (the tendency to be open-minded and intelligent).</p>
<h3 id="extraversion-outgoing-vs-reserved">Extraversion (Outgoing vs Reserved)</h3>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Sociable</li>
<li>Active</li>
<li>Adventurousness</li>
<li>Positive</li>
<li>Excitement-Seeking</li>
<li>Gregarious</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="openness-original-vs-traditional">Openness (Original vs Traditional)</h3>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Fantasy-prone</li>
<li>Aesthetically-minded</li>
<li>Philosophical</li>
<li>Creative</li>
<li>Intuitive</li>
<li>Intellectual</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-04-introductions-4/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-04-introductions-4/<h1 id="background-knowledge">Background Knowledge</h1>
<p>To complete the following exercise, there are a number of things that are useful to know. (you may have encountered this information previously if you have completed the virtues analysis program, but it might be worthwhile to review it):</p>
<p>Everybody’s personality is composed of two higher-order traits. The first higher-order trait is known as plasticity, and can be thought of as the tendency to be flexible, exploratory, curious, and quick to adapt. The second higher-order trait is known as stability, and can be thought of as the tendency to be structured, organized, emotionally stable and focused.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-03-introductions-3/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-03-introductions-3/<h1 id="completing-the-exercise-2">Completing the Exercise 2</h1>
<p>On many pages, you will not be able to successfully click Next or Previous unless you have provided a minimum of necessary text. If you do not, you will receive an error message, and the text box in question will be highlighted in red.</p>
<p>Text boxes also have a maximum length. Pay attention, as you write, to the numbers above the text boxes. Numbers like [180 / 1000] indicate that you have typed 180 characters out of a maximum allowable of 1000. When you go over the maximum, the numbers above the text box become red. Clicking Next, Previous, or Save will result in an error message and you will not be able to proceed to the Next or Previous page. To resolve this, edit your text until the number of characters is less than or equal to the maximum. These limitations have been established so that you do not get stalled at any point in the process.</p>
<p>We do encourage you to write in some detail, however, subject to those limitations. Our research indicates that better results are obtained as the amount written by participants increases.</p>
<p>There is a progress bar in the top right portion of the screen, which displays the percentage of the exercise that you have already completed. If you hover over the bar with the mouse, you can see approximately how much time it will still take to complete the exercise.</p>
<p>You may use the Index to jump to any page you have already completed. Clicking the [Index] link will open the index. Clicking it again will close it. Remember to click Save to save any work on the current page before using the index to jump to another page.</p>
<p>After you have completed the exercise, you will be taken to a Summary page. You can use that page to email yourself a copy of your writing.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-02-introductions-2/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-02-introductions-2/<h1 id="completing-the-exercise-1">Completing the Exercise 1</h1>
<p>During this exercise, you will be presented with a series of pages either providing you with information, or asking you to describe aspects of your personality and experiences.</p>
<p>You may proceed through the exercise by clicking the Next button.</p>
<p>You can go back to previous pages by clicking Previous.</p>
<p>Each time you click Next or Previous, the data you have entered on that page will be saved. You can also save your data while remaining on the same page by clicking Save. In addition, many of the pages where you are asked to write for longer periods of time will automatically save every minute or so.</p>
<p>You may quit the exercise any time by clicking Exit/Home or shutting down your browser. If the current page is a page you have been writing on, remember to click Save before exiting. The text that you entered on previous pages will have already been saved.</p>
<p>You can come back to the exercise later, and resume your work. All your previous work will be waiting for you, and you will be taken to the last point in the exercise you had completed.</p>
<p>As a security measure, the server is designed to reject text that looks like Html. Avoid using text like “<div>”, “<bigger>”, and even “John<Bill” in your responses. Phrases like “John < Bill” are OK (note the space between “<” and “Bill”).</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-01-introductions-1/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-01-introductions-1/<p>This program has been designed to allow you to do an in-depth analysis of some of the negative aspects or faults of your personality. It is the partner program to the virtues analysis section of the present authoring program. It is our hope that constructing a clearer picture of your faults will help you understand the impact of your personality traits on your life in the past, present, and future.</p>
<p>It is probably best to complete this exercise if you are in a normal to good mood, so that you can tolerate the self-criticism. If you are feeling sad, lonely, or depressed, you should probably do the virtues analysis instead. This exercise will take you 60-90 minutes, depending on your choices. You will be asked first to read some information about basic personality theory and then to select 2-10 faults from each of five lists of faults (one list per basic personality trait).</p>
<p>Then you will be presented with the faults you have selected, and asked to choose a final list of the faults you think have most interfered with your life. You will be asked to write for about 10 minutes, later, for each fault you choose, after you have rank-ordered them in importance. We recommend that you choose 6-9 faults (for 60 to 90 minutes of work), but you can choose as many as you like. Just remember that you will be asked to write about each one. You will be asked to describe how this fault has impacted you negatively, in the past; what you might have done differently; and what you could do now and in the future to rectify or eliminate this fault.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-01/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/present-authoring-faults-01/<p>Welcome to the Present Authoring: Faults component of the Self-Authoring suite. This exercise has been designed to allow you to do an in-depth analysis of some of the negative aspects or faults of your personality.</p>
<p>The exercise may take up to three hours to complete. You may quit the exercise any time by clicking Exit/Home or shutting down your browser. If the current page is a page you have been writing on, remember to click Save before exiting. The text that you entered on previous pages will have already been saved.</p>
<p>You can come back to the exercise later, and resume your work. Just go to <a href="https://www.selfauthoring.com">www.selfauthoring.com</a>
, click the Subscriber Login button (top right) and choose the Present Authoring: Faults exercise. When you return, all your previous work will be waiting for you, and you will be taken to the last point in the exercise you had completed.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/pinboard-browser-extension-add-on/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/pinboard-browser-extension-add-on/<h1 id="pinboard-browser-extensionadd-on">Pinboard Browser Extension/Add-On</h1>
<h2 id="existing-extensions">Existing Extensions</h2>
<h3 id="chrome">Chrome</h3>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pinboard-plus/mphdppdgoagghpmmhodmfajjlloijnbd?hl=en-US">Pinboard Plus</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pinboard/lclbbneapfiaihigbkalcoophalpbapl?hl=en-US">Pinboard</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pinboard-tools/dpaohcncbmkojcpcjaojcehdlnjfbjkl?hl=en-US">Pinboard Tools</a>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="firefox">Firefox</h3>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-14-conclusion/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-14-conclusion/<p>At this point you have completed the past authoring or autobiography exercise.</p>
<p>People are much healthier and more hopeful and less depressed and more productive if they have truly derived the most relevant information from their past experiences. You can tell if this has happened (1) if there are no longer past memories that haunt and bother you, or that make you feel resentful (2) if your story has been written in a manner that would allow you to tell it to another person so that they could understand it.</p>
<p>Some of the effects of such writing seem to take a while to fully manifest themselves. Often people feel worse, not better, in the aftermath of such detailed consideration of the past. The positive benefits seem to start occurring about two weeks after the exercises have been completed.</p>
<p>If you have found this exercise helpful, you might consider proceeding to the present and future authoring sections. The present authoring exercise helps you analyze your personality faults or virtues, according to standard personality models. The future authoring exercise will help you clarify your values, stabilize your identity, identify your goals, and formulate implementable plans, over a three to five year time horizon.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-13-analysis/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-13-analysis/<ol>
<li>
<p>How did this experience come about? Was it primarily positive or negative? Were you helped or hurt by other people? What role did you play during this time period to shape the events that led to this experience? Were there things that you should have done differently? Were there important occurrences that were out of your control, or beyond your understanding at that time? Write approximately 1,000 characters.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What effect did this experience have on your trust in people? On your hopes for the future? On your belief in your own value and the value of life? On your personality? Write approximately 1,000 characters.</p>
</li>
</ol>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-12-ten-most-critical-life-experiences/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-12-ten-most-critical-life-experiences/<p>You wrote about a number of experiences in the previous pages. They are all listed below. Choose the ten experiences that were most important in shaping your life. Each of these will be subjected to further analysis, to help you understand their significance.</p>
<p>Note: If you are revisiting this screen, deselecting an experience will remove the later analysis associated with it.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-11-analysis-of-effects-of-experiences/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-11-analysis-of-effects-of-experiences/<p>Please outline how this experience has shaped your life and contributed to making you who you are today. How has the experience changed your view of other people? Of the world? Write approximately 1,000 characters.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-10-significant-experiences-from-this-epoch/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-10-significant-experiences-from-this-epoch/<p>Please describe in detail up to six significant experiences that happened to you during this period of your life. You can describe positive and negative experiences. We recommend describing at least four significant experiences from each time period.</p>
<p>For each experience, provide a title (which will be used to refer to this experience later on) and a description of the experience. Later you will explore the impact this experience has had on your life. Here, limit your description to the event itself (approximately 1,000 characters).</p>
<p>NOTE: To use the next or previous buttons successfully, you must write at least one word in an “Experience Title” box.</p>
<h2 id="experience-1">Experience 1</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
<h2 id="experience-2">Experience 2</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
<h2 id="experience-3">Experience 3</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
<h2 id="experience-4">Experience 4</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
<h2 id="experience-5">Experience 5</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
<h2 id="experience-6">Experience 6</h2>
<p>Experience Title (100 chars):<br>
Experience Description (3000 chars):</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-09-division-of-your-life-into-epochs/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-09-division-of-your-life-into-epochs/<p>Please divide your experiences into seven time periods that represent your life so far:</p>
<h2 id="epoch-1">Epoch 1</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-2">Epoch 2</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-3">Epoch 3</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-4">Epoch 4</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-5">Epoch 5</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-6">Epoch 6</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
<h2 id="epoch-7">Epoch 7</h2>
<p>Epoch Title (100 chars):</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-08-instructions-7/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-08-instructions-7/<h1 id="general-description">General Description</h1>
<p>First, you will be asked to divide your life into seven different time periods or “epochs.” These epochs can be as short or as long as you want, depending on how much you want to write about. One epoch might be “Grade School”, for example, while a later epoch could be “First Year University”.</p>
<p>If you have many significant experiences from a particular period of time, that period deserves to have its own epoch.</p>
<p>Next, you will be asked to identify the significant experiences that characterized each of the seven epochs. You can write about as few or as many experiences as you like for each epoch. Finally, you will be asked to describe how each of these experiences has shaped who you are today.</p>
<p>You can write as much as you want. People have written thousands of words while completing this exercise. Other people have written less.</p>
<p>NOTE: You will see fractional number codes such as 0/100 throughout the exercise. The numerator of the fraction (0 in this case) refers to how many words you have written. It will change as you write. The denominator (100 in this case) refers to how many words you are allowed to write in total in that section.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-07-instructions-6/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-07-instructions-6/<h1 id="attitude-while-writing">Attitude While Writing</h1>
<p>If you are rushed, or distracted, or bored, then you are not doing the writing in a manner that will benefit you. If you are writing about important events, you may find the exercise difficult and emotionally challenging, but it should not be boring. If you are rushed or distracted, then you are trying too hard to finish, or have not put enough time aside to do the writing.</p>
<p>It is very important to negotiate with yourself properly when trying to write about important things. Try to think through the fact that spending some time dealing with your past can benefit you in many ways. It can help you escape from the ghosts of the past. It can lower your level of stress. It can help you think more clearly now and in the future. It can help you get to know who you really are and how your life has affected you, positively and negatively. It can help you become healthier, mentally and physically. It can help you enjoy your life in the present, eliminate your resentment and misery, and prepare you to plan for the future.</p>
<p>It is worth putting in the time to reap such benefits.</p>
<p>Many times when a person is writing, they are writing for some other person or for some outside reason. If you have done this writing exercise properly you will be working primarily for yourself. What you produce should be a deeply personal document.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-06-instructions-5/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-06-instructions-5/<h1 id="sleeping">Sleeping</h1>
<p>It may be best to do this exercise, as well as the present and future authoring exercises, over several days. The research done on the relationship between writing and mental and physical health has demonstrated that sleeping and, more particularly, dreaming, can help you participate more deeply in the writing exercise and consolidate your new ideas.</p>
<p>So take your time and let yourself get deeply into the exercise.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-05-instructions-4/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-05-instructions-4/<h1 id="writing">Writing</h1>
<p>Why write? Writing is a sophisticated form of thinking. Thinking prepares you to perceive properly and act intelligently. If you don’t think things through, particularly difficult things, then you are likely to make serious mistakes and to hurt yourself and other people. When you write about personally important matters, you can start to identify the causes of events that might hurt and damage you. You can begin to understand how you might have to change the way you see and think to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering.</p>
<p>You have to mine the information that the past provides to ensure that the present and future emerge positively and productively.</p>
<p>It is best to do the writing that is associated with this exercise by entering into a reverie. A reverie is a state of contemplation, like a daydream. Normal focused goal-oriented thought tends to be narrow, precise and expressed in words. Image-laden thought - the movie that runs in your head - is more dream- or story-like. To complete this exercise properly, you have to daydream about the past, and let thoughts and images come to you, instead of controlling them. This can be frightening, if you start to remember unpleasant events from the past. However, it can be very useful to confront things that you are afraid of, voluntarily, particularly if your fears are stopping you from living properly in the present and the future.</p>
<p>Voluntarily facing the remembered things you fear or that you hate is the best way of dealing with them. Don’t rush this exercise, or the ones that follow, if you decide to complete them, as well. They are not something to merely complete. You have to take your time. In a reverie, or a daydream, parts of your mind that haven’t been able to speak because of your focused concentration or moral opinions have a chance to let themselves be known. These are parts of you that need a voice. If you take your time, then you can make contact with parts of yourself that have been shut away. You will need the abilities and energies that are contained within these shut-away parts to deal with the challenges of the present and the future.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-04-instructions-3/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-04-instructions-3/<h1 id="memory-emotion-and-stress">Memory, Emotion and Stress</h1>
<p>Your mind is always trying to determine the level of danger presented by your environment. When bad things happen to you, your mind and your body react by treating the environment as if it is dangerous, and preparing for emergency action. This preparation is stressful, and depletes you, mentally and physically.</p>
<p>If something bad has happened to you, in the past, your mind cannot be at peace until you have figured out how to avoid having the same thing happen to you again in the future. You can tell how well you have managed this by remembering different important events from the past. If you recall memories that make you feel ashamed, or guilty, or angry, or hurt, and these memories are more than a year and a half old, then your mind is not at peace, and you are still carrying the weight of your past.</p>
