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But the story of the golden calf also reminds us that without rules we quickly become slaves to our passions—and
He had the enthusiasm of a kid who had just learned something new and had to share it. He seemed to be assuming, as a child would—before learning how dulled adults can become—that if he thought something was interesting, then so might others.
if someone challenged or corrected him he really seemed to like it.
a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.
the adults in their lives had become so naively overprotective that they deluded themselves into thinking that not talking about suffering would in some way magically protect their children from it.
Aristotle defined the virtues simply as the ways of behaving that are most conducive to happiness in life. Vice was defined as the ways of behaving least conducive to happiness.
Cultivating judgment about the difference between virtue and vice is the beginning of wisdom,
blind certainty offered by ideologies that claim to have an answer for everything.
more to do with developing character in the face of suffering than with happiness.
great myths and religious stories of the past, particularly those derived from an earlier, oral tradition, were moral in their intent, rather than descriptive.
People who live by the same code are rendered mutually predictable to one another. They act in keeping with each other’s expectations and desires. They can cooperate. They can even compete peacefully,
We experience much of our positive emotion in relation to goals.
We are not happy, technically speaking, unless we see ourselves progressing—and
We must bear a load, to justify our miserable existence. We require routine and tradition.
the willingness to take on that responsibility is identical to the decision to live a meaningful life.
If Mother Nature wasn’t so hell-bent on our destruction, it would be easier for us to exist in simple harmony with her dictates.
dominance hierarchy
when we are defeated, we act very much like lobsters who have lost a fight. Our posture droops. We face the ground. We feel threatened, hurt, anxious and weak. If things do not improve, we become chronically depressed.
Low serotonin means less happiness, more pain and anxiety, more illness, and a shorter lifespan—among
negative events, which will have to be handled alone, as useful friends are rare indeed, on society’s fringes.
Every system must play its role properly, and at exactly the right time, or noise and chaos ensue. It is for this reason that routine is so necessary.
It doesn’t matter so much if they go to bed at the same time each evening, but waking up at a consistent hour is a necessity.
systems that mediate negative emotion are tightly tied to the properly cyclical circadian rhythms.
I counsel my clients to eat a fat and protein-heavy breakfast as soon as possible after they awaken
Addiction to alcohol or another mood-altering drug is a common positive-feedback process.
stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the liquor in his house is consumed,
When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established.
Depressed people, for example, can start feeling useless and burdensome, as well as grief-stricken and pained. This makes them withdraw from contact with friends and family. Then the withdrawal makes them more lonesome and isolated, and more likely to feel useless and burdensome.
who were viciously bullied during childhood or adolescence. They become anxious and easily upset. They shield themselves with a defensive crouch, and avoid the direct eye contact interpretable as a dominance challenge.
those who are only or merely compassionate and self-sacrificing (and naïve and exploitable) cannot call forth the genuinely righteous and appropriately self-protective anger necessary to defend themselves.
I often draw the attention of my clients who think that good people never become angry to the stark realities of their own resentments.
It is in this manner that the willingness of the individual to stand up for him or herself protects everyone from the corruption of society.
post-traumatic stress disorder, which often occurs because of something they watch themselves doing, rather than because of something that has happened to them.
They react like the monsters they can truly be in extreme battlefield conditions, and the revelation of that capacity undoes their world.
see that they have the ability to withstand, because they are terrible too.
even if you came by your poor posture honestly—even if you were unpopular or bullied at home or in grade school28—it’s not necessarily appropriate now.
your brain, will assign you a low dominance number. Then your brain will not produce as much serotonin.
render you more likely to abuse cocaine and alcohol, as you live for the present in a world full of uncertain futures. It will increase your susceptibility to heart disease, cancer and dementia.
Emotion is partly bodily expression, and can be amplified (or dampened) by that expression.
If you present yourself as defeated, then people will react to you as if you are losing. If you start to straighten up, then people will look at and treat you differently.
It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended.
attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.
place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering.
The programmability of his massive brain means that he must be trained until he is eighteen (or thirty) before being pushed out of the nest.
Why should anyone take care of anything as naked, ugly, ashamed, frightened, worthless, cowardly, resentful, defensive and accusatory as a descendant of Adam? Even if that thing, that being, is himself?
and by withholding something that might do you good, you can punish yourself for all your failings.
primary moral issue confronting society was control of violent, impulsive selfishness and the mindless greed and brutality that accompanies it.
death exists as an example of how to accept finitude, betrayal and tyranny heroically—how to walk with God despite the tragedy of self-conscious knowledge—and
It is not virtuous to be victimized by a bully, even if that bully is oneself.
Most individuals are dealing with one or more serious health problems while going productively and uncomplainingly about their business.
