66. Clearing The Ground

It can feel like a mistake to destroy what we have already spent so much effort creating. We have something real and tangible right now, but if we destroy it, then we will have nothing.

It feels like we would not only be discarding what was built, but also its meanings. When we build something we expend time and effort — real parts of our own lives we cannot get back. This meaningful expenditure becomes part of the meaning of the created object. In addition, the longer the object is part of our world, the greater the role it seems to play in the meaning of that world. These acquired meanings feel valuable in themselves and we do not want to lose them.

65. Sticky Texts

You’re cleaning your desk when you come across a book. You started it a long time ago, and then put it down one day and forgot about it entirely. You open it to the page where you left off, but you don’t recall the text. You go back to the start of the chapter and vague memories begin to float to the surface. The book is nonfiction and packed with information. You don’t remember the details but this doesn’t bother you.

64. Needing Purpose

What is life for? Is it for having new experiences and finding happiness? Is it for learning about the world and ourselves? Is it for achieving material success and building a family? Is it for supporting others and making the world better for future generations? Is it for expressing ourselves and creating beautiful art? Perhaps life is for all of these things and more.

If we have an answer to the question of life’s purpose then the question dissolves without a fight. But what if all answers fail to satisfy? What if others question our answer and tell us it’s wrong? What if we can’t convincingly defend our answer?

63. I Am Not Alone

I step out of the train station and into the open air. The weather is pleasant enough but there are clouds pregnant with rain in the distance. I’ve never been here before, but I know the station is near a body of water. Either a lake or a big river. I can’t remember which. I look around but there is no water to be seen. Just the concrete of the station and a huge, empty parking lot. There is not a single person in sight.

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.