<p>Unresolved past issues make your mind and body react as if the day-to-day environment that you inhabit is permanently dangerous. Under such conditions, your body reacts to stress with more preparation for action: for fight or flight, which you may feel, respectively, as anger or fear and emotional pain. If this preparation becomes chronic, your mental and physical health can be damaged. This happens in part because your body produces more cortisol, a stress hormone, when you are endangered. Cortisol makes you ready to act, but your body gets the energy for such action by stealing from your future reserves. Cortisol shuts down your higher mental functions, inhibits your immune system, burns up your available energy and, over time, damages the brain areas responsible for memory and emotional control. Thus it is very important to keep your stress levels within reasonable boundaries.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-03-instructions-2/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-03-instructions-2/<h1 id="completing-the-exercise-2">Completing the Exercise 2</h1>
<p>On many pages, you will not be able to successfully click Next or Previous unless you have provided a minimum of necessary text. If you do not, you will receive an error message, and the text box in question will be highlighted in red.</p>
<p>Text boxes also have a maximum length. Pay attention, as you write, to the numbers above the text boxes. Numbers like [180 / 1000] indicate that you have typed 180 characters out of a maximum allowable of 1000. When you go over the maximum, the numbers above the text box become red. Clicking Next, Previous, or Save will result in an error message and you will not be able to proceed to the Next or Previous page. To resolve this, edit your text until the number of characters is less than or equal to the maximum. These limitations have been established so that you do not get stalled at any point in the process.</p>
<p>We do encourage you to write in some detail, however, subject to those limitations. Our research indicates that better results are obtained as the amount written by participants increases.</p>
<p>There is a progress bar in the top right portion of the screen, which displays the percentage of the exercise that you have already completed. If you hover over the bar with the mouse, you can see approximately how much time it will still take to complete the exercise.</p>
<p>You may use the Index to jump to any page you have already completed. Clicking the [Index] link will open the index. Clicking it again will close it. Remember to click Save to save any work on the current page before using the index to jump to another page.</p>
<p>After you have completed the exercise, you will be taken to a Summary page. You can use that page to email yourself a copy of your writing.</p>
<p>Before proceeding with the writing, you will be asked to read about 1) memory, emotion and stress, 2) the benefits of writing (and of sleeping in between writing sessions), and 3) adopting the correct attitude for beneficial writing.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-02-instructions-1/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-02-instructions-1/<h1 id="completing-the-exercise-1">Completing the Exercise 1</h1>
<p>Welcome to the Past Authoring (Autobiography) component of the self-authoring suite. This exercise is designed to help you develop a clearer sense of your past, by writing your own story. Understanding the defining moments of your life can help to illuminate your present situation, and make it easier to plan and determine your future direction.</p>
<p>During this exercise, you will be presented with a series of pages, providing information, or asking you to define and describe different periods or epochs of your life, and the experiences you had during those epochs.</p>
<p>You may proceed through the exercise by clicking the Next button.</p>
<p>You can go back to previous pages by clicking Previous.</p>
<p>Each time you click Next or Previous, the data you have entered on that page will be saved. You can also save your data while remaining on the same page by clicking Save. In addition, many of the pages where you are asked to write for longer periods of time will automatically save every minute or so.</p>
<p>You may quit the exercise any time by clicking Exit/Home or shutting down your browser. If the current page is a page you have been writing on, remember to click Save before exiting. The text that you entered on previous pages will have already been saved.</p>
<p>You can come back to the exercise later, and resume your work. All your previous work will be waiting for you, and you will be taken to the last point in the exercise that you had completed.</p>
<p>As a security measure, the server is designed to reject text that looks like Html. Avoid using text like “<div>”, “<bigger>”, and even “John<Bill” in your responses. Phrases like “John < Bill” are OK (note the space between “<” and “Bill”).</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-01/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/past-authoring-autobiography-01/<p>Welcome to the Past Authoring / Autobiography component of the Self-Authoring suite. This exercise is designed to help you develop a clearer sense of your past, by writing your own story.</p>
<p>The exercise may take up to four hours to complete. You may quit the exercise any time by clicking Exit/Home or shutting down your browser. If the current page is a page you have been writing on, remember to click Save before exiting. The text that you entered on previous pages will have already been saved.</p>
<p>You can come back to the exercise later, and resume your work. Just go to <a href="https://www.selfauthoring.com">www.selfauthoring.com</a>
, click the Subscriber Login button (top right) and choose the Past Authoring exercise. When you return, all your previous work will be waiting for you, and you will be taken to the last point in the exercise you had completed.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-4/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-4/<h2 id="book-4">Book 4</h2>
<p>1. Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events<br>
by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is<br>
possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own<br>
aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As<br>
a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp.<br>
What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed,<br>
consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher.</p>
<p>2. No random actions, none not based on underlying<br>
principles.</p>
<p>3. People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the<br>
beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too.<br>
Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.</p>
<p>​	By going within.</p>
<p>​	Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of<br>
interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have<br>
other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it<br>
is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of<br>
harmony.</p>
<p>​	So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew<br>
yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be<br>
enough to ward off all < . . . > and send you back ready to<br>
face what awaits you.</p>
<p>​	What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior?<br>
But take into consideration:</p>
<p>​	• that rational beings exist for one another;<br>
​	• that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience;<br>
​	• that no one does the wrong thing deliberately;<br>
​	• and the number of people who have feuded and envied<br>
​		and hated and fought and died and been buried.</p>
<p>. . . and keep your mouth shut.</p>
<p>​	Or are you complaining about the things the world assigns<br>
you? But consider the two options: Providence or atoms.<br>
And all the arguments for seeing the world as a city.</p>
<p>​	Or is it your body? Keep in mind that when the mind<br>
detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has<br>
anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth,<br>
either one. And remember all you’ve been taught—and<br>
accepted—about pain and pleasure.</p>
<p>​	Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at<br>
how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that<br>
swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands.<br>
The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how<br>
arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The<br>
whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited.<br>
How many people there will be to admire you, and who they<br>
are.</p>
<p>​	So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self.<br>
Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look<br>
at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a<br>
mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two:</p>
<p>​	i. That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there<br>
​	unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from<br>
​	within—from our own perceptions.</p>
<p>​	ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to<br>
​	exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen.<br>
​	“The world is nothing but change. Our life is only<br>
​	perception.”</p>
<p>4. If thought is something we share, then so is reason—what<br>
makes us reasoning beings.</p>
<p>​	If so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not<br>
to do is also shared.</p>
<p>​	And if so, we share a common law.</p>
<p>​	And thus, are fellow citizens.</p>
<p>​	And fellow citizens of something.</p>
<p>​	And in that case, our state must be the world. What other<br>
entity could all of humanity belong to? And from it—from<br>
this state that we share—come thought and reason and law.</p>
<p>Where else could they come from? The earth that<br>
composes me derives from earth, the water from some other<br>
element, the air from its own source, the heat and fire from<br>
theirs—since nothing comes from nothing, or returns to it.</p>
<p>​	So thought must derive from somewhere else as well.</p>
<p>5. Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements<br>
that split and recombine.</p>
<p>​	Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our<br>
nature.</p>
<p>6. That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well<br>
resent a fig tree for secreting juice. (Anyway, before very<br>
long you’ll both be dead—dead and soon forgotten.)</p>
<p>7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.</p>
<p>​	Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.</p>
<p>8. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character.<br>
Otherwise it cannot harm you—inside or out.</p>
<p>9. It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it.</p>
<p>10. That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll<br>
see.</p>
<p>​	Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had<br>
weighed it out with scales.</p>
<p>​	Keep looking closely like that, and embody it in your<br>
actions: goodness—what defines a good person.</p>
<p>​	Keep to it in everything you do.</p>
<p>11. Not what your enemy sees and hopes that you will, but<br>
what’s really there.</p>
<p>12. Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do<br>
only what the logos of authority and law directs, with the<br>
good of human beings in mind; (ii) to reconsider your<br>
position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to<br>
his. But your conversion should always rest on a conviction<br>
that it’s right, or benefits others—nothing else. Not because<br>
it’s more appealing or more popular.</p>
<p>13. You have a mind?</p>
<p>​	—Yes.</p>
<p>​	Well, why not use it? Isn’t that all you want—for it to do<br>
its job?</p>
<p>14. You have functioned as a part of something; you will<br>
vanish into what produced you.</p>
<p>​	Or be restored, rather.</p>
<p>​	To the <em>logos</em> from which all things spring.</p>
<p>​	By being changed.</p>
<p>15. Many lumps of incense on the same altar. One crumbles<br>
now, one later, but it makes no difference.</p>
<p>16. Now they see you as a beast, a monkey. But in a week<br>
they’ll think you’re a god—if you rediscover your beliefs<br>
and honor the <em>logos</em>.</p>
<p>17. Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you.<br>
Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be<br>
good.</p>
<p>18. The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what<br>
they say. Or think, or do. Only what <em>you</em> do. (Is this fair? Is<br>
this the right thing to do?)</p>
<p>​	< . . . > not to be distracted by their darkness. To run<br>
straight for the finish line, unswerving.</p>
<p>19. People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that<br>
the people who remember them will soon die too. And those<br>
after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to<br>
another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out.</p>
<p>​	But suppose that those who remembered you were<br>
immortal and your memory undying. What good would it do<br>
you? And I don’t just mean when you’re dead, but in your<br>
own lifetime. What use is praise, except to make your<br>
lifestyle a little more comfortable?</p>
<p>​	“ You’re out of step—neglecting the gifts of nature to hand<br>
on someone’s words in the future. “</p>
<p>20. Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves<br>
and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object<br>
of praise remains what it was—no better and no worse. This<br>
applies, I think, even to “beautiful” things in ordinary life—<br>
physical objects, artworks.</p>
<p>​	Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No<br>
more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility.<br>
Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by<br>
contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires<br>
it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers?<br>
Bushes?</p>
<p>21. If our souls survive, how does the air find room for them<br>
—all of them—since the beginning of time?</p>
<p>​	How does the earth find room for all the bodies buried in<br>
it since the beginning of time? They linger for whatever<br>
length of time, and then, through change and decomposition,<br>
make room for others. So too with the souls that inhabit the<br>
air. They linger a little, and then are changed—diffused and<br>
kindled into fire, absorbed into the logos from which all<br>
things spring, and so make room for new arrivals.</p>
<p>​	One possible answer.</p>
<p>​	But we shouldn’t think only of the mass of buried bodies.<br>
There are the ones consumed, on a daily basis, by us and by<br>
other animals. How many are swallowed up like that,<br>
entombed in the bodies of those nourished by them, and yet<br>
there is room for them all—converted into flesh and blood,<br>
transformed to air and fire.</p>
<p>​	How is the truth of this determined?</p>
<p>​	Through analysis: material and cause.</p>
<p>22. Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave<br>
with justice and see things as they are.</p>
<p>23. To the world: Your harmony is mine. Whatever time you<br>
choose is the right time. Not late, not early.</p>
<p>​	To nature: What the turn of your seasons brings me falls<br>
like ripe fruit. All things are born from you, exist in you,<br>
return to you.</p>
<p>​	The poet says “dear city of Cecrops . . .” Can’t you bring<br>
yourself to say “of Zeus”?</p>
<p>24. “If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately)<br>
do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being<br>
requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double<br>
satisfaction: to do less, better.</p>
<p>​	Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If<br>
you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more<br>
tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this<br>
necessary?”</p>
<p>​	But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as<br>
well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.</p>
<p>25. And then you might see what the life of the good man is<br>
like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and<br>
satisfied with being just and kind himself.</p>
<p>26. You’ve seen that. Now look at this.</p>
<p>​	Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself.</p>
<p>​	Someone has done wrong . . . to himself.</p>
<p>​	Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by<br>
nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.</p>
<p>​	Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can<br>
from the present—thoughtfully, justly.</p>
<p>​	Unrestrained moderation.</p>
<p>27. An ordered world or a mishmash. But still an order. Can<br>
there be order within you and not in everything else? In<br>
things so different, so dispersed, so intertwined?</p>
<p>28. Character: dark, womanish, obstinate. Wolf, sheep, child,<br>
fool, cheat, buffoon, salesman, tyrant.</p>
<p>29. Alien: (n.) one who doesn’t know what the world<br>
contains. Or how it operates.</p>
<p>​	Fugitive: (n.) one who evades his obligations to others.</p>
<p>​	Blind: (adj.) one who keeps the eyes of his mind shut tight.</p>
<p>​	Poor: (adj.) requiring others; not having the necessities of<br>
life in one’s own possession.</p>
<p>​	Rebel: (n.) one who is rebellious, one who withdraws<br>
from the logos of Nature because he resents its workings. (It<br>
produced you; now it produces this.)</p>
<p>​	Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from<br>
others with the logos. They should be one.</p>
<p>30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books. “I<br>
have nothing to eat,” says he, as he stands there half-naked,<br>
“but I subsist on the logos.” And with nothing to read, I<br>
subsist on it too.</p>
<p>31. Love the discipline you know, and let it support you.<br>
Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your<br>
way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.</p>
<p>32. The age of Vespasian, for example. People doing the<br>
exact same things: marrying, raising children, getting sick,<br>
dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business,<br>
farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping<br>
others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling in<br>
love, putting away money, seeking high office and power.</p>
<p>​	And that life they led is nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>​	Or the age of Trajan. The exact same things. And that life<br>
too—gone.</p>
<p>​	Survey the records of other eras. And see how many others<br>
gave their all and soon died and decomposed into the<br>
elements that formed them.</p>
<p>​	But most of all, run through the list of those you knew<br>
yourself. Those who worked in vain, who failed to do what<br>
they should have—what they should have remained fixed on<br>
and found satisfaction in.</p>
<p>​	A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness<br>
varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving<br>
the small things more time than they deserve.</p>
<p>33. Words once in common use now sound archaic. And the<br>
names of the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus,<br>
Dentatus . . . Scipio and Cato . . . Augustus . . . Hadrian and<br>
Antoninus, and . . .</p>
<p>​	Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon<br>
oblivion covers it.</p>
<p>​	And those are the ones who shone. The rest—“unknown,<br>
unasked-for” a minute after death. What is “eternal” fame?<br>
Emptiness.</p>
<p>​	Then what should we work for?</p>
<p>Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful<br>
speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary<br>
and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and<br>
spring.</p>
<p>34. Hand yourself over to Clotho voluntarily, and let her spin<br>
you into whatever she pleases.</p>
<p>35. Everything transitory—the knower and the known.</p>
<p>36. Constant awareness that everything is born from change.<br>
The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to<br>
alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists<br>
is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only<br>
seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.</p>
<p>37. On the verge of dying and still weighed down, still<br>
turbulent, still convinced external things can harm you, still<br>
rude to other people, still not acknowledging the truth: that<br>
wisdom is justice.</p>
<p>38. Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they<br>
don’t.</p>
<p>39. Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you.<br>
Nor can the shifts and changes in the world around you.</p>
<p>​	—Then where is harm to be found?</p>
<p>​	In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything<br>
will be fine. Let the part of you that makes that judgment keep<br>
quiet even if the body it’s attached to is stabbed or burnt, or<br>
stinking with pus, or consumed by cancer. Or to put it another<br>
way: It needs to realize that what happens to everyone—bad<br>
and good alike—is neither good nor bad. That what happens<br>
in every life—lived naturally or not—is neither natural nor<br>
unnatural.</p>
<p>40. The world as a living being—one nature, one soul. Keep<br>
that in mind. And how everything feeds into that single<br>
