97. Lost In The Details

You think the details are what’s most important. If you pay attention to the distinctions, to the nuances between this and that, then you’ll figure it all out. After sorting out the details, you’ll see how to arrange your knowledge of the world so that everything falls into place. And then you’ll finally obtain the things you’re looking for.

What is it that you’re looking for? You want to possess beauty, you want to feel goodness, and you want to know truth. All of these will be yours once you sort out the details. So you measure, and you analyze, and you reason. You do this over and over again, carefully refining your investigation without end.

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.