96. My Shifting Moods

I’m not in the mood for that. This is the thought that often arises when there is something I need to do, but it feels like too much of a burden to do right now. My focus then shifts to my mood and how I’m currently feeling. And this can easily become the decisive factor in what I choose to do.

Sometimes I get annoyed with myself over this. I tell myself it’s just a form of procrastination. I tell myself I should just do what I need to do. I tell myself I should not allow my moods to control me. In the end, I discipline myself into doing whatever it is I’m avoiding. This works because the thing that must be done actually does get done.

95. From Inner To Outer

A human being is a body, its actions, and its words. All of these things exist in the physical world: a body can be felt, its actions can be seen, and its words can be heard. But a human being also has feelings and thoughts and these do not exist anywhere in the world. While they do have worldly counterparts, these counterparts are not the experienced things themselves.

Our thoughts and feelings exist for us in an inner space that the world cannot directly reach. The world can influence this space, but it is still wholly ours. We can think about anything we can imagine. We can invent ideas and structures without limit. We can be fully creative here without having to worry about even the possibility of criticism from anything or anyone in the world.

94. The Monstrous Universe

When two infinities collide, do they cancel each other out or do they combine to create something even more monstrous?

One infinity by itself is already a monster, for it goes beyond anything we can imagine or comprehend. It transcends both the real and the imaginary. It escapes all of our usual systems, all of our usual rules and practices. It could easily behave in ways that are unpredictable or intractable.

93. To Be Slow Enough

It’s late afternoon and I’m caught in a great mass of people. Most are on their way home after work, but others are strolling more leisurely, popping into stores along the way or chatting with friends. The first group is in a desperate hurry while the second seems to have all the time in the world.

My focus is on navigating through the mass. I’m swerving around bodies heading in the opposite direction, while dodging the sandwich boards that litter the sidewalk. I’m in no hurry, but it’s still challenging to maintain a slow pace. I feel the distinct urge to go faster when others are rushing past me. Their swift movement feels purposeful, as though it were a response to some unknown stimulus, and I feel compelled to speed up.

92. Desires And Necessities

Someone I care about wants me to do something I cannot do. I am unable to do it because there is something else I must do instead. I feel this other task is necessary because I can see it would be profoundly harmful for it to go undone.

This is not a conflict between two desires. It is not a matter of fulfilling my desire instead of the other person’s desire. It is a matter of yielding to the necessity of compassion or attempting to avoid it.

91. You Are Meant To Fly

They told you that it was too risky and not worth doing. They told you that you couldn’t go any further. They told you that you’d be on your own and you’d have no support. They told you that you’d be crazy to even consider it. You listened to all of this, but it didn’t change your mind. They kept telling you it was impossible, but you went and did it anyway.

90. Patience For Art

The need to be patient with other people is clear. Human beings are not machines, and I cannot expect them to perform with the regularity and consistency of machines. They will occasionally do things I do not expect, and act in ways other than I think they ought to act. To demand anything like perfection from a human being would be absurd.

The need to be patient with an artwork is less obvious. An artwork seems like nothing more than an object that exists for me to enjoy. I feel it should do something for me immediately and if it does not then I will revoke my attention and focus on something else. I might even believe its value is determined solely by the degree of perfection it achieves.

89. The Other In Yourself

When we think of the “other” we tend to think of something beyond our own body. Most often we think of other people, in contrast to the self, which is our own person. But the other is very much alive in us too.

Not everything we are is included in our image of the self. The leftovers are the parts of us that we refuse to identify with. They might be traits we wish we did not have, actions we regret taking, or past failures we want to forget. All of these are us, but we want to deny them. If they must exist, we want them to exist somewhere outside of who we really are. We want to be seen only as our best qualities and actions, as everything that aligns with our most cherished values.

88. Disasters And Delusions

Everything is always getting worse. This is the thought he keeps having over and over again. The foundation is crumbling. The tension is becoming unbearable. The world itself feels only months from some kind of collapse. And when he looks at the people around him he sees more anxiety, more stress, and more uncertainty than ever before. The problem itself is huge and unfathomable — a beast outside the scope of his comprehension and well beyond the reach of his control. It’s not one thing but many things amplifying each other to produce a maelstrom of incredible proportions. To maintain a modest degree of mental stability he has trained himself to disregard anything he cannot control, and so he does nothing about it. Instead he distracts himself with whatever he can find — anything that will fully absorb his attention. This way he not only avoids thinking about the problem, he avoids thinking altogether. Embraced by the safety of immediate pleasure, his mind is adequately soothed, transforming the real world into a distant concern. But he can’t always keep it this way. He is forced back to reality because he has a body with needs, which means he has to work in order to survive. He is required to watch the catastrophe unfold despite his best efforts. He tries not to fight what he sees. It’s coming no matter what, so there is little point in fighting. Perhaps it will not be so bad. He repeats these words to keep himself calm. But sometimes calm is out of the question and he gets carried away in a frenzy of thought. He then feels he can only surrender and accept the inevitable. He tries to be excited by the thought of total disaster — everything would change and that could be interesting. He can’t deny there would be pain and suffering beyond imagination, but he tries to tell himself it would be others who would bear the brunt of it. He and his loved ones would be okay. When he is more languid and therefore honest he admits the disaster would probably consume him too. He will not be spared. But he wonders if maybe even that could be exciting in its own way. For it would mean his life would be changed completely. And that means he would have a chance to be more than he presently is. He would be freed from this bleak world that is always holding him back from his true potential. To have a life with real purpose and meaning… Wouldn’t that be so much better than this excuse for an existence he is currently living?