experience, moves with a single motion. And how everything<br>
helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together.</p>
<p>41. “A little wisp of soul carrying a corpse.”—Epictetus.</p>
<p>42. There is nothing bad in undergoing change—or good in<br>
emerging from it.</p>
<p>43. Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed<br>
once and already carried past us, and another follows and is<br>
gone.</p>
<p>44. Everything that happens is as simple and familiar as the<br>
rose in spring, the fruit in summer: disease, death,<br>
blasphemy, conspiracy . . . everything that makes stupid<br>
people happy or angry.</p>
<p>45. What follows coheres with what went before. Not like a<br>
random catalogue whose order is imposed upon it arbitrarily,<br>
but logically connected. And just as what exists is ordered<br>
and harmonious, what comes into being betrays an order too.<br>
Not a mere sequence, but an astonishing concordance.</p>
<p>46. Remember Heraclitus: “When earth dies, it becomes<br>
water; water, air; air, fire; and back to the beginning.”</p>
<p>​	“Those who have forgotten where the road leads.”</p>
<p>​	“They are at odds with what is all around them”—the alldirecting<br>
logos. And “they find alien what they meet with<br>
every day.”</p>
<p>​	“Our words and actions should not be like those of<br>
sleepers” (for we act and speak in dreams as well) “or of<br>
children copying their parents”—doing and saying only what<br>
we have been told.</p>
<p>47. Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die<br>
tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete<br>
coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was<br>
—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the<br>
difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as<br>
small.</p>
<p>48. Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died,<br>
after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How<br>
many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’<br>
ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on<br>
death and immortality. How many warriors, after inflicting<br>
thousands of casualties themselves. How many tyrants, after<br>
abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they<br>
were themselves immortal.</p>
<p>​	How many whole cities have met their end: Helike,<br>
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others.</p>
<p>​	And all the ones you know yourself, one after another. One<br>
who laid out another for burial, and was buried himself, and<br>
then the man who buried him—all in the same short space of<br>
time.</p>
<p>​	In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial.<br>
Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.</p>
<p>​	To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give<br>
it upwithout complaint.</p>
<p>​	Like an olive that ripens and falls.</p>
<p>​	Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.</p>
<p>49. To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It<br>
stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.</p>
<p>49a. —It’s unfortunate that this has happened.</p>
<p>​	No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained<br>
unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of<br>
the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not<br>
everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the<br>
one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can<br>
you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate<br>
human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against<br>
nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is.<br>
Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice,<br>
generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility,<br>
straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a<br>
person’s nature to fulfill itself?</p>
<p>​	So remember this principle when something threatens to<br>
cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to<br>
endure it and prevail is great good fortune.</p>
<p>50. A trite but effective tactic against the fear of death: think<br>
of the list of people who had to be pried away from life.<br>
What did they gain by dying old? In the end, they all sleep six<br>
feet under—Caedicianus, Fabius, Julian, Lepidus, and all the<br>
rest. They buried their contemporaries, and were buried in<br>
turn.</p>
<p>​	Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these<br>
circumstances, among these people, in this body? Nothing to<br>
get excited about. Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite<br>
future. Three days of life or three generations: what’s the<br>
difference?</p>
<p>51. Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to<br>
speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of<br>
pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-3/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-3/<h2 id="book-3">Book 3</h2>
<p>IN CARNUNTUM</p>
<p>1. Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less<br>
and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be<br>
sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world—to<br>
the contemplation that aims at divine and human knowledge?<br>
If our mind starts to wander, we’ll still go on breathing, go<br>
on eating, imagining things, feeling urges and so on. But<br>
getting the most out of ourselves, calculating where our duty<br>
lies, analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s<br>
time to call it quits—all the things you need a healthy mind<br>
for . . . all those are gone.</p>
<p>​	So we need to hurry.</p>
<p>Not just because we move daily closer to death but also<br>
because our understanding—our grasp of the world—may be<br>
gone before we get there.</p>
<p>2. We should remember that even Nature’s inadvertence has<br>
its own charm, its own attractiveness. The way loaves of<br>
bread split open on top in the oven; the ridges are just byproducts<br>
of the baking, and yet pleasing, somehow: they<br>
rouse our appetite without our knowing why.</p>
<p>​	Or how ripe figs begin to burst.</p>
<p>​	And olives on the point of falling: the shadow of decay<br>
gives them a peculiar beauty.</p>
<p>​	Stalks of wheat bending under their own weight. The<br>
furrowed brow of the lion. Flecks of foam on the boar’s<br>
mouth.</p>
<p>​	And other things. If you look at them in isolation there’s<br>
nothing beautiful about them, and yet by supplementing nature<br>
they enrich it and draw us in. And anyone with a feeling for<br>
nature—a deeper sensitivity—will find it all gives pleasure.<br>
Even what seems inadvertent. He’ll find the jaws of live<br>
animals as beautiful as painted ones or sculptures. He’ll look<br>
calmly at the distinct beauty of old age in men, women, and at<br>
the loveliness of children. And other things like that will call<br>
out to him constantly—things unnoticed by others. Things<br>
seen only by those at home with Nature and its works.</p>
<p>3. Hippocrates cured many illnesses—and then fell ill and<br>
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in<br>
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,<br>
Caesar—who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so<br>
many thousand foot and horse in battle—they too departed<br>
this life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.<br>
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared<br>
with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,<br>
Socrates by the human kind.</p>
<p>​	And?</p>
<p>​	You boarded, you set sail, you’ve made the passage. Time<br>
to disembark. If it’s for another life, well, there’s nowhere<br>
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no<br>
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on<br>
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body—so<br>
much inferior to that which serves it.</p>
<p>​	One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage.</p>
<p>4. Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about<br>
other people—unless it affects the common good. It will<br>
keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too<br>
preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and<br>
what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what<br>
they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and<br>
keep you from focusing on your own mind.</p>
<p>​	You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought:<br>
everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly<br>
everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used<br>
to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “What<br>
are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and<br>
truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it<br>
would be obvious at once from your answer that your<br>
thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones—the<br>
thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with<br>
pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with<br>
squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be<br>
ashamed to be caught thinking.</p>
<p>​	Someone like that—someone who refuses to put off<br>
joining the elect—is a kind of priest, a servant of the gods, in<br>
touch with what is within him and what keeps a person<br>
undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched<br>
by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the<br>
greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed<br>
by anything that happens. With what leaves us dyed indelibly<br>
by justice, welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes—<br>
whatever we’re assigned—not worrying too often, or with<br>
any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or<br>
think.</p>
<p>​	He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly<br>
what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and<br>
trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us<br>
—and it carries us.</p>
<p>​	He keeps in mind that all rational things are related, and<br>
that to care for all human beings is part of being human.<br>
Which doesn’t mean we have to share their opinions. We<br>
should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature.<br>
And the others? He bears in mind what sort of people they<br>
are—both at home and abroad, by night as well as day—and<br>
who they spend their time with. And he cares nothing for<br>
their praise—men who can’t even meet their own standards.</p>
<p>5. How to act:</p>
<p>​	Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without<br>
​		forethought, with misgivings.</p>
<p>​	Don’t gussy up your thoughts.</p>
<p>​	No surplus words or unnecessary actions.</p>
<p>​	Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen,<br>
​		a Roman, a ruler. Taking up his post like a soldier<br>
​		and patiently awaiting his recall from life. Needing<br>
​		no oath or witness.</p>
<p>Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people’s help. Or<br>
serenity supplied by others.</p>
<p>​	To stand up straight—not straightened.</p>
<p>6. If, at some point in your life, you should come across<br>
anything better than justice, honesty, self-control, courage—<br>
than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to<br>
act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its<br>
control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it<br>
without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing<br>
indeed—and enjoy it to the full.</p>
<p>​	But if nothing presents itself that’s superior to the spirit<br>
that lives within—the one that has subordinated individual<br>
desires to itself, that discriminates among impressions, that<br>
has broken free of physical temptations (as Socrates used to<br>
say), and subordinated itself to the gods, and looks out for<br>
human beings’ welfare—if you find that there’s nothing more<br>
important or valuable than that . . .</p>
<p>​	. . . then don’t make room for anything but it—for anything<br>
that might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave<br>
you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the<br>
goodness that is uniquely yours. It would be wrong for<br>
anything to stand between you and attaining goodness—as a<br>
rational being and a citizen. Anything at all: the applause of<br>
the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All of<br>
them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But<br>
suddenly they control us and sweep us away.</p>
<p>​	So make your choice straightforwardly, once and for all,<br>
and stick to it. Choose what’s best.</p>
<p>​	—Best is what benefits me.</p>
<p>​	As a rational being? Then follow through. Or just as an<br>
animal? Then say so and stand your ground without making a<br>
show of it. (Just make sure you’ve done your homework<br>
first.)</p>
<p>7. Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you<br>
betray a trust, or lose your sense of shame, or makes you<br>
show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for<br>
things best done behind closed doors. If you can privilege<br>
your own mind, your guiding spirit and your reverence for its<br>
powers, that should keep you clear of dramatics, of wailing<br>
and gnashing of teeth. You won’t need solitude—or a cast of<br>
thousands, either. Above all, you’ll be free of fear and<br>
desire. And how long your body will contain the soul that<br>
inhabits it will cause you not a moment’s worry. If it’s time<br>
for you to go, leave willingly—as you would to accomplish<br>
anything that can be done with grace and honor. And<br>
concentrate on this, your whole life long: for your mind to be<br>
in the right state—the state a rational, civic mind should be<br>
in.</p>
<p>8. The mind of one set straight and purified: no pus, no dirt,<br>
no scabs.</p>
<p>​	And not a life cut short by death, like an actor who stops<br>
before the play is done, the plot wound up.</p>
<p>​	Neither servility nor arrogance. Neither cringing nor<br>
disdain. Neither excuses nor evasions.</p>
<p>9. Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect.<br>
It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions—false<br>
to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes<br>
thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and<br>
submission to the divine.</p>
<p>10. Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and<br>
remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.<br>
The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The<br>
span we live is small—small as the corner of the earth in<br>
which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed<br>
from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant<br>
alike of themselves and those long dead.</p>
<p>11. To the stand-bys above, add this one: always to define<br>
whatever it is we perceive—to trace its outline—so we can<br>
see what it really is: its substance. Stripped bare. As a<br>
whole. Unmodified. And to call it by its name—the thing<br>
itself and its components, to which it will eventually return.<br>
Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity<br>
for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens<br>
to us. To look at it in such a way that we understand what<br>
need it fulfills, and in what kind of world. And its value to<br>
that world as a whole and to man in particular—as a citizen<br>
of that higher city, of which all other cities are mere<br>
households.</p>
<p>​	What is it—this thing that now forces itself on my notice?<br>
What is it made up of? How long was it designed to last?<br>
And what qualities do I need to bring to bear on it—<br>
tranquillity, courage, honesty, trustworthiness,<br>
straightforwardness, independence or what?</p>
<p>​	So in each case you need to say: “This is due to God.” Or:<br>
“This is due to the interweavings and intertwinings of fate, to<br>
coincidence or chance.” Or: “This is due to a human being.<br>
Someone of the same race, the same birth, the same society,<br>
but who doesn’t know what nature requires of him. But I do.<br>
And so I’ll treat them as the law that binds us—the law of<br>
nature—requires. With kindness and with justice.</p>
<p>​	And in inconsequential things? I’ll do my best to treat them<br>
as they deserve.”</p>
<p>12. If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence,<br>
energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions,<br>
and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might<br>
have to give it back at any moment—</p>
<p>​	If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can<br>
find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature<br>
intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every<br>
utterance)—then your life will be happy.</p>
<p>​	No one can prevent that.</p>
<p>13. Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy,<br>
for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to<br>
understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the<br>
smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing<br>
earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by<br>
ignoring the earth.</p>
<p>14. Stop drifting. You’re not going to re-read your Brief<br>
Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans,<br>
the commonplace books you saved for your old age. Sprint<br>
for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being<br>
matters to you, be your own savior while you can.</p>
<p>15. They don’t realize how much is included in stealing,<br>
sowing, buying, resting, seeing to business (not with the<br>
eyes, but another kind of sight).</p>
<p>16. Body. Soul. Mind.</p>
<p>​	Sensations: the body.</p>
<p>​	Desires: the soul.</p>
<p>​	Reasoning: the mind.</p>
<p>​	To experience sensations: even grazing beasts do that. To<br>
let your desires control you: even wild animals do that—and<br>
rutting humans, and tyrants (from Phalaris to Nero . . .).</p>
<p>​	To make your mind your guide to what seems best: even<br>
people who deny the gods do that. Even people who betray<br>
their country. Even people who do <. . .> behind closed<br>
doors.</p>
<p>​	If all the rest is common coin, then what is unique to the<br>
good man?</p>
<p>​	To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to<br>
stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false<br>
beliefs. Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying<br>
God—saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust. And if the<br>
others don’t acknowledge it—this life lived with simplicity,<br>
humility, cheerfulness—he doesn’t resent them for it, and<br>
isn’t deterred from following the road where it leads: to the<br>
end of life. An end to be approached in purity, in serenity, in<br>
acceptance, in peaceful unity with what must be.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/keeping-a-stoic-journal/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/keeping-a-stoic-journal/<p>I have experimented with other exercises, but journaling is my primary Stoic exercise, although I journal a variety of ways.</p>
<p>One of the better starting points (not historically Stoic, but influenced by Stoicism) is the <a href="http://thephilosophersmail.com/virtues/philosophical-meditation-a-guide/">philosophical meditation routine from the The Philosopher’s Mail</a>
, although I personally bring more Stoic elements into it by, in addition to the questions listed there, I ask what the different experiences say about what I value, whether these values concern virtues/vices or externals, and what virtues and vices <em>do</em> apply.</p>
<p>Although I think it clear that writing was an important element in ancient Stoic training, explicit instructions are lacking. The best references I know of are Marcus Aurelius’s <em>Meditations</em> as an example of such writing, Epictetus’s Discourses <a href="https://archive.org/stream/MN40058ucmf_2?ui=embed#page/n50/mode/1up">I.1</a>
 and <a href="https://archive.org/stream/MN40058ucmf_2?ui=embed#page/n150/mode/1up">II.1</a>
. There is also <del>some Seneca I am failing to dig up right now.</del> Seneca’s letter 84.</p>
<p>Other journaling ideas, some Stoic (or at least related to Stoicism), some not (repeated from an <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/2qevr5/what_practices_or_habits_do_you_use_to_live_an/cn5u1pu">earlier comment of mine</a>
):</p>
<ul>
<li>Following the examples in the first chapter of the Marcus Aurelius’s <em>Meditations,</em> pick something or someone you admire or for which you are grateful, and list the reasons why, being specific.</li>
<li>Pick a philosophical or ethical principle you agree with but do not reliably live by (from Stoicism or elsewhere), and rephrase it in your own words. Think of this as launching an advertising campaign targeting yourself. Just as commercial advertisements use assorted tricks (repetition, association, etc.) to generate impulses to buy things, have your rational mind use the same tricks to generate impulses to follow your principles.</li>
