To take conscious control, A human Strategy, Matt Berry, aphorism 187

187
Another person has only as much depth as I concede to him.  He can be a cardboard cut-out or the very God incarnate.  To take conscious control of this mechanism, to be able to switch at will between perceptions of the real and the illusory serves me well.  When another person proves harmful, I can say, “If I am sober, this thing is mechanical and therefore meaningless and I am free of all need for retribution.  It is a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out.  I’ll wait a while.  Time, like a breeze, will blow it away.”  On the other hand, when someone proves congenial, I can say, “You intoxicate me without fail.  Stay a while.”  




A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



Popular posts from this blog

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
Read more
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.
Read more