62. New Beginnings

A strong feeling is present in me but I do not understand it. To see it clearly, I need to sit patiently with it. I need to allow it to exist without any form of interference. I can’t try to preserve it, fight it, or control it. It might last for a long time or it might depart quickly, but this is not up to me.

Right now, I am only an observer. I am not even the source of the feeling. I am looking at the feeling, watching it without any intention or goal. If I achieve anything, it will only be in seeing what my feeling is and where it comes from.

61. The Thing In Question

To express the whole truth is no easy matter. It means releasing myself from whatever intentions I might have about what is right and good. It means following the grooves of my past experience — grooves unknown to words but deeply felt. It means listening carefully to the intuitions that arise from my present awareness of myself and the world.

Where my awareness is strong, I am likely to discover that my words are able to say more than they literally say. They seem to point at something beyond, a truth or a beauty that has no name and cannot be talked about directly. Something that simply is. If I try to talk about it, if I try to use words to pin this nameless thing down, I will not be able to capture it.

60. A Terrible Mistake

Your friend is making a terrible mistake. You’ve been in their situation before and you know it ends badly. You don’t want your friend to experience the same pain and suffering you experienced. You want them to change course.

You tell your friend about your concerns and you give them good reasons to take your advice. They listen to you carefully and they seem to understand your reasoning, but they don’t agree with you about the outcome. You think it will end in certain disaster, but they feel it’s going to work out. You plead with them to reconsider, but they still stand by their choice. You think they are being stubborn and that they do not want to admit their mistake. They think you’re just pessimistic and everything will be fine.

59. The Legitimacy of Power

To have power over someone is to introduce a problem. Having power over another means being able to require particular actions (or inactions) from that person. But imposing particular actions means extinguishing the ability of the other to make a choice. And this is a problem.

It is precisely the freedom to choose that enables every person to live their own life and establish their values in the world. This activity of choosing and creating oneself is a primary source of one’s own value as a human being. If our ability to choose is limited through the application of power, then our humanity is also limited. By depriving us of the responsibility to choose, power also deprives us of our humanity.

58. Living Means

Faced with the prospect of living, he wants to run.

Living means getting up early and having barely enough time to eat breakfast before his ninety-minute commute to work.

Living means working fifty hours per week at a job that isn’t difficult but bores him to death.

Living means figuring out how to help his sister with her money/boyfriend/job problems without involving their parents because he knows they will do nothing but worry and complain.

57. I Wish It On Myself

When someone harms another, I demand justice. If justice does not come and the wrongdoer continues to do harm, I might then wish for the wrongdoer to also experience harm.

I wish for this because I feel the wrongdoer should suffer just as his victims have suffered. I see him as my enemy. I want him to pay for his crimes. I want retribution. I want it so much, I become blind to how this wanting itself can harm me.

56. A Vessel For A Feeling

There’s a feeling inside you that needs to be let out. You’ve felt it for ages and you’ve finally decided you have to release it into the world. You need to express it. Sure, you could tell someone about it, but that wouldn’t be enough. The feeling is too powerful. It needs to live apart from you. It needs to be given its own separate existence.

You need to create a container, a vessel, to carry your feeling in your stead. You need to make something, but you aren’t sure what. You start thinking and investigating. You come up with an impressive list of ideas, techniques, and methods. This process of imagining and discovering feels good while you’re doing it, but your feeling is still with you. You have not yet created anything. All you’ve done so far is think.

55. Everything You Need

You desperately want to find someone who energizes and inspires you. You’re so tired of the endless small talk and the conversations about events, and media, and politics. You want genuine contact — connections alive with hope and breathing with possibility. You want substance, depth, and genuine stakes. You want there to be lives on the line.

You search and you search but you fail to find such a person. Everyone you meet feels cold. They lack the fire you so desperately desire. They do not live for beauty and ideas like you do. They do not seem to care about the things you feel are important or true. You do not seem to fit in anywhere. Your desires and beliefs do not seem to be shared.

54. Bodies And Spaces

A human being is a body — a physical entity that takes up space in the world. This seemingly obvious fact is often obscured by the nature of contemporary experience. Physical bodies do not seem relevant in the realm of the internet. Here, we do not care about our own bodies, let alone the bodies of other people.

Inside the virtuality of online spaces, we exist as disembodied entities. We can forget about our bodies entirely and interact with others in ways that exceed our ordinary abilities. We can engage in situations where we would otherwise face harm. We can enter into contexts we would not be able to enter as embodied beings. Disconnected from physical existence, we engage with each other in these spaces as though we really are disembodied.