<li>Think of a person, real or fictional, whose wisdom and good judgement you admire. Imagine that they have just watched the way you spent your day, then try to write a letter of advice from their point of view to yourself. Note that you don’t necessarily have to <em>agree</em> with what you write; the additional perspective, even if you reject it, can help you gain perspective.</li>
<li>Think about what you value, from the perspective of looking at your whole life. (See the <a href="http://www.lifevaluesinventory.org/">life values inventory</a>
 of the <a href="https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/">VIA survey of character strengths</a>
) Go through every thing you did during the day, and think about how it relates to these values.</li>
<li>Write a letter of thanks to yourself for things well done.</li>
<li>If there is something you have done that you regret, write a letter of apology to yourself. (See <a href="http://www.perfectapology.com/how-to-say-im-sorry.html">here</a>
 for some guidance on what it should contain.) If it includes promissory an or restitution parts, make concrete plans. Then write a letter of forgiveness in response.</li>
<li>Pick an emotionally charged situation from your life, and give a detailed account of it in emotionally neutral language, maybe from the point of view of an alien anthropologist.</li>
<li>For a morally or emotionally challenging event (either recently experienced or likely future), list what character strengths or virtues are most relevant to handling it well, and what you think it would mean to handle it well exhibiting those strengths and virtues.</li>
<li>For a morally or emotionally challenging event, list what impulses and gut reactions you have, what beliefs about what is good and bad they imply, and then consider which are true goods and bads, which are preferred or unpreferred indifferents, and which are neutral indifferents. Always refer back to your actual global values (see above).</li>
<li>Use self-monitoring and quantified-self tracking techniques to support any plans you might make that arise from things listed above (letters of apology, etc.) (Edit: See <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/1/1/4.html#167">Ben Franklin’s virtue log</a>
 or assorted self-monitoring exercise in the Stoic Week booklets.)</li>
<li>Imagine a realistic future, say 10 years from now, in which things have turned out well, in which you have achieved what you want while exhibiting a character of which you can be justly proud. Write a detailed account of this future, and the events between now and then.</li>
<li>Imagine a future in which you have been unlucky, but have always acted in a way you admire, and give a detailed account.</li>
<li>If you are worried about something, write out what you are worried about in an organized, systematic way. Relate everything back to your core values, virtues, and character.</li>
<li>Write out of list of situations in which you personally find emotionally or ethically challenging. Think about what triggers the response you want to avoid.</li>
<li>Imagine it is one, ten, and 30 years from now. Write out what events of today you think you will remember then, and how important you will consider them to be. Write out how much someone 100, 1000, and 5000 years from now will know about your day today.</li>
<li>Think about the people you encountered today, or are likely to encounter tomorrow. Imagine what they want, fear, etc. Think of one or two small kindnesses you can do for them, and make plans to do them.</li>
<li>Go back to the most recent political or ethical argument from a book, editorial, etc. that you agreed with. Carefully write out the premises and conclusions, reducing the argument to syllogisms. Then, go through the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies">list of fallacies</a>
, and write out attacks on your argument, as strongly as you can, considering each fallacy, starting with the strongest you can find.</li>
<li>For an opinion or non-fiction book you are reading or have recently read, create an outline, and for each section list what you think the author thinks are the most important points in each section. List them, and evaluate them using the <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/08/06/the-grid-of-disputation/#.VJ2ZBLCA0">grid of disputation</a>
, then back up your rating in writing.</li>
<li>For a work of fiction (written, TV, movie, etc.), list the characters. Imagine that each could “take over” your life for a day, preserving their own temperament and judgement, but limited to your body, skill, resources, and knowledge. How would each have lived your day? Which do you admire most?</li>
</ul>
<p>For more on classical writing exercises for moral development, look up books on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progymnasmata">progymnasmata</a>
, for example <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL8844434M/Progymnasmata">the collection of translations of ancient sources by Kennedy</a>
.</p>
<p>These exercises share many characteristics with physical fitness exercises.</p>
<ul>
<li>Just as physical exercises will never mean you are immune to injury and disease, and never result in infinite strength or endurance, these exercises will never make you a sage. However, it’s better to be fit than not.</li>
<li>Don’t try to do too much at once, or expect too much at once. Be wary of injuries, disillusionment, and burn-out from over-training.</li>
<li>Balance variety and routine. Cross training is good, but sustained effort is needed as well.</li>
<li>Sometimes, particularly when addressing an injury or illness, a mentor is needed. Someone in generally good health can “go it alone” with a modest exercise routine. Someone with an injury is better off with a physical therapist. A novice training for a triathlon might benefit from a coach.</li>
<li>When you stop working at all, you lose much of what you gained.</li>
</ul>
<p>Author: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cleomedes/">cleomedes</a>
</p>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/3xyjfc/keeping_a_stoic_journal/cy925wz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3">Keeping a Stoic Journal</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/f-a-q/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/f-a-q/<p><strong>In what order should I write the programs?</strong></p>
<p>Our users each have their own experiences, circumstances, and needs. Some people benefit from doing the Past Authoring exercise first. One approach is to do the Present Authoring Faults exercise first, to sharpen your sense of self criticism, the Future Authoring exercise next, to formulate a plan, then the Present Authoring Virtues exercise, to think about capitalizing on your strengths, and finally the Past Authoring exercise. However, if you have significant issues in your past that are still causing you some trouble, you might consider starting with the Past Authoring exercise. You should do it in the order that you think will benefit you the most.</p>
<p><strong>Can I download the program or write it offline?</strong></p>
<p>At this time there is no option to download the Self Authoring programs and complete them offline. Some people choose to complete the program in a word-processor, or by hand, and put some filler text in the program.</p>
<p>Another thing to be aware of is that the programs are designed to keep track of your word count and to have time limits. This is to keep answers below a certain length, and so people don’t spend too much time on a particular answer.</p>
<p><strong>Can I write the program in any language?</strong></p>
<p>The programs are most effective when the writer is working in their most fluent language, so it is encouraged.</p>
<p><strong>Does the program have an expiration after I purchase it?</strong></p>
<p>It does not expire, so you can take as long as you’d like to complete the programs. Remember that you can return to your work at any time. <em>You do not have to complete the programs in one sitting</em>. In fact, sleeping between periods of work likely helps the process produce the changes in outlook and memory reorganization that it is designed to produce.</p>
<p><strong>Approximately how long does a single program take?</strong></p>
<p>Each program usually takes 4-5 hours, but we recommend you divide this time up over multiple sessions and beginning each session with a refreshed, and well-rested mind.</p>
<h5 id="troubleshooting-tips">Troubleshooting Tips</h5>
<ol>
<li>
<p>If you cannot move back or forward, there are two possibilities:</p>
<p>a. You have written too little.</p>
<p>b. You have written too much (NOTE: the program counts paragraph breaks as spaces. So if you have written 999/1000 characters, but have put more than two paragraph breaks in your text, you will not be able to use NEXT or PREVIOUS).</p>
<p>If you get stuck completely, logout, and log back in at the <a href="https://selfauthoring.com/">Self Authoring home page</a>
.</p>
<p>The exercises have limits so that you do not get stuck at any point, by writing too much, and become exhausted or frustrated.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Make sure you click “next” or “save” before you logout of the program. Otherwise, the program does not know you have typed anything, and will not save the page you are working on.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>PROJECT TAG ERROR: If you receive such an error, logout, and go to the <a href="https://selfauthoring.com/">Self Authoring home page</a>
 and Login again.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h5 id="other-suggestions">Other Suggestions:</h5>
<ol>
<li>Consider watching the TEDx talk <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLteWutitFM">“The Reality of Potential”</a>
.</li>
<li>Read <a href="https://selfauthoring.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/Pdf/WritingBenefits.pdf">this paper</a>
 explaining the science behind the Self Authoring Suite.</li>
<li>If you have a problem that these tips couldn’t solve, please contact us at <a href="https://selfauthoring.com/support">the form here</a>
. We will get back to you as soon as possible.</li>
</ol>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/excercises/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/excercises/<ol>
<li>Future Authoring</li>
<li>Present Authoring - Virtues</li>
<li>Past Authoring</li>
<li>Present Authoring - Faults</li>
</ol>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/epictetus-the-enchiridion/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/epictetus-the-enchiridion/<p>HANDBOOK</p>
<p>1.1. Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our<br>
power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word,<br>
whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our<br>
property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our<br>
own doing.</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>The things that are within our power are by nature free,<br>
and immune to hindrance and obstruction, while those that are not<br>
within our power are weak, slavish, subject to hindrance, and not our<br>
own.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Remember, then, that if you regard that which is by nature<br>
slavish as being free, and that which is not your own as being your<br>
own, you’ll have cause to lament, you’ll have a troubled mind, and<br>
you’ll find fault with both gods and human beings; but if you regard<br>
only that which is your own as being your own, and that which isn’t<br>
your own as not being your own (as is indeed the case), no one will<br>
ever be able to coerce you, no one will hinder you, you’ll find fault<br>
with no one, you’ll accuse no one, you’ll do nothing whatever<br>
against your will, you’ll have no enemy, and no one will ever harm<br>
you because no harm can affect you.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Since you’re aiming, then, at such great things, remember that<br>
you’ll have to exert no small effort to attain them, and that<br>
you’ll have to renounce some things altogether, while postponing<br>
others for the present. But if you want to have both these things and<br>
public office and riches too, you’ll quite possibly not even gain the<br>
latter because you’re aiming at the former too, and you’ll<br>
certainly fail to get the former, through which alone happiness and<br>
freedom can be secured.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Practise, then, from the very beginning to say to every disagreeable<br>
impression, ‘You’re an impression and not at all what you appear to<br>
be.’ Then examine it and test it by these rules that you possess, and<br>
first and foremost by this one, whether the impression relates to those<br>
things that are within our power, or those that aren’t within our<br>
power; and if it relates to anything that isn’t within our power, be<br>
ready to reply, ‘That’s nothing to me.’</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>2.1. Remember that desire promises the attaining of what you desire,<br>
and aversion the avoiding of what you want to avoid, and that he who<br>
falls into desire is unfortunate, while he who falls into what he wants<br>
to avoid suffers misfortune. If you seek to avoid, then, only what is<br>
contrary to nature among those things that are within your own power,<br>
you’ll never fall into anything that you want to avoid; but if you<br>
attempt to avoid illness, or death, or poverty, you’ll suffer<br>
misfortune. 2. Remove your aversion, then, from everything that is not<br>
within our power, and transfer it to what is contrary to nature among<br>
those things that are within our power. For the present, however,<br>
suppress your desires entirely; for if you desire any of the things<br>
that are not within our power, you’re bound to be unfortunate, while<br>
those that are within our power, which it would be right for you to<br>
desire, aren’t yet within your reach. But use only your motives to<br>
act or not to act, and even those lightly, with reservations and<br>
without straining.</p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p>With regard to everything that is a source of delight to you, or is<br>
useful to you, or of which you are fond, remember to keep telling<br>
yourself what kind of thing it is, starting with the most<br>
insignificant. If you’re fond of a jug, say, ‘This is a jug that<br>
I’m fond of,’ and then, if it gets broken, you won’t be upset. If<br>
you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human<br>
being that you’re kissing; and then, if one of them should die, you<br>
won’t be upset.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you’re about to embark on any action, remind yourself what<br>
kind of action it is. If you’re going out to take a bath, set before<br>
your mind the things that happen at the baths, that people splash you,<br>
that people knock up against you, that people steal from you. And<br>
you’ll thus undertake the action in a surer manner if you say to<br>
yourself at the outset, ‘I want to take a bath and ensure at the same<br>
time that my choice remains in harmony with nature.’ And follow the<br>
same course in every action that you embark on. So if anything gets in<br>
your way while you’re taking your bath, you’ll be ready to tell<br>
yourself, ‘Well, this wasn’t the only thing that I wanted to do,<br>
but I also wanted to keep my choice in harmony with nature; and I<br>
won’t keep it so if I get annoyed at what is happening.’</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It isn’t the things themselves that disturb people, but the<br>
judgements that they form about them. Death, for instance, is nothing<br>
terrible, or else it would have seemed so to Socrates too; no, it is in<br>
the judgement that death is terrible that the terror lies. So<br>
accordingly, whenever we’re impeded, disturbed, or distressed, we<br>
should never blame anyone else, but only ourselves, that is to say, our<br>
judgements. It is the act of an ill-educated person to cast blame on<br>
others when things are going badly for him; one who has taken the first<br>
step towards becoming properly educated casts blame on himself; while<br>
one who is fully educated casts blame neither on another nor on<br>
himself.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Don’t pride yourself on any excellence that is not your own. If a<br>
horse were to say in its pride, ‘I’m beautiful,’ that would be<br>
bearable; but when you exclaim in your pride, ‘I have a beautiful<br>
horse,’ you should be clear in your mind that you’re priding<br>
yourself on a good quality that belongs to a horse. What is your own,<br>
then? The use of impressions.* So when you’re in harmony with nature<br>
through the right use of impressions, you should then be proud of<br>
yourself; for then you’ll be taking pride in some good of your own.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you’re on a voyage and your ship has set anchor, if you<br>
should go ashore to fetch water, you may pick up a little shellfish or<br>
bulb on the way, but you have to keep your attention directed towards<br>
the ship, and turn round constantly in case the captain calls you back;<br>
and if he does, you must cast these things aside, if you don’t want<br>
to be thrown on board trussed up like a sheep. So in life too, if in<br>
place of some little bulb or shellfish, a little wife and child should<br>
be granted to you, there is nothing wrong with that; but if the captain<br>
calls, you must give up all of these things and run to the ship,<br>
without even turning around to look back. And if you’re an old man,<br>
you shouldn’t even wander any distance from the ship, so as not to be<br>
missing when the call comes.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Don’t seek that all that comes about should come about as you<br>
wish, but wish that everything that comes about should come about just<br>
as it does, and then you’ll have a calm and happy life.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to choice, unless<br>
choice wills it to be so. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not<br>
to choice.* And tell yourself the same with regard to everything that<br>
happens to you; for you’ll find that it acts as an impediment to<br>
something else, but not to yourself.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>With regard to everything that happens to you, remember to look<br>
inside yourself and see what capacity you have to enable you to deal<br>
with it. If you catch sight of a beautiful boy or woman, you’ll find<br>
that you have self-control to enable you to deal with that; if hard<br>
work lies in store for you, you’ll find endurance; if vilification,<br>
you’ll find forbearance. And if you get into the habit of following<br>
this course, you won’t get swept away by your impressions.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Never say about anything, ‘I’ve lost it,’ but rather,<br>
‘I’ve given it back.’ Your child has died? It has been given<br>
back. Your wife has died? She has been given back. ‘My farm has been<br>
taken from me.’ Well, that too has been given back. ‘Yes, but the<br>
man who took it is a rogue.’ What does it matter to you through what<br>
person the one who gave it to you demanded it back? So long as he<br>
entrusts it to you, take care of it as something that isn’t your own,<br>
as travellers treat an inn.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>12.1. If you want to make progress, reject such thoughts as these:<br>
‘If I neglect my affairs, I’ll have nothing to live on,’ or,<br>
‘If I don’t punish my slave-boy, he’ll turn out badly.’ For it<br>
is better to die of hunger, but free from distress and fear, than to<br>
live in plenty with a troubled mind; and it is better that your slave<br>
should be bad than that you should be unhappy. Make a start, then, with<br>
small things. 2. A drop of oil is spilled, a little wine is stolen; say<br>
to yourself, ‘Such is the price at which equanimity is bought; such<br>
is the price that one pays for peace of mind.’ For nothing can be<br>
acquired at no cost at all. When you summon your slave-boy, keep in<br>
mind that he may not obey, and even if he does, he may not do what you<br>
want; but he is hardly so well placed that it depends on him whether<br>
you’re to enjoy peace of mind.</p>
<ol start="13">
<li>If you want to make progress, put up with being thought foolish and<br>
silly with regard to external things, and don’t even wish to give the<br>
impression of knowing anything about them; and if some people come to<br>
think that you’re somebody of note, regard yourself with distrust.<br>
For you should recognize that it isn’t easy to keep your choice in<br>
accord with nature and, at the same time, hold onto externals, but if<br>
you apply your attention to one of those things, you’re bound to<br>
neglect the other.</li>
</ol>
