The Experience of Clarity

26 One ought only to confess after one has been honest with the moral standard through which the sin had been determined.  And what stands between us and this question? One obstacle might be the humiliation resulting from seeing that past confessions were unnecessary.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

27 Our guilt may only be a hoop of fire: Why am I more honest in judging myself than I am with the standard through which I judge myself?  We often burn ourselves upon honest introspection because we only jump halfway through.... A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

28 I find it best to endure a crisis in seclusion, for others’ sympathetic picking and rubbing of the wound frustrates the healing process.  Even in accepting genuine help, one is obliged – recruited into their service at precisely that moment when the opportunity for self-sufficiency was optimal.  And then after one has healed, one cannot then be so ungrateful as to ignore a debt for their sympathy ... and to owe someone for something taken from us also picks and rubs.... A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

159 The difference between my ongoing conclusions and the behavioral textbook: I have more data.  I rob this We-science and add the plunder to the verified data of a Me-science. Another difference: well, I have a knack for the art of life ... but enough with my disadvantages. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

160 If I truly want the experimental life, I must be willing to isolate myself as specimen. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

161 The first goal of a philosophy should be sobriety ... so that one can more accurately engineer and exploit the next intoxication.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism