216. You Must Save Yourself

We want to live happily, yet we suffer. We reflect on our experience and we wonder why we must suffer. Why must life be like this? We recognize there is a problem but we do not grasp its nature. We think something is missing, something we need to find, something that will complete us. We think there is a secret we could discover that would guarantee us endless pleasure and happiness.

215. Collective Action

Our best efforts are often defeated by systems that are unfair and unjust. Our success is often hindered by power structures that undermine equality and promote hierarchy. Our well-being is often reduced by laws that only benefit a small group. These factors easily combine to limit our potential happiness. And if we find ourselves on the periphery of society, they can sometimes make happiness a total impossibility.

The problem goes beyond any individual and so any possible solution must be implemented at a higher level. Systemic change is needed but it is only possible by working with others to make it possible through collective action. Engaging regularly in this kind of action requires great energy and attention. But oppressive systems often rob of us of these things. They do this by compelling unnecessary actions that physically drain us, and by manufacturing a neverending fight for survival that mentally drains us.

214. Wants And Needs

We want pleasure but we need love. We want wealth but we need purpose. We want power but we need justice. We want righteousness but we need empathy. We want success but we need meaning. We want happiness but we need joy.

While our wants are often the main focus of our lives, we only rarely consider what we need. We set goals to fulfill our desires because we want the happiness that comes from getting what we want. We emphasize expediency, improving our material situation, and achieving our goals as quickly as possible.

213. What Must Be Said

I’m trying to tell you how I feel, but it’s impossible to find the right words. Everything that comes out of my mouth feels wrong, and I have to keep pausing to restate what I’ve just said. I’m anxious about speaking my mind because I cannot know how you’ll receive my thoughts.

I’m trying to formulate the perfect expression of my feelings, but the result is that I’m not saying much at all. My words won’t flow because I’m being far too cautious. I’m afraid of saying something I can’t take back or something I won’t be allowed to take back.

212. The Freedom To Reject

Rejection is always painful. It means learning that someone I’m interested in is not interested in me. Strong feelings necessarily arise. I feel grief over the lost possibility of a valuable connection. I feel sadness over the discovery that I am not what the other wants. I feel anger over being discarded like a useless object.

It’s almost impossible not to experience such feelings after being rejected. As I highly value the person doing the rejecting, I also value their judgment of me. And they’ve judged me unworthy of an effort towards a lasting connection.

211. Changing The Game

When we think about how we can improve our lives, the range of our imagination is often limited. We have been raised and educated within the context of a given society. The options open to us seem predetermined by the ideals of that society and the existing lives of its members. Any possible change to the society itself seems unlikely or even impossible. We cannot imagine a major change, as we have never experienced one before.

210. Dangerous Desires

There are things you want that you know would not be good for you. Having them would in some way harm you or your loved ones. You know what these these things are, and you know to ignore your desire for them. You’ve sought these things before and terrible consequences followed. Your memory of this keeps you on guard against yourself.

From your experience, you’ve learned that not every desire you have is a good one, and you approach your own wants with skepticism. You interrogate your desires, you examine them closely, and you consider the potential consequences of their fulfillment.

209. Tension With The Other

When the other is still an other, there is a palpable tension with the self. The tension originates in the perception of the other person’s otherness. At the forefront of attention is the simple fact that the other is not the self.

Sometimes this tension results in feelings of repulsion or hostility. This happens when the other feels too foreign to the self and its values. But more often, the tension produces curiosity, the desire to know the other better and incorporate their otherness into the self. The other is not the self, so there is always something the other has that the self does not, and vice versa.

208. Hidden Treasures

He looks at her but she does not return his glance. Her eyes are aimed elsewhere, but where exactly, he does not know. She seems to be looking straight ahead, but there is nothing there but a blank wall. He decides she must be lost in thought.

He would like to know what she is thinking, but even more than that, he would like to know what she is feeling. He has noticed that she hides most of her feelings and shares only what passes through a narrow filter. He thinks most people do this, but she has taken the practice to an extreme. She hides almost everything, supplying little more than a carefully-curated portrait of herself. What is she actually feeling? This is the question he wants to answer more than any other.