<p>14.1. If you want your children and wife and friends to live for ever,<br>
you’re a fool, because you’re wanting things that aren’t within<br>
your power to be within your power, and things that aren’t your own<br>
to be your own. And likewise, if you want your slave-boy never to<br>
commit a fault, you’re an idiot, because you’re wanting badness not<br>
to be badness, but something else. If you make it your wish, however,<br>
not to fail in your desires, that lies within your power. So exercise<br>
yourself in that which you can achieve. 2. Everyone is subject to<br>
anyone who has power over what he wants or doesn’t want, as one who<br>
is in a position to confer it or take it away. If anyone wants to be<br>
free, then, let him neither want anything nor seek to avoid anything<br>
that is under the control of others; or else he is bound to be a slave.</p>
<ol start="15">
<li>
<p>Remember that you should behave in life as you do at a banquet.<br>
Something is being passed around and arrives in front of you: reach out<br>
your hand and take your share politely. It passes: don’t try to hold<br>
it back. It has yet to reach you: don’t project your desire towards<br>
it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. So act likewise with<br>
regard to your children, to your wife, to public office, to riches, and<br>
the time will come when you’re worthy to have a seat at the banquets<br>
of the gods. And if you don’t even take these things when they’re<br>
in front of you, but view them with contempt, then you’ll not only<br>
share in the banquets of the gods, but also in their rule. For it was<br>
by acting in such a way that Diogenes, and Heraclitus,* and others like<br>
them, deservedly became divine and were called so.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you see someone weeping in sorrow because his child has gone<br>
away, or because he has lost his possessions, take care that you’re<br>
not carried away by the impression that he is indeed in misfortune<br>
because of these external things, but be ready at once with this<br>
thought, ‘It isn’t what has happened that so distresses this<br>
person—for someone else could suffer the same without feeling that<br>
distress—but rather the judgement that he has formed about it.’ As<br>
far as words go, however, don’t hesitate to sympathize with him, or<br>
even, if the occasion arises, to join in his lamentations; but take<br>
care that you don’t also lament deep inside.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Remember that you’re an actor in a play, which will be as the<br>
author chooses, short if he wants it to be short, and long if he wants<br>
it to be long. If he wants you to play the part of a beggar, act even<br>
that part with all your skill; and likewise if you’re playing a<br>
cripple, an official, or a private citizen. For that is your business,<br>
to act the role that is assigned to you as well as you can; but it is<br>
another’s* part to select that role.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When a raven croaks* inauspiciously, don’t allow yourself to be<br>
carried away by the impression, but immediately draw a distinction<br>
within your mind, and say, ‘None of these omens apply to me, but only<br>
to my poor body, to my paltry possessions, or my reputation, or my<br>
children, or my wife. But for me every omen is favourable for I want it<br>
to be so; for whatever may come about, it is within my power to derive<br>
benefit from it.’</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>19.1. You can be invincible if you never enter a contest in which the<br>
victory doesn’t depend on you. 2. So whenever you see someone being<br>
preferred above you in the awarding of honours, or holding great power,<br>
or enjoying high repute in any other way, take care that you don’t<br>
get carried away by the outward impression and count him as happy; for<br>
if the nature of the good is one of the things that lie within our<br>
power, there can be no place for either envy or jealousy, and you<br>
yourself won’t want to be a praetor or senator or consul, but a free<br>
man. Now there is one path alone that leads to that: to despise<br>
everything that doesn’t lie within our own power.</p>
<ol start="20">
<li>
<p>Remember that what insults you isn’t the person who abuses you or<br>
hits you, but your judgement that such people are insulting you. So<br>
whenever anyone irritates you, recognize that it is your opinion that<br>
has irritated you. Try above all, then, not to allow yourself to be<br>
carried away by the impression; for if you delay things and gain time<br>
to think, you’ll find it easier to gain control of yourself.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Day by day you must keep before your eyes death and exile and<br>
everything else that seems frightening, but most especially death; and<br>
then you’ll never harbour any mean thought, nor will you desire<br>
anything beyond due measure.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you set your desire on pursuing philosophy, prepare from that<br>
moment to be subject to ridicule, and to have many people mocking you,<br>
and saying, ‘Look, he’s come back to us having become a philosopher<br>
all of a sudden!’ and ‘Where do you suppose he picked up that<br>
supercilious air?’ You shouldn’t assume an air of self-importance,<br>
but should hold fast to the things that seem best to you, as one who<br>
has been appointed by God to this post; and remember that if you hold<br>
true to the same principles, those who laughed at you will later come<br>
to admire you; but if you allow these people to get the better of you,<br>
you’ll merely be laughed at twice over.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If it should ever come about that you turn to external things<br>
because you want to gratify another person, be clear that you’ve lost<br>
your plan in life. Be content, then, to be a philosopher in all that<br>
you do, and if you also want to be viewed as one, show yourself that<br>
you are, and you’ll be able to achieve that.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>24.1. Don’t allow these thoughts to upset you: ‘I’ll live<br>
unhonoured, and be nobody anywhere.’ For if it is a bad thing to be<br>
unhonoured, you cannot be in a bad state as a result of someone<br>
else’s actions, any more than you can be brought into shame in that<br>
way. It is no business of yours, surely, to gain a public post or be<br>
invited to a dinner party? Certainly not. So how can this still be a<br>
source of dishonour? And how will you be ‘nobody anywhere’ if you<br>
only need to be somebody in those things that are within your own<br>
power, and in which it is possible for you to be a man of the highest<br>
worth? 2. But your friends will be left unhelped? What do you mean by<br>
‘left unhelped’? They won’t receive any little payouts from you,<br>
nor will you be able to grant them Roman citizenship. Well, who told<br>
you that these are things that are within our power, rather than being<br>
other people’s business? And who is able to give to another person<br>
something that he himself doesn’t have? ‘Then get hold of some<br>
money’, a friend says, ‘so that we too may have some.’ 3. If I<br>
can get some while preserving my self-respect, trustworthiness, and<br>
generosity of mind, show me the way and I’ll get it; but if you<br>
require me to lose the good things that I have to enable you to acquire<br>
things that aren’t good, consider how unfair you’re being, or how<br>
foolish. After all, what would you rather have? Money, or a faithful<br>
and self-respecting friend? So help me instead to become such a person,<br>
and don’t require me to do things that would cause me to lose those<br>
qualities.</p>
<ol start="4">
<li>‘But my country’, he says, ‘will receive no help from me, so<br>
far as I can offer it.’ Here again, what kind of help do you mean? It<br>
won’t acquire any arcades or baths through your good offices. And<br>
what of that? For it doesn’t acquire shoes either through the good<br>
offices of a blacksmith, or arms through those of a cobbler; it is<br>
enough that each person fulfils his own function. And if you provide<br>
your country with another citizen who is trustworthy and<br>
self-respecting, would you bring it no benefit? ‘Indeed I would.’<br>
Well then, in that case you wouldn’t be of no use to it. ‘What<br>
place shall I hold in the state, then?’, he asks. Whatever place you<br>
can hold while maintaining your trustworthiness and self-respect. 5.<br>
But if, out of a wish to help the state, you sacrifice those qualities,<br>
what use could you be to it, when you’ve turned out to be shameless<br>
and untrustworthy?</li>
</ol>
<p>25.1. Has someone been honoured above you at a banquet, or in being<br>
saluted, or in being summoned to give advice? If these things are good,<br>
you ought to rejoice if someone else has secured them; but if they’re<br>
bad, don’t be aggrieved that you haven’t secured them. And<br>
remember, too, that if you don’t resort to the same means as other<br>
people to acquire things that aren’t within our power, you can’t<br>
lay claim to an equal share of them. 2. For how can someone who<br>
doesn’t hang around somebody’s door claim an equal share with<br>
someone who does? Or if he doesn’t join the man’s retinue when he<br>
goes out along with the other person? Or he doesn’t sing his praises<br>
along with the other person? You’ll be unjust, then, and thoroughly<br>
greedy, if you refuse to pay the price for which these things are<br>
marketed, and want to get hold of them for nothing. 3. Well, at what<br>
price are lettuces sold? An obol perhaps. If someone pays the obol,<br>
then, and gets the lettuces, while you pay nothing and get nothing,<br>
don’t suppose that you’re worse off than the man who gets the<br>
lettuces; for while he has his lettuces, you have your obol, which you<br>
haven’t given away. 4. Things follow the same course in the present<br>
case too. You haven’t been invited to somebody’s dinner party? Of<br>
course not, because you haven’t paid the host the price at which he<br>
sells the dinner; he sells it for praise, he sells it for attention.<br>
Very well, then, pay him the price for which it is sold, if it is in<br>
your interest. But if you want to make no payment and still receive the<br>
goods, you’re greedy and foolish. Do you have nothing, then, in place<br>
of the dinner? Why, of course you have: you haven’t been obliged to<br>
praise a man whom you didn’t want to praise, you didn’t have to<br>
suffer the insolence of the people at the door.</p>
<ol start="26">
<li>
<p>The will of nature may be learned from those events in life in<br>
which we don’t differ from one another. For instance, when someone<br>
else’s slave-boy breaks a cup, we’re ready at once to say,<br>
‘That’s just one of those things.’ So you should be clear, then,<br>
that if your own cup gets broken, you ought to react in exactly the<br>
same way as when someone else’s does. Transfer the principle to<br>
greater matters too. Someone else’s child or wife has died; there<br>
isn’t anyone who wouldn’t say, ‘Such is our human lot.’ And yet<br>
when one’s own child or wife dies, one cries out at once, ‘Oh poor<br>
wretch that I am.’ But we ought to remember how we feel when we hear<br>
that the same thing has happened to others.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Just as a target isn’t set up to be missed, so nothing that is<br>
bad by nature comes into being in the universe.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If someone handed over your body to somebody whom you encountered,<br>
you’d be furious; but that you hand over your mind to anyone who<br>
comes along, so that, if he abuses you, it becomes disturbed and<br>
confused, do you feel no shame at that?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>[See Discourse 3.15.1–13.]</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Appropriate actions are measured on the whole by our social<br>
relationships. He is your father: you’re obliged to take care of him,<br>
to give way to him in everything, to put up with it if he scolds you or<br>
strikes you. ‘But he’s a bad father.’ Do the ties of nature bind<br>
you, then, only to a good father? No, but to a father. ‘My brother is<br>
wronging me.’ Very well, maintain the relation that you have towards<br>
him; don’t look to what he is doing, but to what you must do if you<br>
are to keep your choice in harmony with nature. For no one will cause<br>
you harm if you don’t wish it; you’ll have been harmed only when<br>
you suppose that you’ve been harmed. In this way, then, you’ll<br>
discover the appropriate actions to expect from a neighbour, from a<br>
fellow citizen, from a general, if you get into the habit of examining<br>
your social relationships.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>31.1. As regards piety towards the gods, you should know that the most<br>
important point is to hold correct opinions about them, regarding them<br>
as beings who exist and govern the universe well and justly, and to<br>
have made up your mind to obey them and submit to everything that comes<br>
about, and to fall in with it of your own free will, as something that<br>
has been brought to pass by the highest intelligence. For if you follow<br>
that course, you’ll never find fault with the gods or accuse them of<br>
having neglected you.</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>But it isn’t possible for you to achieve this in any other way<br>
than by withdrawing your conception of good and bad from the things<br>
that are not within our power, and placing it in those things alone<br>
that are within our power. For if you regard any of the former as being<br>
good or bad, it will necessarily follow that, whenever you fail to get<br>
what you want or fall into things that you want to avoid, you’ll<br>
blame and hate those who are responsible. 3. For it lies in the nature<br>
of every living creature that it should flee from and seek to avoid<br>
those things that seem harmful to it, and pursue and admire those that<br>
are helpful and all that gives rise to them. Accordingly, it is<br>
impossible for someone who thinks that he is suffering harm to take<br>
pleasure in what he thinks to be responsible for that harm, just as it<br>
is impossible for him to take pleasure in the harm itself. 4. And so it<br>
comes about that even a father is abused by his son if he fails to give<br>
him a share of the things that pass for good; and it was this that<br>
caused Eteocles and Polynices* to become enemies: the idea that the<br>
throne was a good thing. That is why a farmer reviles the gods, and so<br>
too a sailor or merchant, and those who have lost their wives and<br>
children. For where a person’s interest lies, there too lies his<br>
piety. It follows that whoever takes care to exercise his desires and<br>
aversions as he ought is taking care at the same time that he’ll act<br>
with piety. 5. But it is also appropriate on each occasion to offer<br>
libations and sacrifices, and first fruits, in accordance with the<br>
customs of our forebears, and do so with purity, and in no casual or<br>
perfunctory manner, and neither stingily nor beyond what we can afford.</li>
</ol>
<p>32.1. When you take recourse to divination, remember that you don’t<br>
know how that matter in question will turn out, but that you’ve come<br>
to discover that from the diviner; but if you are indeed a philosopher,<br>
you already know when you arrive what kind of thing it is. For if it is<br>
one of those things that are not within our power, it follows with<br>
absolute certainty that it must be neither good nor bad. 2. So you<br>
should bring neither desire nor aversion to the diviner, and you<br>
shouldn’t approach him with trepidation, but as one who fully<br>
recognizes that every outcome is indifferent and of no concern to you,<br>
and that whatever it may be, it will be possible for you to make good<br>
use of it, and that no one can prevent you from doing so. So approach<br>
the gods with confidence, as your advisers, and afterwards, when some<br>
advice has been granted to you, remember who it is that you have taken<br>
as your advisers, and whom you will be disregarding if you disobey<br>
them. 3. Resort to divination as Socrates* thought right, in matters in<br>
which the enquiry relates exclusively to the outcome, and where neither<br>
reason nor any technical knowledge provides the means that are required<br>
to discover the point in question. So accordingly, when it is your duty<br>
to share a friend’s danger or that of your country, you shouldn’t<br>
resort to divination to ask whether you should share that danger. For<br>
even if the diviner should warn you that the omens from the sacrifice<br>
are unfavourable, and it is clear that death is portended, or<br>
mutilation of some part of your body, or exile, reason requires all the<br>
same that, even in the face of these risks, you should support your<br>
friend and share the danger of your country. Pay heed, then, to that<br>
greater diviner the Pythian Apollo,* who cast out of his temple the man<br>
who failed to come to the help of his friend when he was being<br>
murdered.</p>
<p>33.1. Lay down from this moment a certain character and pattern of<br>
behaviour for yourself, which you are to preserve both when you’re<br>
alone and when you’re with others.</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>Remain silent for the most part, or say only what is essential, and<br>
in few words. Very infrequently, however, when the occasion demands, do<br>
speak, but not about any of the usual topics, not about gladiators, not<br>
about horse-races, not about athletes, not about food and drink, the<br>
subjects of everyday talk; but above all, don’t talk about people,<br>
either to praise or criticize them, or to compare them. 3. If you’re<br>
able to so, then, through the manner of your own conversation bring<br>
that of your companions round to what is fit and proper. But if you<br>
happen to find yourself alone among strangers, keep silent.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Don’t laugh much, or at many things, or without restraint.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Refuse to swear any oath at all, if that is possible, but if it<br>
isn’t, refuse as far as you’re able.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Avoid parties that are hosted by outsiders and people who have no<br>
knowledge of philosophy, but if you do have occasion to attend them,<br>
take great care that you don’t fall back into a layman’s state of<br>
mind. For you should be clear that if your companion is polluted,<br>
anyone who rubs up against him is bound to become polluted too, even if<br>
he himself happens to be clean.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In things relating to the body, take only as much as your bare need<br>
requires, with regard to food, for instance, or drink, clothes,<br>
housing, or household slaves; but exclude everything that is for show<br>
or luxury.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>As regards sexual relations, keep yourself pure, so far as you can,<br>
until you marry; but if you do indulge, confine yourself to what is<br>
lawful. Don’t make yourself tiresome, however, to those who indulge,<br>
or be over-critical, and don’t constantly call attention to the fact<br>
that you don’t behave like them.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If someone reports to you that a certain person is speaking ill of<br>
you, don’t defend yourself against what has been said, but reply<br>
instead, ‘Ah yes, he was plainly unaware of all my other faults, or<br>
else those wouldn’t have been the only ones that he mentioned.’</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>There is no need on the whole to go to public shows, but if you<br>
ever have occasion to do so, show yourself as not taking sides for<br>
anyone other than yourself, that is to say, wish only that what<br>
actually does happen should happen, and that only the man who actually<br>
does win should win; for if you do that, you’ll meet with no<br>
hindrance. But refrain entirely from shouting out, or laughing at<br>
anyone, or getting overexcited. And after you’ve left, don’t talk<br>
much about what has taken place, except in so far as that contributes<br>
to your own improvement; for such talk would suggest that you were<br>
impressed by the spectacle.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Don’t go casually or readily to people’s public readings;* but<br>
if you do go, preserve your dignity and composure, taking care at the<br>
same time not to make yourself disagreeable.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you’re due to meet somebody, and in particular one who is<br>
regarded with high respect, put this question to yourself: ‘What<br>
would Socrates or Zeno have done in this situation?’ And then<br>
