A Few Observations
True freedom requires a willingness to be transformed in unpredictable ways by the unknown.
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Action causes far more problems, far more damage, far more suffering and far more injustice than thought, yet thought is feared more than action.
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Interviews are merely engines for the enforcement of conformity.
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Assigning a familiar label to something unfamiliar is an effective method of reducing your anxiety about the unfamiliar, and the only cost to you in doing this is a diminished relationship with reality as well as the loss of everything new and valuable you could discover.
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"Climate change" is a hoax right up until the time it's somebody else's fault.
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"Because people will buy it" is an insufficient reason to create something.
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Hint: Lack of technology is not the problem.
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You can tell a weak mind from its clinging to clichés.
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If everything must be compared to something already familiar, nothing new is possible.
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Anything you say or do can and may and probably will be used against you, so it's up to you to choose words and actions you yourself will be able to respect, regardless of what anyone else thinks, says or does about what you say or do.
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One key to happiness is knowing that the small things are actually the big things, and that the small things are easy.
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There are realms of thought and feeling and spirit far beyond the usual petty human categories. Discover them. Reach for them. Dwell in them. Be transformed by them.
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If you have a good inclination, cultivate the time. If you have the time, cultivate a good inclination.
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It is only when you begin to doubt your own perceptions that a little bit of reality is finally able to leak in.
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Truly horrible people rarely understand how horrible they are. Truly wonderful people rarely understand how wonderful they are.
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How many "civilizations," not just in this galaxy but in other galaxies as well, have already destroyed themselves through their lack of honesty about what they were doing to their own planet? How many, just before they destroyed themselves, had a fantasy about moving to another planet?
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If you are ever disappointed–by a person, or a group of people, or a situation–that only means that your expectations did not correspond to reality.
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Raising a child well who is just another American consumer is not an accomplishment at all. It is an anti-accomplishment.
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Do you know even one human being who is living in a way that, if adopted by most of humanity, would be sustainable? Chances are close to 100% that you don't, and that tells you everything you need to know about whether humanity will adequately address the coming cluster of catastrophes it has created.
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Human beings are the fundamental problem. Human beings are also the potential solution, but too many human beings are too busy unconsciously being the problem to even consider becoming the solution.
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No matter what behavior you are referring to, if some people do it, but others don't, then it can't exactly be "human nature," can it? Therefore there is no such thing as "human nature" at all.
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"Human nature" is just a widely accepted, horribly lame excuse for bad behavior, especially your own.
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The happiness of comfort is the happiness of mediocrity.
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Interesting social exercise: Choose a standard phrase or expression, and then deliberately deviate from it in a mixed gathering of humans. Then observe who tries to "correct" you back to the standard phrase or expression. Then never bother with that person ever again.
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Given that humanity evolved under conditions that no longer exist and will never exist again, in what ways must humanity change its behavior to match current conditions and challenges?
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"Cognition" that is only repetition of unconsciously instilled societal patterns shouldn't even be referred to as cognition. Repetition is the opposite of actual thought.
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We need separate words for different categories of thought. The categories of thought are distinct, and the differences among them profoundly significant and determinative, but these categories do not have their own words as yet.
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Instead of ever saying "Thank God," try saying "Thank U," where the "U" stands for Universe.
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The assumption, and it is an assumption, that you know what is best for you or what would make you happy is absurd. You don't know, and no one else knows or can know for you either.
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Only at higher levels of intelligence are you able to use your intelligence to improve your intelligence. When you attain such a level, that is precisely what you should do.
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Qualities of mind are revealed only over stretches of time, and varied circumstances. To properly understand another mind you have to wait, and watch, and think, and then examine your own biases, and ask yourself many questions, and then wait, and watch, and think some more.
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The truly wonderful aspect of internal identification is that it is absolutely impossible to tell just from the outside how someone identifies on the inside. Long live surprises, and discovery, and freedom.
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If you aren't deliberately and consciously directing your attention, and you probably aren't, then what is directing your attention? Mostly your previous patterns of attention unfortunately, which you mistake for reality.
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If you notice that someone has not resolved basic issues within themselves, it's a good idea to lower your expectations of whether issues between you and that person will be or can be resolved. The inverse of this principle also applies, of course.
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Exercise: Carry a notebook with you every moment, and when your attention shifts or you change activity, write down the change. Within only a few minutes you will be so exhausted from the trivia and the vast number of transitions that you will long to commit yourself to only a few things that actually matter.
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The night sky radiates truth, but it is truth that human beings do not want to acknowledge or understand. Thus the increasing prevalence of light pollution blocking clear view of the night sky.
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If you have to wait on hold on the phone you should have the option of listening to the works of Shakespeare, a collection of interesting quotes, interesting facts, advanced vocabulary or a review of trigonometry.
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There is currently no word to represent an increasingly prevalent phenomenon: anti-importance. Some things are important, others unimportant, but the world is now drowning in tidal waves of the anti-important, defined as those things that destroy or interfere with attention toward the important.
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Make sure that your first response to absolutely everything is "So what?" This has the effect of immediately revealing all the normally invisible assumptions regarding importance both in the minds of others, and in your own.
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Ideas can be either a prison or a means to greater freedom. Evaluate ideas on this basis, and choose carefully which ideas to accept or reject. Keep in mind that most ideas whose source is human groups are an invitation to mental prison and mental slavery.
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Just imagine if human beings weren't so small-minded, short-sighted, greedy, petty, cruel, hypocritical and vapid. Just imagine. Life would be glorious. It can still be.
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