Anxiety isn't escaped. It's discarded.
–Marcus AureliusToday I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions–not outside.
On treating animate and inanimate objects differently:
–Chuang TzuIf a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,
And yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty.
He would not be shouting, and not angry.
I don’t remember where I first heard it but this is one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve come across in recent years, often in a very uncomfortable way.
“The output of a system is the purpose of that system”
It made me look at the harmful results of systems not as accidents or imperfections to be fixed but as intended or at least tolerated outcomes.
e.g. An economy that has homeless people is, at least in part, designed to make some people homeless.