you’ll have no difficulty in making proper use of the occasion. 13.<br>
When you’re going to meet some very powerful man, put the thought to<br>
yourself that you won’t find him at home, that you’ll be shut out,<br>
that the door will be closed in your face, that he’ll pay no heed to<br>
you. And if, in spite of all that, it is your duty to go, then go, and<br>
put up with whatever comes about, and never tell yourself, ‘It<br>
wasn’t worth the trouble.’ For that is the mark of a layman, of<br>
someone who can be upset by externals.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In your conversation, avoid talking at length or overmuch about<br>
your own exploits or the dangers that you’ve faced; for pleasant<br>
though it may be for you to recall your perils, it is not as pleasant<br>
for others to listen to everything that has happened to you.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Abstain too from trying to arouse laughter, for that is behaviour<br>
that can easily slip into vulgarity, and tends at the same time to<br>
cause your neighbours to view you with less respect. 16. It is<br>
dangerous likewise to engage in smutty talk. So when anything like that<br>
comes up, you should, if the occasion presents itself, even reproach<br>
the person who has resorted to such talk; or if that isn’t possible,<br>
show by your silence at least, and your blushes and frowns, that<br>
you’re displeased at what is being said.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you receive an impression of some pleasure, take care not to<br>
get carried away by it, as with impressions in general; but rather,<br>
make it wait for you, and allow yourself some slight delay. And next,<br>
think about these two moments in time, that in which you’ll enjoy the<br>
pleasure, and that in which you’ll come to repent after having<br>
enjoyed it and will reproach yourself; and set against all of that how<br>
you’ll rejoice if you’ve abstained from the pleasure, and will<br>
congratulate yourself for having done so. If you think, however, that a<br>
suitable occasion has come for you to engage in this task, take care<br>
that you’re not overcome by its allure, and by the pleasantness and<br>
attraction of it; but set against this the thought of how much better<br>
it is to be conscious of having gained a victory over it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When you’ve decided that you ought to do something and are doing<br>
it, never try to avoid being seen to do it, even if most people will<br>
probably view it with disapproval; for if it isn’t right to do it,<br>
avoid doing it in the first place, but if it is, why be afraid of those<br>
who’ll reproach you without justification?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Just as the propositions ‘it is day’ and ‘it is night’ are<br>
entirely meaningful when taken separately, but become meaningless when<br>
joined into one, so likewise it may make sense with regard to your body<br>
to take the larger share at a dinner, but it makes no sense at all with<br>
regard to the maintenance of proper social feeling. So when you’re<br>
eating with another person, remember to look not only at the value that<br>
the dishes set before you will have for your body, but also at the<br>
value of maintaining proper respect for your host.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you take on a role that is beyond your power, you’ll not only<br>
disgrace yourself in that role, but you’ll also neglect to take on<br>
that which you might have been capable of filling.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Just as, when walking around, you take care not to tread on a nail<br>
or sprain your ankle, so take care likewise to avoid harming your<br>
ruling centre; and if we observe this rule in every action, we’ll<br>
undertake the task in a more secure fashion.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Each person’s body is the measure for his property,* as the foot<br>
is for a shoe. If you abide by this principle, then, you’ll maintain<br>
due measure, but if you pass beyond it, you’ll find yourself falling,<br>
so to speak, over a cliff. It is the same in the case of a shoe: if you<br>
pass beyond what the foot requires, you’ll first get a gilded shoe,<br>
and then a purple one, and then an embroidered one; for as soon as<br>
you’ve passed beyond the measure, there is no limit.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>As soon as they reach the age of fourteen, women are called<br>
mistresses by men. And so when they see that they have no other<br>
function than to become bedfellows of men, they set to work to beautify<br>
themselves, and place all their hopes in that. It is worth our while,<br>
then, to make them aware that they’re valued for nothing other than<br>
being modest and self-respecting.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It is a sign of a lack of natural aptitude to spend much time on<br>
things relating to the body, by taking a large amount of exercise, for<br>
instance, and eating too much, drinking too much, and spending too much<br>
time emptying one’s bowels and copulating. No, these things should be<br>
done in passing, and you should devote undivided attention to your<br>
mind.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When someone acts badly towards you, or speaks badly of you,<br>
remember that he is acting or speaking in that way because he regards<br>
that as being the proper thing for him to do. Now, it isn’t possible<br>
for him to act in accordance with what seems right to you, but only<br>
with what seems right to him. So if he judges wrongly, he is the one<br>
who suffers the harm, since he is the one who has been deceived. For if<br>
anyone should think a true composite judgement* to be false, the<br>
judgement itself isn’t harmed, but the person who has been deceived.<br>
If you start out, then, from this way of thinking, you’ll be gentle<br>
with someone who abuses you, for in each case you’ll say, ‘That is<br>
how it seemed to him.’</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Everything has two handles, and it may be carried by one of these<br>
handles, but not by the other. If your brother acts wrongly towards<br>
you, don’t try to grasp the matter by this handle, that he is<br>
wronging you (because that is the handle by which it can’t be<br>
carried), but rather by the other, that he is your brother, he was<br>
brought up with you, and then you’ll be grasping the matter by the<br>
handle by which it can be carried.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The following assertions don’t form a coherent argument: ‘I’m<br>
richer than you, therefore I’m better than you’ or ‘I’m more<br>
eloquent than you, therefore I’m better than you’; no, it is these<br>
that do: ‘I’m richer than you, therefore my possessions are<br>
superior to yours’ or ‘I’m more eloquent than you, therefore my<br>
way of speaking is superior to yours.’ But you yourself are neither<br>
your possessions nor your way of speaking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Someone takes his bath in a hurry; don’t say that he bathes<br>
badly, but that he does so in a hurry. Someone drinks a large amount of<br>
wine. Don’t say that he drinks badly, but that he drinks a large<br>
amount. For until you’ve determined from what judgement he is<br>
proceeding, how do you know whether he is acting badly? And so in that<br>
way it won’t come about that you receive convincing impressions of<br>
some things but give your assent to others.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>46.1. Never call yourself a philosopher, and don’t talk among laymen<br>
for the most part about philosophical principles, but act in accordance<br>
with those principles. At a banquet, for example, don’t talk about<br>
how one ought to eat, but eat as one ought. Remember how Socrates so<br>
completely renounced all outward show that when people came to him and<br>
asked to be introduced to philosophers, he would take them along and<br>
introduce them, so readily did he submit to being overlooked.* 2. And<br>
accordingly, if any talk should arise among laymen about some<br>
philosophical principle, keep silent for the most part, for there is a<br>
great danger that you’ll simply vomit* up what you haven’t properly<br>
digested. So when the day arrives when someone tells you that you know<br>
nothing, and you, like Socrates, aren’t upset by that, you may be<br>
sure that you’re making a start on your work as a philosopher. For<br>
sheep, too, don’t vomit up their fodder to show the shepherds how<br>
much they’ve eaten, but digest their food inside them, and produce<br>
wool and milk on the outside. And so you likewise shouldn’t show off<br>
your principles to laymen, but rather show them the actions that result<br>
from those principles when they’ve been properly digested.</p>
<ol start="47">
<li>When you’ve become adapted to a simple way of life in bodily<br>
matters, don’t pride yourself on that, and likewise, if you drink<br>
nothing but water, don’t proclaim at every opportunity that you drink<br>
nothing but water. And if at any time you want to train yourself to<br>
endure hardship, do it for your own sake and not for others; don’t<br>
embrace statues,* but if you ever find yourself extremely thirsty, take<br>
some cold water into your mouth and then spit it out again, without<br>
telling a soul.*</li>
</ol>
<p>48.1. The condition and character of a layman is this: that he never<br>
expects that benefit or harm will come to him from himself, but only<br>
from externals. The condition and character of a philosopher is this:<br>
that he expects all benefit and harm to come to him from himself.</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>The signs of one who is making progress are that he criticizes no<br>
one, praises no one, blames or accuses no one, and never speaks of<br>
himself as being anyone of importance, or as one who has any knowledge.<br>
And if he is praised, he laughs within at the person who is praising<br>
him, and if anyone finds fault with him, he makes no defence. He goes<br>
about like an invalid, taking care not to disturb any part of him that<br>
is getting better until he has achieved lasting recovery. 3. He has rid<br>
himself of every desire,* and has transferred his aversion to those<br>
things alone that are contrary to nature among the things that are<br>
within our own power. He is moderate in his motives whatever they may<br>
be directed towards. If he gives the impression of being foolish or<br>
ignorant, he doesn’t mind. In a word, he keeps guard against himself,<br>
as though he were an enemy lying in ambush for himself.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When someone is filled with pride because he is able to understand<br>
and interpret the works of Chrysippus, say to yourself, ‘If<br>
Chrysippus hadn’t written in such an obscure style, this person<br>
wouldn’t have anything to pride himself on.’ But what is it that I<br>
want? To understand nature and to follow it. So I look around for<br>
someone who can interpret it, and having heard that Chrysippus can, I<br>
go to him. But I don’t understand his writings, so I look for someone<br>
who can interpret them. Up to this point, there is nothing to be proud<br>
of. But when I find the interpreter, what remains for me to do is to<br>
apply his precepts; that is the only thing that gives any ground for<br>
pride. But if what I value is the mere act of interpretation, what else<br>
have I achieved than to have become a literary scholar instead of a<br>
philosopher? The only difference is that I’m interpreting Chrysippus<br>
rather than Homer. So when someone says to me, ‘Read me some<br>
Chrysippus,’ I blush rather than feeling any pride, when I’m unable<br>
to show that my actions match up to his words and are consistent with<br>
them.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Whatever rules of conduct are set for you, hold to them as if they<br>
were laws, as if it would be an act of impiety for you to transgress<br>
them; as to what anyone says about you, pay no heed to it, since in the<br>
end that is not your concern.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>51.1. How much longer will you delay before you think yourself worthy<br>
of what is best, and transgress in nothing the distinctions that reason<br>
imposes? You’ve acquired knowledge of the philosophical principles<br>
that you ought to accept, and have accepted them. What kind of teacher,<br>
then, are you still waiting for, that you should delay any effort to<br>
reform yourself until he appears? You’re no longer a youth; you’re<br>
a full-grown man. If you’re now negligent and idle, and are<br>
constantly making one delay after another, and setting one day and then<br>
another as the date after which you’ll devote proper attention to<br>
yourself, then you’ll fail to appreciate that you’re making no<br>
progress, but will continue to be a layman your whole life through<br>
until you die. 2. So you should think fit from this moment to live as<br>
an adult and as one who is making progress; and let everything that<br>
seems best to you be an inviolable law for you. And if you come up<br>
against anything that requires an effort, or is pleasant, or is<br>
glorious or inglorious, remember that this is the time of the contest,<br>
that the Olympic Games have now arrived, and that there is no<br>
possibility of further delay, and that it depends on a single day and<br>
single action whether progress is to be lost or secured. 3. It was in<br>
this way that Socrates became the man he was, by attending to nothing<br>
other than reason in everything that he had to deal with. And even if<br>
you’re not yet a Socrates, you ought to live like someone who does in<br>
fact wish to be a Socrates.*</p>
<p>52.1. The first and most necessary area of study in philosophy is the<br>
one that deals with the application of principles, such as, ‘Don’t<br>
lie.’ The second deals with demonstrations, for instance, ‘How is<br>
it that we oughtn’t to lie?’ The third confirms and analyses the<br>
other two, for instance, ‘How is this a demonstration?’ For what is<br>
a demonstration, what is logical consequence, what is contradiction,<br>
what is truth, what is falsehood? 2. The third area of study is<br>
necessary, then, because of the second, and the second because of the<br>
first, but the most necessary, and that on which we should dwell, is<br>
the first. But we do the opposite; for we spend our time on the third<br>
area of study, and employ all our efforts on that, while wholly<br>
neglecting the first. And so it comes about that we lie, while having<br>
at hand all the arguments that show why we oughtn’t to lie.</p>
<p>53.1. On every occasion we should have these arguments at hand:</p>
<p>Guide me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,</p>
<p>To wheresoever you have assigned me;</p>
<p>I’ll follow unwaveringly, or if my will fails,</p>
<p>Base though I be, I’ll follow nonetheless.*</p>
<p>2.                       Whoever rightly yields<br>
to necessity</p>
<p>We accord wise and learned in things divine.*</p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p>‘Well, Crito, if that is what is pleasing to the gods, so be<br>
it.’*</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>‘Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me.’*</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>EXPLANATORY NOTES</p>
<p>The notes to the text are keyed to the books, chapters (i.e. individual<br>
Discourses), and paragraphs of the Discourses, the chapters of the<br>
Handbook, or the numbers of the fragments. All references, if not<br>
otherwise identified, are to the Discourses. References only by<br>
paragraph are to the Discourse being discussed. All dates are AD unless<br>
otherwise indicated.</p>
<p>ABBREVIATIONS</p>
<p>D.L.</p>
<p>Diogenes Laertius (third century AD philosophical handbook)</p>
<p>Dobbin</p>
<p>R. Dobbin, Epictetus: Discourses Book 1, trans. with introd. and comm.<br>
(Oxford, 1998)</p>
<p>Gill</p>
<p>C. Gill, The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought (Oxford,<br>
2006)</p>
<p>Inwood</p>
<p>B. Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford, 1985)</p>
<p>Long</p>
<p>A. A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (Oxford,<br>
2002)</p>
<p>LS</p>
<p>A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols.<br>
(Cambridge, 1987); references are to sections and passages unless<br>
otherwise indicated</p>
<p>Scaltsas and Mason</p>
<p>T. Scaltsas and A. S. Mason (eds.), The Philosophy of Epictetus<br>
(Oxford, 2007)</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/bleiben-will-ich-wo-ich-nie-gewesen-bin/Fri, 20 Nov 2020 12:42:52 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/bleiben-will-ich-wo-ich-nie-gewesen-bin/<p>Was ich habe, will ich nicht verlieren, aber<br>
wo ich bin, will ich nicht bleiben, aber<br>
die ich liebe, will ich nicht verlassen, aber<br>
die ich kenne, will ich nicht mehr sehen, aber<br>
wo ich lebe, da will ich nicht sterben, aber<br>
wo ich sterbe, da will ich nicht hin:<br>
Bleiben will ich, wo ich nie gewesen bin.</p>
<p>Thomas Barsch</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/about-stoically-braving-the-odds-to-emerge-stronger/Sat, 25 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/about-stoically-braving-the-odds-to-emerge-stronger/<p>Want to build-up resilience and will power? The stoics offer a daily dose of subjecting yourselves to the worst-case scenarios to your troubles. It’s a simple methodology where you <strong>focus on yourself and your immediate surroundings</strong> once the terrible event has befallen you. According to the stoics, <strong>factoring every tragedy in one’s life trajectory is key to letting nothing disturb your internal peace.</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://thriveglobal.in/stories/about-stoically-braving-the-odds-to-emerge-stronger/">Here’s</a>
 the vision of a stoic on the journey through Covid-19.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stoics-are-speaking-to-locked-down-readers/Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/stoics-are-speaking-to-locked-down-readers/<p>Sales of works by ancient Roman Marcus Aurelius have seen a sharp uptick in recent months.</p>
<p>According to Penguin Random House, print sales of Meditations are up 28% for the first quarter of 2020 vs 2019, while print sales of Letters from a Stoic are up 42% for the same period. In the last four weeks, its ebook sales rose by 356%"</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/apr/16/how-stoics-are-speaking-to-locked-down-readers">The Guardian: ‘Dress rehearsal for catastrophe’: how Stoics are speaking to locked-down readers.</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-2/Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-2/<h2 id="book-2">Book 2</h2>
<p>ON THE RIVER GRAN, AMONG THE QUADI</p>
<p>1. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The<br>
people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful,<br>
arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this<br>
because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the<br>
beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized<br>
that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of<br>
the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a<br>
share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one<br>
can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my<br>
relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like<br>
feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and<br>
lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at<br>
someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.</p>
<p>2. Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and<br>
an intelligence. Throw away your books; stop letting yourself<br>
be distracted. That is not allowed. Instead, as if you were<br>
dying right now, despise your flesh. A mess of blood, pieces<br>
of bone, a woven tangle of nerves, veins, arteries. Consider<br>
what the spirit is: air, and never the same air, but vomited out<br>
and gulped in again every instant. Finally, the intelligence.<br>
Think of it this way: You are an old man. Stop allowing your<br>
mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to<br>
kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.</p>
<p>3. What is divine is full of Providence. Even chance is not<br>
divorced from nature, from the inweaving and enfolding of<br>
things governed by Providence. Everything proceeds from it.<br>
And then there is necessity and the needs of the whole world,<br>
of which you are a part. Whatever the nature of the whole<br>
does, and whatever serves to maintain it, is good for every<br>
part of nature. The world is maintained by change—in the<br>
elements and in the things they compose. That should be<br>
