Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage.
Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.
Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.
'Have courage to use your own reason!'
- that is the motto of enlightenment.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom,
but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind
Everybody has something to hide.
We can't just expose all our secrets to the world. That's how we get hurt. That's how we risk hurting other people.
We have to decide how much we let out and keep the truth to ourselves.
It's scary to reveal everything about ourselves. Fear makes us hold ourselves back. Is that so wrong? Maybe. Probably. But still.
It helps to be a little sneaky, a little protective. It's not safe to just blurt out all of your secrets. We can't just lay all the truth out there. Expose ourselves to God and everybody.
'Cause once the truth is out, we have to face it ourselves.
Throughout history, traumatic experiences have caused physiological responses long after the events themselves have passed.
Racing heart, pupil dilation, nightmares, panic attacks.
Mesopotamian soldiers depicted these symptoms on cuneiform tablets over 3,000 years ago.
Yet, post-traumatic stress disorder wasn't introduced as a diagnosable mental health condition until 1980.
It's a lesson we learn i just because we don't have the words, doesn't mean the symptoms aren't real.
Traumatic events are turning points. There's a before and an after.
Sometimes, it's hard to remember who you were before. And it's even harder to figure out who you are after.
But if you look for your people and hold them close, you will find your way again.
There's a reason so many babies' first word is "no."
It's because it's the word they hear the most.
From the second we're born, we want to cross the line, push the boundaries, test the limits.
But then we grow up and learn that not all rules are bad. Some boundaries protect us. Some lines keep us safe.
The nice thing about being an adult is we can choose for ourselves.
We can screw the rules or we can make our own.
| Until pretty recently, doctors would slap a newborn on the back immediately after birth. It's not that they wanted to make the baby cry. They needed the baby to cry. It meant the baby could breathe on her own. Thankfully, we don't do that anymore. But we still hold our own breath until we hear that cry. And it doesn't matter if you're the baby's doctor or mother. It's the most beautiful sound in the world. The first time, anyway. The first minute in a baby's life is the most terrifying. In that minute, a million tiny air sacks have to perfectly open and fill with air. It's a pretty traumatizing way of entering the real world. In that minute, your whole world stops. It's as if time stands still. And if I'm being honest, that minute is pure hell. But fortunately, most of the time, crying starts, the baby's okay, and the rest of us in the room can finally breathe again. |
Battle. Fight. Win. Lose.
These are the words we use
We use militarized language that implies it's a fair fight.
But when it comes to life and death, what does winning really look like?
Is a person a loser for dying when the outcome isn't really in their control?
There’s just as much value in trying again as there is in letting go.
Letting go of suffering, regret, pain, fear.
Instead of saying someone we love is battling, beating, fighting, winning or losing, why don't we just tell the truth?
We get sick. We take our medicine.
Some of us live, some die.
On average, our hearts beat 70 times per minute.
In the same 60-second period, we blink between 10 and 15 times, swallow once, and take up to 20 breaths.
Our hearts beat. Our lungs breathe. Our bodies keep us alive.
And most of us barely notice. We just take it all for granted.
So much of the world operates without us ever thinking about it. We expect it to work out in our favor. And most of the time it does. We worry about the future and think about the past.
And we so often miss what's right in front of us.
We take what's good and easy and working for granted. Until it's no longer good and easy and working for us.
It's normal, but we can do better because there are tiny, beautiful gifts we're given every day.
And it's up to us to appreciate them to the fullest while we can.
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic,
because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist,
because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods
Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment.
For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read;
the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over.
Hence it is impossible to reflect;
and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read.
If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.
November
The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,
Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;
With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,
A steed Thessalian with a human face.
Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase
The leaves, half dead already with affright;
I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
“November is chill, frosted mornings with a silver sun rising behind the trees, red cardinals at the feeders, and squirrels running scallops along the tops of the gray stone walls.”
“In November you begin to know how long the winter will be.”
“Peering from some high window, at the gold of November sunset and feeling that if day has to become night, this is a beautiful way.”
“The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.”
November. The noons are more laconic and the sunsets sterner
November always seems to be the Norway of the year.
“Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.”
“We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither;
but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops
— which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.”
“November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.”
“This is the month of nuts and nutty thoughts — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless — perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year.”
