The Experience of Clarity

The Mind adds Infinity, then is divided by Reality which must then take away Infinity again to equal the Human Condition. That is, we are less in mind for wanting to be more than reality ... that is, we are more or less fools. ~ A Human Strategy

It easier to miss one’s own target when one is a good shot: one’s talent seeks spectators and because one cannot resist their applause, they extend one’s aim beyond oneself.

It's not an intelligent goal if satisfying the present mood sets it. *

Should positive people have a positive attitude about negative people? Or, do they get a ‘free pass’ with this one?  * “Positive thinkers”! Beware what you beware. A negative person might only be someone who knows more than you about a shared illusion. His greater courage relative to your cowardice would result in an accuracy experienced by you as a “contamination.” * In praise of the skeptic: If accurate thinking is your goal, you need both Yes and No. Reality doesn't change with positive and negative thinking. It comes into view. * Self-improvement and being content with oneself are in contradiction. We alternate between them or remain confused: maintenance of the one and progress with the other requires that we be more precise with what we love and hate about ourselves.

The pace of a civilization depends almost exclusively upon what is done or not done with intelligence that cannot defend itself.

It has never been my goal to be a pure rationalist. The stronger the logic that one can muster with inadequate information the more fragile the result. * He was truth’s own imbecile, having no variable in the equation for, “but the crowd doesn’t like it.” * As threatening as chaos can be, it is important to maintain perspective. When we see and insist upon order everywhere and at all times, we’ve traded education for self-satisfaction.

He proposed alternatives with the energy and determination of a fish on the cutting board. * Happiness begins when achievement is more highly valued than truth, but the probability of an intermediate achievement is greater than the improbability of a distant one – that truth thumbs the scale.

Haste makes waste, but patience is always hungry. * Euclidean Delight: What is picking me apart today belongs to my failure to pick apart the future yesterday. So I can stop this inertia by picking apart tomorrow with what I learned today from yesterday’s behavior. ... or I can sit down and contemplate these nagging thoughts, and outline the behavioral predicament, taking satisfaction in a precision only made possible by continuing the neglect. * In the end the Devil loses and God always wins. It's only intelligence that is caught in the crossfire.

Frustrated when we think of ourselves too highly: Someone whose buttons you could always push would be a wimp. Someone who did not always budge when you engaged him would be his own man. In full compliance from the former or in a challenging communication with the latter, which of these two could bestow upon you the greater respect? * Every turkey which couldn’t walk away from the trough finds someone to blame on the third Thursday of November.

If good fortune deludes one into taking ego gratification for the “Self-as-Cause” and bad fortune needs to explain its innocence by outlining the total influence of nature’s machinery, then why should I not hunt for cognitive failures and affirm what survives, that is, if I value the perspective on reality as a positive.  Why would this not be a victory in the end? Why would it not be the next great contribution?  * There is a limit to how much I can do in a day that results in maximum productivity – any attempt to exceed this maximum reduces my output.  This is especially true with capturing insights. There is a certain degree and type of leisure, bordering on neglect, which not only achieves the maximum, but makes it look like child’s play … like a natural ability. * Social promotion or demotion changes all memories … changing history herself.

What would it be like to live your whole life afraid of the verifiable history of your own religion? Ignorance can be bliss -- on either side of the question. * If you sincerely forgive yourself for having trusted the mistaken, you have forgiven them too.

A Brief History of a Resolute Truth:  The validity of the answer compensated the irrelevance of the question. The relevant question arrived, provoking horror and demanding the suicide of present understanding. The compensation held firm, giving the original question a kind of relevance after all.                                                                                  * We rarely contemplate how necessary unnecessary questions can be to consciousness, and even then for only brief moments of time.  In the end any extra misery indulged here, would be unnecessary.

The influence of a stimulus is such that reality herself, being the goal of accurate thought, is the initial distraction. To be the master of our own thoughts we must also be their dogs: we must learn to fetch and not run off with the prize. *  Is it really an attempted spirituality if only it tries to satisfy the frustration of forbidding necessity an entrance into consciousness? *  If accuracy is our aim, then there is only refutation of the cognitive and the surviving reality.