DreamBliss Posted September 26, 2015 (edited) “The will needs obstacles in order to exercise its power; when it is never thwarted, when no effort is needed to achieve one’s desires, because one has placed one’s desires only in the things that can be obtained by stretching out one’s hand, the will grows impotent. If you walk on a level all the time the muscles you need to climb a mountain will entropy.” (from The Lotus Eater by W Somerset Maugham) Right... So life is supposed to suck... Edited September 26, 2015 by DreamBliss Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted September 26, 2015 Right... So life is supposed to suck... Belly laugh. But there can be positive things said about the quote. I generally associate that with knowing and testing our capabilities and capacities. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geof Nanto Posted September 26, 2015 Right... So life is supposed to suck... Your response surprises me. How do you infer that quotation implies "life is supposed to suck"? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DreamBliss Posted September 27, 2015 (edited) The way I interpret and understand it is that desirable things are supposed to be hard to obtain (I.E, you have to overcome obstacles and/or endure suffering to obtain them.) You have to use will to push through. If things are easy, the will becomes weak. So the whole system depends on strong will to push through obstacles to obtain what is desired. Strong will to push through suffering. Strong will that is only developed by these obstacles and this suffering. The obstacles and suffering have a co-dependent relationship with will, according to this quote. If there are no obstacles or suffering, there is no need for will. If there is no need for will, then there is also no need for obstacles and suffering. Ultimately, to have anything you would considerable desirable, you automatically must go through obstacles and/or endure suffering. That is why I said, "Right... So life is supposed to suck..." I just hope to hell that the words of this quote are not true, that I can have strong will independent of obstacles and suffering, because that means I can have what I desire independent of these. Edited September 27, 2015 by DreamBliss 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C T Posted September 28, 2015 Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. ~ David Bohm 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FmAm Posted October 6, 2015 Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me and meditate on how useless effort is, how alien the will, and on how our very meditation is no more useful than effort, and no more our own than the will. Meditate too on how a life that wants nothing can have no weight in the flux of things, but a life the wants everything can likewise have no weight in the flux of things, since it cannot obtain everything, and to obtain less than everything is not worthy of souls that seek the truth. (Fernando Pessoa) 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wu Ming Jen Posted October 6, 2015 If you throw dirt you lose ground. 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted October 6, 2015 If you throw dirt you lose ground. Now that is very pointed. I think even Sun Tzu would have liked that. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C T Posted October 7, 2015 "It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism." ~ h. p. lovecraft the tomb 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted October 7, 2015 Yep. That is a difficult lesson, still in the learning, for me. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geof Nanto Posted October 7, 2015 Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that. If natural things are beyond it, what are we to say about supernatural things? - Blaise Pascal 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tibetan_Ice Posted October 10, 2015 “Protect yourself from your own thoughts.” ― Rumi 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geof Nanto Posted October 17, 2015 “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the head, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it will make us happy, as you write? How insipid, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. What we need are books that affect us like the most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that makes us feel as though we had been banished to the wilderness, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.” – Franz Kafka 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thelerner Posted October 29, 2015 Soaring Crane has the definitive quote that answers why things stay the same: Ask: Who wants change? And they all answer: Me! Ask: Who wants to change? And they all answer: ... 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DreamBliss Posted November 1, 2015 (edited) Soaring Crane has the definitive quote that answers why things stay the same: Ask: Who wants change? And they all answer: Me! Ask: Who wants to change? And they all answer: ... I must be an oddity among men because (as far as I know or can remember) I have never shied away from changing the things about myself that I have come to realize need changing. I just dive into that thicket and start whacking away. Change Begins Inside - DreamBliss Edited November 1, 2015 by DreamBliss 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Taomeow Posted November 4, 2015 Anyone who believes that the modern economic system, designed on the principles of "Neo-Classic Economic Theory," is not a Ponzi Scheme, created to ensure survivorship of the elite at the expense of everyone else, is living in denial. -- Seen today on Facebook, in a comment to something posted by Dr. Michael Saso 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zerostao Posted November 8, 2015 “This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” ― walt whitman 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brian Posted November 18, 2015 "Every child deserves the opportunity to live up to their God given potential." -Planned Parenthood Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted November 18, 2015 "Every child deserves the opportunity to live up to their God given potential." -Planned Parenthood Which God? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted November 19, 2015 Better to die from a naughty habit than to die because you were living a healthy life. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Michael Sternbach Posted November 19, 2015 The people who are afraid of death are the people who are also afraid of life ... Warriors we must be! - Elvis Presley 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marblehead Posted November 19, 2015 And sadly, even knowing that, he imprisoned himself. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
silent thunder Posted November 19, 2015 Better to die from a naughty habit than to die because you were living a healthy life. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw that read: Eat Healthy, Exercise... die anyway. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