enough for you; treat it as an axiom. Discard your thirst for<br>
books, so that you won’t die in bitterness, but in cheerfulness<br>
and truth, grateful to the gods from the bottom of your heart.</p>
<p>4. Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how<br>
many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them.<br>
At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you<br>
belong to; what power rules it and from what source you<br>
spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if<br>
you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will<br>
never return.</p>
<p>5. Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on<br>
doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine<br>
seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing<br>
yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do<br>
everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your<br>
life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions<br>
override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical,<br>
self-centered, irritable. You see how few things you have to<br>
do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage<br>
this, that’s all even the gods can ask of you.</p>
<p>6. Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your<br>
chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours<br>
is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with<br>
respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls<br>
of others.</p>
<p>7. Do external things distract you? Then make time for<br>
yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself<br>
be pulled in all directions. But make sure you guard against<br>
the other kind of confusion. People who labor all their lives<br>
but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse<br>
toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.</p>
<p>8. Ignoring what goes on in other people’s souls—no one<br>
ever came to grief that way. But if you won’t keep track of<br>
what your own soul’s doing, how can you not be unhappy?</p>
<p>9. Don’t ever forget these things:</p>
<p>​	The nature of the world.</p>
<p>​	My nature.</p>
<p>​	How I relate to the world.</p>
<p>​	What proportion of it I make up.</p>
<p>​	That you are part of nature, and no one can prevent you<br>
​		from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always.</p>
<p>10. In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says<br>
that the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones<br>
committed out of anger: which is good philosophy. The angry<br>
man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain<br>
and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who<br>
is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more selfindulgent,<br>
less manly in his sins. Theophrastus is right, and<br>
philosophically sound, to say that the sin committed out of<br>
pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed<br>
out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of<br>
wrongdoing, provoked by pain to anger. The other man<br>
rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by<br>
desire.</p>
<p>11. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what<br>
you do and say and think. If the gods exist, then to abandon<br>
human beings is not frightening; the gods would never subject<br>
you to harm. And if they don’t exist, or don’t care what<br>
happens to us, what would be the point of living in a world<br>
without gods or Providence? But they do exist, they do care<br>
what happens to us, and everything a person needs to avoid<br>
real harm they have placed within him. If there were anything<br>
harmful on the other side of death, they would have made<br>
sure that the ability to avoid it was within you. If it doesn’t<br>
harm your character, how can it harm your life? Nature<br>
would not have overlooked such dangers through failing to<br>
recognize them, or because it saw them but was powerless to<br>
prevent or correct them. Nor would it ever, through inability<br>
or incompetence, make such a mistake as to let good and bad<br>
things happen indiscriminately to good and bad alike. But<br>
death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth<br>
and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they<br>
are neither noble nor shameful—and hence neither good nor<br>
bad.</p>
<p>12. The speed with which all of them vanish—the objects in<br>
the world, and the memory of them in time. And the real<br>
nature of the things our senses experience, especially those<br>
that entice us with pleasure or frighten us with pain or are<br>
loudly trumpeted by pride. To understand those things—how<br>
stupid, contemptible, grimy, decaying, and dead they are—<br>
that’s what our intellectual powers are for. And to<br>
understand what those people really amount to, whose<br>
opinions and voices constitute fame. And what dying is—and<br>
that if you look at it in the abstract and break down your<br>
imaginary ideas of it by logical analysis, you realize that it’s<br>
nothing but a process of nature, which only children can be<br>
afraid of. (And not only a process of nature but a necessary<br>
one.) And how man grasps God, with what part of himself he<br>
does so, and how that part is conditioned when he does.</p>
<p>13. Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in<br>
circles, “delving into the things that lie beneath” and<br>
conducting investigations into the souls of the people around<br>
them, never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive<br>
to the power inside you and worship it sincerely. To worship<br>
it is to keep it from being muddied with turmoil and<br>
becoming aimless and dissatisfied with nature—divine and<br>
human. What is divine deserves our respect because it is<br>
good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like<br>
us. And our pity too, sometimes, for its inability to tell good<br>
from bad—as terrible a blindness as the kind that can’t tell<br>
white from black.</p>
<p>14. Even if you’re going to live three thousand more years, or<br>
ten times that, remember: you cannot lose another life than<br>
the one you’re living now, or live another one than the one<br>
you’re losing. The longest amounts to the same as the<br>
shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the<br>
same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant<br>
is all that is lost. For you can’t lose either the past or the<br>
future; how could you lose what you don’t have?</p>
<p>​	Remember two things:</p>
<p>​		i. that everything has always been the same, and keeps<br>
​		recurring, and it makes no difference whether you see<br>
​		the same things recur in a hundred years or two hundred,<br>
​		or in an infinite period;</p>
<p>​		ii. that the longest-lived and those who will die soonest<br>
​		lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give<br>
​		up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have,<br>
​		you cannot lose.</p>
<p>15. “Everything is just an impression.” —Monimus the<br>
Cynic. And the response is obvious enough. But the point is a<br>
useful one, if you take it for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>16. The human soul degrades itself:</p>
<p>​	i. Above all, when it does its best to become an<br>
​	abscess, a kind of detached growth on the world. To be<br>
​	disgruntled at anything that happens is a kind of<br>
​	secession from Nature, which comprises the nature of<br>
​	all things.</p>
<p>​	ii. When it turns its back on another person or sets out to<br>
​	do it harm, as the souls of the angry do.</p>
<p>​	iii. When it is overpowered by pleasure or pain.</p>
<p>​	iv. When it puts on a mask and does or says something<br>
​	artificial or false.</p>
<p>​	v. When it allows its action and impulse to be without a<br>
​	purpose, to be random and disconnected: even the<br>
​	smallest things ought to be directed toward a goal. But<br>
​	the goal of rational beings is to follow the rule and law<br>
​	of the most ancient of communities and states.</p>
<p>17. Human life.</p>
<p>​	Duration: <em>momentary</em>. Nature: <em>changeable</em>. Perception:<br>
<em>dim</em>. Condition of Body: <em>decaying</em>. Soul: <em>spinning around</em>.<br>
Fortune: <em>unpredictable</em>. Lasting Fame: <em>uncertain</em>. Sum Up:<br>
<em>The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and</em><br>
<em>mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting</em><br>
<em>reputation is oblivion.</em></p>
<p>​	Then what can guide us?</p>
<p>​	Only philosophy.</p>
<p>​	Which means making sure that the power within stays safe<br>
and free from assault, superior to pleasure and pain, doing<br>
nothing randomly or dishonestly and with imposture, not<br>
dependent on anyone else’s doing something or not doing it.<br>
And making sure that it accepts what happens and what it is<br>
dealt as coming from the same place it came from. And<br>
above all, that it accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing<br>
but the dissolution of the elements from which each living<br>
thing is composed. If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements<br>
to change continually into one another, why are people afraid<br>
of all of them changing and separating? It’s a natural thing.<br>
And nothing natural is evil.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-1/Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marcus-aurelius-meditations-book-1/<p><em>A New Translation, with an Introduction, by Gregory Hays. THE MODERN LIBRARY<br>
NEW YORK.</em></p>
<h2 id="book-1">Book 1</h2>
<p>DEBTS AND LESSONS</p>
<p><strong>1. MY GRANDFATHER VERUS</strong></p>
<p>Character and self-control.</p>
<p><strong>2. MY FATHER (FROM MY OWN MEMORIES AND HIS REPUTATION)</strong></p>
<p>Integrity and manliness.</p>
<p><strong>3. MY MOTHER</strong></p>
<p>Her reverence for the divine, her generosity, her inability not<br>
only to do wrong but even to conceive of doing it. And the<br>
simple way she lived—not in the least like the rich.</p>
<p><strong>4. MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER</strong></p>
<p>To avoid the public schools, to hire good private teachers,<br>
and to accept the resulting costs as money well-spent.</p>
<p><strong>5. MY FIRST TEACHER</strong></p>
<p>Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing, this fighter<br>
or that in the games. To put up with discomfort and not make<br>
demands. To do my own work, mind my own business, and<br>
have no time for slanderers.</p>
<p><strong>6. DIOGNETUS</strong></p>
<p>Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by<br>
conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about<br>
incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be<br>
obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that. To hear<br>
unwelcome truths. To practice philosophy, and to study with<br>
Baccheius, and then with Tandasis and Marcianus. To write<br>
dialogues as a student. To choose the Greek lifestyle—the<br>
camp-bed and the cloak.</p>
<p><strong>7. RUSTICUS</strong></p>
<p>The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my<br>
character.</p>
<p>​	Not to be sidetracked by my interest in rhetoric. Not to<br>
write treatises on abstract questions, or deliver moralizing<br>
little sermons, or compose imaginary descriptions of The<br>
Simple Life or The Man Who Lives Only for Others. To steer<br>
clear of oratory, poetry and belles lettres.</p>
<p>​	Not to dress up just to stroll around the house, or things<br>
like that. To write straightforward letters (like the one he<br>
sent my mother from Sinuessa). And to behave in a<br>
conciliatory way when people who have angered or annoyed<br>
us want to make up.</p>
<p>​	To read attentively—not to be satisfied with “just getting<br>
the gist of it.” And not to fall for every smooth talker.</p>
<p>​	And for introducing me to Epictetus’s lectures—and<br>
loaning me his own copy.</p>
<p><strong>8. APOLLONIUS</strong></p>
<p>Independence and unvarying reliability, and to pay attention<br>
to nothing, no matter how fleetingly, except the logos. And to<br>
be the same in all circumstances—intense pain, the loss of a<br>
child, chronic illness. And to see clearly, from his example,<br>
that a man can show both strength and flexibility.</p>
<p>​	His patience in teaching. And to have seen someone who<br>
clearly viewed his expertise and ability as a teacher as the<br>
humblest of virtues.</p>
<p>​	And to have learned how to accept favors from friends<br>
without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful.</p>
<p><strong>9. SEXTUS</strong></p>
<p>Kindness.</p>
<p>​	An example of fatherly authority in the home. What it<br>
means to live as nature requires.</p>
<p>​	Gravity without airs.</p>
<p>​	To show intuitive sympathy for friends, tolerance to<br>
amateurs and sloppy thinkers. His ability to get along with<br>
everyone: sharing his company was the highest of<br>
compliments, and the opportunity an honor for those around<br>
him.</p>
<p>​	To investigate and analyze, with understanding and logic,<br>
the principles we ought to live by.</p>
<p>​	Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of<br>
passion and yet full of love.</p>
<p>​	To praise without bombast; to display expertise without<br>
pretension.</p>
<p><strong>10. THE LITERARY CRITIC ALEXANDER</strong></p>
<p>Not to be constantly correcting people, and in particular not<br>
to jump on them whenever they make an error of usage or a<br>
grammatical mistake or mispronounce something, but just<br>
answer their question or add another example, or debate the<br>
issue itself (not their phrasing), or make some other<br>
contribution to the discussion—and insert the right<br>
expression, unobtrusively.</p>
<p><strong>11. FRONTO</strong></p>
<p>To recognize the malice, cunning, and hypocrisy that power<br>
produces, and the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by<br>
people from “good families.”</p>
<p><strong>12. ALEXANDER THE PLATONIST</strong></p>
<p>Not to be constantly telling people (or writing them) that I’m<br>
too busy, unless I really am. Similarly, not to be always<br>
ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because<br>
of “pressing business.”</p>
<p><strong>13. CATULUS</strong></p>
<p>Not to shrug off a friend’s resentment—even unjustified<br>
resentment—but try to put things right.</p>
<p>​	To show your teachers ungrudging respect (the Domitius<br>
and Athenodotus story), and your children unfeigned love.</p>
<p><strong>14. [MY BROTHER] SEVERUS</strong></p>
<p>To love my family, truth and justice. It was through him that I<br>
encountered Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion and Brutus, and<br>
conceived of a society of equal laws, governed by equality<br>
of status and of speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty<br>
of their subjects above all else.</p>
<p>​	And from him as well, to be steady and consistent in<br>
valuing philosophy.</p>
<p>​	And to help others and be eager to share, not to be a<br>
pessimist, and never to doubt your friends’ affection for you.<br>
And that when people incurred his disapproval, they always<br>
knew it. And that his friends never had to speculate about his<br>
attitude to anything: it was always clear.</p>
<p><strong>15. MAXIMUS</strong></p>
<p>Self-control and resistance to distractions.</p>
<p>Optimism in adversity—especially illness.</p>
<p>A personality in balance: dignity and grace together.</p>
<p>Doing your job without whining.</p>
<p>Other people’s certainty that what he said was what he<br>
thought, and what he did was done without malice.</p>
<p>Never taken aback or apprehensive. Neither rash nor<br>
hesitant—or bewildered, or at a loss. Not obsequious<br>
—but not aggressive or paranoid either.</p>
<p>Generosity, charity, honesty.</p>
<p>The sense he gave of staying on the path rather than<br>
being kept on it.</p>
<p>That no one could ever have felt patronized by him—or<br>
in a position to patronize him.</p>
<p>A sense of humor.</p>
<p><strong>16. MY ADOPTED FATHER</strong></p>
<p>Compassion. Unwavering adherence to decisions, once he’d<br>
reached them. Indifference to superficial honors. Hard work.<br>
Persistence.</p>
<p>​	Listening to anyone who could contribute to the public<br>
good.</p>
<p>​	His dogged determination to treat people as they deserved.</p>
<p>​	A sense of when to push and when to back off.</p>
<p>​	Putting a stop to the pursuit of boys.</p>
<p>​	His altruism. Not expecting his friends to keep him<br>
entertained at dinner or to travel with him (unless they<br>
wanted to). And anyone who had to stay behind to take care<br>
of something always found him the same when he returned.</p>
<p>​	His searching questions at meetings. A kind of singlemindedness,<br>
almost, never content with first impressions, or<br>
breaking off the discussion prematurely.</p>
<p>​	His constancy to friends—never getting fed up with them,<br>
or playing favorites.</p>
<p>​	Self-reliance, always. And cheerfulness.</p>
<p>​	And his advance planning (well in advance) and his<br>
discreet attention to even minor things.</p>
<p>​	His restrictions on acclamations—and all attempts to<br>
flatter him.</p>
<p>​	His constant devotion to the empire’s needs. His<br>
stewardship of the treasury. His willingness to take<br>
responsibility—and blame—for both.</p>
<p>​	His attitude to the gods: no superstitiousness. And his<br>
attitude to men: no demagoguery, no currying favor, no<br>
pandering. Always sober, always steady, and never vulgar or<br>
a prey to fads.</p>
<p>​	The way he handled the material comforts that fortune had<br>
supplied him in such abundance—without arrogance and<br>
without apology. If they were there, he took advantage of<br>
them. If not, he didn’t miss them.</p>
<p>​	No one ever called him glib, or shameless, or pedantic.<br>
They saw him for what he was: a man tested by life,<br>
accomplished, unswayed by flattery, qualified to govern both<br>
himself and them.</p>
<p>​	His respect for people who practiced philosophy—at<br>
least, those who were sincere about it. But without<br>
denigrating the others—or listening to them.</p>
<p>​	His ability to feel at ease with people—and put them at<br>
their ease, without being pushy.</p>
<p>​	His willingness to take adequate care of himself. Not a<br>
hypochondriac or obsessed with his appearance, but not<br>
ignoring things either. With the result that he hardly ever<br>
needed medical attention, or drugs or any sort of salve or<br>
ointment.</p>
<p>​	This, in particular: his willingness to yield the floor to<br>
experts—in oratory, law, psychology, whatever—and to<br>
support them energetically, so that each of them could fulfill<br>
his potential.</p>
<p>​	That he respected tradition without needing to constantly<br>
congratulate himself for Safeguarding Our Traditional<br>
Values.</p>
<p>​	Not prone to go off on tangents, or pulled in all directions,<br>
but sticking with the same old places and the same old things.</p>
<p>​	The way he could have one of his migraines and then go<br>
right back to what he was doing—fresh and at the top of his<br>
game.</p>
<p>​	That he had so few secrets—only state secrets, in fact, and<br>
not all that many of those.</p>
<p>​	The way he kept public actions within reasonable bounds<br>
—games, building projects, distributions of money and so on<br>
—because he looked to what needed doing and not the credit<br>
to be gained from doing it.</p>
<p>​	No bathing at strange hours, no self-indulgent building<br>
projects, no concern for food, or the cut and color of his<br>
clothes, or having attractive slaves. (The robe from his farm<br>
at Lorium, most of the things at Lanuvium, the way he<br>
accepted the customs agent’s apology at Tusculum, etc.)</p>
<p>​	He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or<br>
turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was<br>
to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a<br>
calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose<br>
ends.</p>
<p>​	You could have said of him (as they say of Socrates) that<br>
he knew how to enjoy and abstain from things that most<br>
people find it hard to abstain from and all too easy to enjoy.<br>
Strength, perseverance, self-control in both areas: the mark<br>
of a soul in readiness—indomitable.</p>
<p>​	(Maximus’s illness.)</p>
<p><strong>17. THE GODS</strong></p>
<p>That I had good grandparents, a good mother and father, a<br>
good sister, good teachers, good servants, relatives, friends<br>
—almost without exception. And that I never lost control of<br>
myself with any of them, although I had it in me to do that,<br>
and I might have, easily. But thanks to the gods, I was never<br>
put in that position, and so escaped the test.</p>
<p>​	That I wasn’t raised by my grandfather’s girlfriend for<br>
longer than I was. That I didn’t lose my virginity too early,<br>
and didn’t enter adulthood until it was time—put it off, even.</p>
<p>​	That I had someone—as a ruler and as a father—who<br>
