The
Ascetic Impulse: We think we deliberately hurt ourselves when it is simply that
we do know which version of ourselves
will satisfy our needs more fully. We try on a personality as if trying on new
clothes. Bizarrely, the self we beat up has heretofore been a complete stranger.
A valuable book, A Human Strategy, aphorism 387
387 A valuable book may be torn to pieces without diminishing the human spirit, just so long as the words have already been read and understood. To feel the loss of the book — at its material destruction, even though one had already digested its contents fully and had aligned oneself toward its overall direction — is evidence that one values the non-human being over human becoming , the static thing over the dynamic process . In response to the fear of our unknowable future we would rather freeze ourselves into a single stage of growth at the expense of the entire metamorphosis. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism