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We make a major detour on the road to happiness when we adopt an image of perfection in anything. This is because an image or ideal is frozen and stagnant, and limited by nature. An ideal implies that it is as good as a particular circumstance or thing can get. True perfection, in contrast, is limitless, unbounded, and always expanding. We can gain a much more productive and satisfying perspective by studying the life of a flower.
The Practicing Mind
Thomas M. Sterner
We attempt to solidify our identity through the two extreme emotions: passion and aggression. These are related to hope and fear. The first tries to embrace; the other tries to repel. With passion, we are trying to draw others in, so there is a seductive element: we like what’s happening, and we want more. For example, you’re with someone you adore, and everything you say and do is an attempt to entice that person to love you just as much. The root of the word passion means “to suffer.” With aggression, we don’t like what’s happening, so we try to make it go away. Waking up in the morning, you feel angry that your sister got the first shower, so you beat on the door and yell. The word aggression arises from the Latin, meaning “to attack.” Passion and aggression are the forces behind very common emotions we use to try to manage daily life, yet by their very nature they can never be satisfied, because they’re rooted in looking outside ourselves for relief.
The Lost Art of Good Conversation
Sakyong Mipham
And that, in fact, is my definition of magic – competence so much more advanced than yours with such alien mental models that you cannot predict the outcomes of the model at all.
Becoming a Magician
autotranslucence.com
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