could keep me from being arrogant and make me realize that<br>
even at court you can live without a troop of bodyguards, and<br>
gorgeous clothes, lamps, sculpture—the whole charade. That<br>
you can behave almost like an ordinary person without<br>
seeming slovenly or careless as a ruler or when carrying out<br>
official obligations.</p>
<p>​	That I had the kind of brother I did. One whose character<br>
challenged me to improve my own. One whose love and<br>
affection enriched my life.<br>
That my children weren’t born stupid or physically<br>
deformed.</p>
<p>​	That I wasn’t more talented in rhetoric or poetry, or other<br>
areas. If I’d felt that I was making better progress I might<br>
never have given them up.</p>
<p>​	That I conferred on the people who brought me up the<br>
honors they seemed to want early on, instead of putting them<br>
off (since they were still young) with the hope that I’d do it<br>
later.</p>
<p>​	That I knew Apollonius, and Rusticus, and Maximus.</p>
<p>​	That I was shown clearly and often what it would be like<br>
to live as nature requires. The gods did all they could—<br>
through their gifts, their help, their inspiration—to ensure that<br>
I could live as nature demands. And if I’ve failed, it’s no<br>
one’s fault but mine. Because I didn’t pay attention to what<br>
they told me—to what they taught me, practically, step by<br>
step.</p>
<p>​	That my body has held out, especially considering the life<br>
I’ve led.</p>
<p>​	That I never laid a finger on Benedicta or on Theodotus.<br>
And that even later, when I was overcome by passion, I<br>
recovered from it.</p>
<p>​	That even though I was often upset with Rusticus I never<br>
did anything I would have regretted later.</p>
<p>​	That even though she died young, at least my mother spent<br>
her last years with me.</p>
<p>​	That whenever I felt like helping someone who was short<br>
of money, or otherwise in need, I never had to be told that I<br>
had no resources to do it with. And that I was never put in<br>
that position myself—of having to take something from<br>
someone else.</p>
<p>​	That I have the wife I do: obedient, loving, humble.</p>
<p>​	That my children had competent teachers.</p>
<p>​	Remedies granted through dreams—when I was coughing<br>
blood, for instance, and having fits of dizziness. And the one<br>
at Caieta.</p>
<p>​	That when I became interested in philosophy I didn’t fall<br>
into the hands of charlatans, and didn’t get bogged down in<br>
writing treatises, or become absorbed by logic-chopping, or<br>
preoccupied with physics.<br>
All things for which “we need the help of fortune and the<br>
gods.”</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/ralph-waldo-emerson-self-reliance/Mon, 13 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/ralph-waldo-emerson-self-reliance/<p><em>This text was first published in Emerson’s Essays collection in 1841. Emerson drew on his journals of 1832-40 for a number of ideas and passages he wrote here. Over the years, he delivered the text as speeches and lectures, so it evolved over time.</em></p>
<p><img src="https://monosnap.com/image/oWZclx5xpdI9Ehiacee9dnXQMAEwj8#center" alt="Alt text" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Ne te quæsiveris extra.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Man is his own star; and the soul that can<br>
Render an honest and a perfect man,<br>
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;<br>
Nothing to him falls early or too late.<br>
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,<br>
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”<br>
– <cite><b>Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune</b></cite></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Cast the bantling on the rocks,<br>
Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat;<br>
Wintered with the hawk and fox,<br>
Power and speed be hands and feet.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, – that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,–and our first thought, is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.</p>
<p>There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preëstablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.</p>
<p>Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.</p>
<p>What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and behaviour of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.</p>
<p>The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlour what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">eclat</a>
, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no <a href="http://www.pantheon.org/articles/l/lethe.html">Lethe</a>
 for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.</p>
<p>These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.</p>
<p>Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,–“But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.” No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him, ‘Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.’ Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,–else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">I shun father and mother</a>
 and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. I would <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">write on the lintels of the door-post</a>
, <em>Whim</em>. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they <em>my</em> poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies;–though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked Dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.</p>
<p>Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man <em>and</em> his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,–as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">expiate</a>
, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.</p>
<p>What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.</p>
<p>The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers,–under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">Do your work</a>
, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">blindman’s-buff</a>
 is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">expediency</a>
 of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side,–the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation.</p>
<p>For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend’s parlour. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.</p>
<p>The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.</p>
<p>But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.</p>
<p>A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.–‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’–Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.</p>
<p>I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes and Himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;–read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.</p>
<p>There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">tacks</a>
. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. That is it which throws thunder into <a href="http://classicpersuasion.org/cbo/chatham/">Chatham’s voice</a>
, and dignity into Washington’s port, and America into <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">Adams</a>
’s eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage, because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.</p>
<p>I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">gazetted</a>
 and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much, that he must make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design;–and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called “the height of Rome”; and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.</p>
<p>Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, ‘Who are you, Sir?’ Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict: it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a true prince.</p>
<p>Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history, our imagination plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day’s work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred, and Scanderbeg, and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.</p>
<p>The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale of men and things, and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every man.</p>
<p>The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom, and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving;–the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for, they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time, all mankind,–although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.</p>
<p>The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away,–means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,–one as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and, in the universal miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God, and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.</p>
<p>Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.</p>
<p>This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see,–painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.</p>
<p>And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;–the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea,–long intervals of time, years, centuries,–are of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is called life, and what is called death.</p>
<p>Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul <em>becomes</em>; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric, when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.</p>
<p>This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for conservation and growth. Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.</p>
<p>Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.</p>
<p>But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood, and I have all men’s. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say,–‘Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. “What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.”</p>
<p>If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of war, and wake <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_mythology">Thor and Woden</a>
, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,–but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.– But so you may give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me, and do the same thing.</p>
<p>The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties by clearing yourself in the <em>direct</em>, or in the <em>reflex</em> way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbour, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.</p>
<p>And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!</p>
<p>If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.</p>
<p>If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who <em>teams it, farms it, peddles</em>, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not `studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a Stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him,–and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history.</p>
<p>It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.</p>
<p>1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity,–any thing less than all good,–is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher’s Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies, –</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“His hidden meaning lies in our endeavours;<br>
Our valors are our best gods.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. “To the persevering mortal,” said <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster">Zoroaster</a>
, “the blessed Immortals are swift.”</p>
<p>As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those<a href="javascript:void%280%29;"> foolish Israelites,</a>
 ‘Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.’ Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors, and recites fables merely of his brother’s, or his brother’s brother’s God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty, and man’s relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating every thing to the new terminology, as a girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen for a time, that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his master’s mind. But in all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the end, and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see,–how you can see; ‘It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.’ They do not yet perceive, that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.</p>
<p>2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.</p>
<p>I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.</p>
<p>Travelling is a fool’s paradise. <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">Our first journeys</a>
 discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.</p>
<p>3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.</p>
<p>Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.</p>
<p>4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.</p>
<p>Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad axe, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave.</p>
<p>The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?</p>
<p>There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch’s heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be his own man, and, in his turn, the founder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hudson">Hudson</a>
 and <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">Behring</a>
 accomplished so much in their fishing-boats, as to astonish <a href="javascript:void%280%29;">Parry and Franklin</a>
, whose equipment exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says<a href="javascript:void%280%29;"> Las Casas</a>
, “without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill, and bake his bread himself.”</p>
<p>Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.</p>
<p>And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental, – came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. “Thy lot or portion of life,” said the Caliph Ali, “is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.” Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.</p>
<p>So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.</p>
<p><strong>Selected Criticism on “Self-Reliance”</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Pattee, Fred L. “Critical Studies in American Literature. II. An Essay: Emerson’s Self-Reliance.” <em>Chautauquan</em> 30 (March 1900): 628-33.</li>
<li>Klammer, Enno. “The Spiral Staircase in ‘Self-Reliance.’” <em>Emerson Society Quarterly</em>, no. 47 (II Quarter 1967): 81-83.</li>
<li>Woodruff, Stuart. “Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ and ‘Experience’: A Comparison.” <em>Emerson Society Quarterly,</em> no. 47 (II Quarter 1967): 48-50. Also in <a href="http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/resources/tr-rwebib.html#rountree">Rountree</a>
.</li>
<li>Anderson, Quentin. <em>The Imperial Self: An Essay in American Literary and Cultural History.</em> New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.</li>
<li>Bottorf, William K. “‘Whatever Inly Rejoices Me’: The Paradox of ‘Self-Reliance.’” ESQ 18 (IV Quarter 1972): 207-17.</li>
<li>Bloom, Harold. “The Freshness of Transformation or Emerson on Influence.” In <a href="http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/resources/tr-rwebib.html#levin">Levin,</a>
 pp. 129-48.</li>
<li>Bloom, Harold. “Emerson: The Self-Reliance of American Romancism.” In <em>Figures of Capable Imagination</em>, pp. 46-64. New York: Seabury Press, 1976.</li>
<li>Wohlgelernter, Maurice. “Introduction. Joseph L. Blau: Four Ways of Religion and Philosophy.” In <em>History of Religion, and Spiritual Democracy</em>, pp. xxiii-lxxiv. New York: Columbia UP, 1980.</li>
<li>Ramaswamy, S. “Emerson: The Ambivalence of His Self-Reliance,” <em>Literary Criterion</em>, 18 (1983): 98-107.</li>
<li>Joswick, Thomas P. “The Conversion Drama of ‘Self-Reliance’: A Logological Study.” <em>American Literature</em>, 55 (Dec. 1983): 507-524.</li>
<li>Hughes, Gertrude Reif. <em>Emerson’s Demanding Optimism</em>. Baton Rouge: LSU P, 1984.</li>
<li>Cavell, Stanley. “Being Odd, Getting Even: Threats to Individuality.” In <em>Reconstructing Individualism</em>, Thomas C. Heller ed., pp. 278-312, 350-351. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1986.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/resources/tr-rwebib.html#vanleer">Van Leer, David</a>
. “The revisions of self-reliance.” Chapter 4.</li>
<li>Jacobson, David. “Vision’s Imperative: ‘Self-Reliance’ and the Command to See Things as They Are.” <em>Studies in Romanticism</em>, 29 (Winter 1990): 555-570.</li>
<li>Masur, Louis P. “‘Age of the First Person Singular’: The Vocabulary of the Self in New England, 1780-1850.” <em>Journal of American Studies</em>, 25 (August 1991): 189-211.</li>
<li>Hodder, Alan D. “‘After a High Negative Way’: Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ and the Rhetoric of Conversion.” <em>Harvard Theological Review</em>, 84 (Oct 1991): 423-446.</li>
<li>Harris, Kenneth Marc. “Emersonian Self-Reliance and Self-Deception Theory.” <em>Philosophy and Literature</em>, 15 (Oct 1991): 286-294.</li>
<li>Jacobson, David. “Vision’s Imperative: ‘Self-Reliance’ and the Command to See Things as They Are.” SIR 29 (1990): 555-70.</li>
<li>Patell, Cyrus R. K. “Emersonian Strategies: Negative Liberty, Self-Reliance, and Democratic Individuality. <em>Nineteenth-Century Literature</em>, 48:4 (1994 Mar), 440-79.</li>
<li>Kateb, George . <em>Emerson and Self-Reliance.</em> Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage P, 1995.</li>
<li>Cavell, Stanley. “Betting Odd, Getting Even.” In Rosenheim, Shawn (ed.) Rachman, Stephen (ed.).<em>The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe</em>, pp. 3-36. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995.</li>
<li>Stephenson, Will and Stephenson, Mimosa. “Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance.’” <em>Explicator</em>, 53:2 (1995 Winter), 81-82.</li>
<li>Lyttle, David. “Emerson’s Transcendental Individualism.” <em>CS</em> 3 (1995): 89-103.</li>
<li>Sloan, Gary. “Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance.’” <em>Explicator</em>, 55:1 (1996 Fall), 19-22.</li>
<li>Mitchell, Verner D. “Emerson’s Self-Reliance.” <em>Explicator</em>, 55:2 (1997 Winter), 79-80.</li>
<li>Jin, Wenjun. “Cohesion and Emerson’s Prose Style.” <em>L&L</em> 21 (1996): 17-28.</li>
<li>Shirmeister, Pamela. In <a href="http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/resources/tr-rwebib.html#shirmeister"><em>Less Legible Meanings.</em></a>
, pp. 76-85, 109-112.</li>
<li>Vallins, David. “Self-Reliance: Individualism in Emerson and Coleridge.” Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, 5:1 (2001 Apr), 51-68.</li>
<li>Buell, Lawrence. “Emersonian Self-Reliance in Theory and Practice.” Chapter 4 of <em>Emerson</em>. Cambridge: Belknap, 2003.</li>
</ul>
<p>Source: <a href="https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html">https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html</a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marc-aurel-selbstbetrachtungen-reclam-horbuch/Sat, 04 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/marc-aurel-selbstbetrachtungen-reclam-horbuch/<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLzcstoktZbxLCEL8L9SEDjfxgnc-NFFL_" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Die Selbstbetrachtungen von Marc Aurel sind als <em>kostenloses</em> Reclam Hörbuch auf YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzcstoktZbxLCEL8L9SEDjfxgnc-NFFL_">verfügbar</a>
. Gelesen von Winfried Frey.</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/senecas-unvergangliche-lebensweisheit/Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/senecas-unvergangliche-lebensweisheit/<p>Warum sind wir so geizig mit unserem Geld, gehen aber verschwenderisch mit unserer Lebenszeit um? In seinem Traktat „Das Leben ist kurz“ plädiert Seneca für einen verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit der Ressource Zeit.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/radiotexte/seneca-leben-zeit-100.html">Lesung mit Reinhard Glemnitz </a>
</p>
https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/welcome/Sat, 21 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://lstd.to/@alliswellinthegreatmess/posts/welcome/<p>This site I made solely to please myself. I have in the past burnt much of my creative output in garden bonfires in a quest for simplicity and less baggage, but now it seems putting it on the web will serve a similar purpose.</p>