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THE OBJECTIVE OF EDUCATION IS SELF-RELIANCE
For example, let’s say the person at the top of a company organisation is an authoritarian despot. The employees will follow his orders, certainly. And they will probably display obedient behaviour. But that is submission based on fear, without an iota of respect. He can shout, ‘Respect me,’ but none of them will comply. In their hearts, they will just grow more and more distant from him.
What is generally thought of as empathy, that is to say, agreeing with another person’s opinion and sharing their feelings, is just sympathy, not empathy. Empathy is a skill, an attitude that one has when walking side by side with another.
The past does not decide ‘now’. It is your ‘now’ that decides the past.
Self-harm and social withdrawal are also considered to be within the realm of revenge in Adlerian psychology. By engaging in harm to oneself and injury to one’s worth, one accuses the other, saying, ‘It’s your fault I’ve ended up this way.’ Naturally, the child’s parents will worry, and it will be a heart-wrenching experience for them. From the child’s point of view, the revenge is succeeding.
PHILOSOPHER: Well, that’s strange. Why are these teachers always yelling? YOUTH: Why? Because the students do bad things. PHILOSOPHER: No, because if rebuking were effective as an educational approach, just doing it a few times at the outset should be enough to put a stop to the problem behaviour. Why do they end up always rebuking? Why do they always put on a scary face and always use a loud voice? Hasn’t it ever seemed odd to you?
Do you remember the Serenity Prayer that has been passed down orally in Christian societies? YOUTH: Yes, of course I do: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom always to tell the difference.’ PHILOSOPHER: Reflect upon these words, and then think once more about ‘What should I do from now on?’
Moreover, in order to keep children in a juvenile condition, the adults around them use every conceivable means to indoctrinate children regarding the dangers and risks and scariness of self-reliance.
Yes, make no mistake about this. No matter what they do, parents, and then educators, engage in excessive meddling and nurturing of their children. As a result, they end up raising children who cannot decide anything on their own, and who need constant direction from others.
It is necessary to have the students gain the awareness that they can accomplish things under their own power.
Wherever there is competition, gamesmanship and unfairness arise. There is no need to defeat someone. If one can complete the race, isn’t that enough?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. The human being is probably the only living thing with a body that takes longer to grow than the mind. While with other creatures, mind and body develop at the same speed, only in humans does development of the mind happen first while that of the body lags behind.
the history of the human race is the history of its triumphing over its inferiority.
It is because of their physical weakness that humans create community and live in relationships of cooperation.
Look, instead of placing worth on being different from people, place worth on being yourself.
Somewhere inside me, I am feeling that school education has limitations.
we should not seek approval from others, but instead switch to our own approval of ourselves.
And you did not choose the path of the educator because you wanted to save children. You wanted to be saved through the act of saving them.
By saving another person, one tries to be saved oneself.
In other words, they are not believing in that person—they are believing in the conditions of that person.
Because if I did such a thing, the relationship would fall apart! You can talk all you want about ‘the courage to be disliked’ and such, but there’s no such thing as a person who would actually wish to be disliked. We wear the mask to prevent needless conflict from arising and to prevent the relationship from falling apart. If we don’t do that, society won’t operate.
If one cannot love oneself, one cannot love others. If one cannot believe in oneself, one cannot believe in others. Please think of the phrase as carrying that connotation.
Instead of doing something for world peace, just have confidence in the person in front of you. Become comrades with that person in front of you. That everyday, small accumulation of confidence will some day get rid of even conflict between nations.
Yes. For example, even if their passionate love leads to marriage, that is not the goal of love. Marriage is really the starting point of their love. Because real life will continue, day after day, from that point.
No, I am not going to concede! If loving were the only thing, it could be done by anyone. No matter how warped a person’s character, no matter how much of a failure they might be, that person has someone they long for. In other words, one can love another person. But being loved by another person is extremely difficult . . . I’m a fine example. I look like this, and whenever there’s a woman in front of me, I blush, my voice turns shrill and my eyes get jittery. I don’t have a good position in society and not much in terms of finances, either. And to make matters worse, I’ve got this cynical
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Loving is easy. Without a doubt, it is easy. However, finding the person one should love is difficult. That’s the problem—finding the person one should love.
Destiny is something you create with your own two hands.
We cannot see the future, and that is precisely why we can become the masters of our destinies.