Daniel > Daniel's Quotes

“Love consists in desiring to give what is our own to another and feeling his delight as our own”
― Emanuel Swedenborg

“The implication here is that we are all now vulnerable to prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“If we consume too much pain, or in too potent a form, we run the risk
of compulsive, destructive overconsumption.
But if we consume just the right amount, inhibiting great pain with
little pain, we discover the path to hormetic healing, and maybe even
the occasional fit of joy.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“Recounting our experiences gives us mastery over them. Whether in the
context of psychotherapy, talking to an AA sponsor, confessing to a
priest, confiding in a friend, or writing in a journal, our honest
disclosure brings our behavior into relief, allowing us in some cases to
see it for the first time. This is especially true for behaviors that involve
a level of automaticity outside of conscious awareness.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“A truthful self-inventory leads not only to a better understanding of
our own shortcomings. It also allows us to more objectively appraise
and respond to the shortcomings of others. When we're accountable to
ourselves, we're able to hold others accountable. We can leverage
shame without shaming.
The key here is accountability with compassion. These lessons apply
to all of us, addicted or not, and translate to every type of relationship
in our everyday lives.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“What if, instead of seeking oblivion by escaping from the world, we
turn toward it? What if instead of leaving the world behind, we
immerse ourselves in it?”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“We enjoy being outraged. We respond to it as a reward.”
― Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

“[People consistently embrace] any excuse to divide between "us" and "them" - and showing distrust, even hostility, toward those in the out-group. During lunch breaks on the set of the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, for instance, extras spontaneously separated into tables according to whether they played chimpanzees or gorillas.”
― Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

“They weren't fighting for the right to look at boobs in video games anymore, but fighting against "white genocide". [...] It wasn't just gaming that needed saving, but Western civilization itself.”
― Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

“Recruits were drawn together by some ostensibly life-or-death threat: the terrible truth of vaccines, the Illuminati agents who spread Zika, the feminists seeking to overturn men’s rightful place atop the gender hierarchy, starting with gaming. “Ordinary people began to feel like they were like soldiers in an online army fighting for their cause,” she said. It was only a matter of time until they willed one another to action.”
― Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

“No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. [...] When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“The disparity between the survivors’ experience and the experts’ recommendations is intriguing.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“[...] simply exposing someone to the old trauma does not integrate the memory into the overall context of their lives, and it rarely restores them to the level of joyful engagement with people and pursuits they had prior to the trauma.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“Helplessness and immobilization keep people from utilizing their stress hormones to defend themselves. When that happens, their hormones still are being pumped out, but the actions they’re supposed to fuel are thwarted. Eventually, the activation patterns that were meant to promote coping are turned back against the organism and now keep fueling inappropriate fight/flight and freeze responses. In order to return to proper functioning, this persistent emergency response must come to an end. The body needs to be restored to a baseline state of safety and relaxation from which it can mobilize to take action in response to real danger.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be”
― Abraham Maslow

“[...]heaven is such that all people of every religion whatever who live rightly have a place there.”
― Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine providence (1972) ISBN: 4880890065 [Japanese Import]

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke