112. The Trap Of Reason

I sometimes think I can solve a problem just by thinking more clearly about it. With enough careful thought, I will be able to figure out how to make everything work in a way that satisfies my desires and causes no one harm.

And so I think and I reason and I come up with strategies and solutions. But while these solutions work in theory, they are also entirely impractical and there is no real way for me to implement them. I need a solution that is feasible. But my analysis of the feasible options reveals that none of them will do what I want. There will be pain and suffering for me or someone else, and this is what I most want to avoid.

111. What Compassion Demands

There are moments when you must ignore the rules in order to do what is right. You must keep this in mind, lest you adopt the false belief that you are always constrained by the rules. If you believe this, you might do wrong by quietly following the rules instead of doing the right thing, which also happens to be forbidden.

Fortunately, such occasions are rare. You can usually live congruently with others, in the ways they understand and appreciate. You can do this while also creatively bending and changing the rules where it’s possible for you to do so, in order to live a life that is free, joyful, and meaningfully yours. In general, congruence is beneficial, because others will then accept you as one of them, and this is part of building solidarity and community.

110. The Pursuit Of Revelation

Art is born through the interaction of imagination and intuition. Materials are provided by the imagination and shaped by intuition. The shape emerges through aesthetic judgments that intuitively arise. These judgments cause the artwork to take one form instead of another and to have one content instead of another. It is through open and careful attention to all of the intuitions that arise throughout the creative process that the artist creates a powerful work.

109. Time Is Nothing

To see that time is nothing is both our fear and our glory.

It is our fear because we know that our own subjective existence is confined to a limited period of time. Once that period has come to an end, our individual experience will cease to exist. The limit of death is inescapable simply because we cannot live without our bodies that exist in time. If time is nothing then it would seem we are also nothing. Regardless of the length of our lives or the duration of our impact, we would be reduced to nothing relative to the endless universe. Our actions, our feelings, and our very existence itself would seem to have no meaning in a world so incredibly vast.

108. To Allow Myself To Surrender

It’s the middle of the day and I’m hunched over my desk. I’m trying to read through some notes I need to organize. I’m rushing because I foolishly wasted the morning on mindless media, and now I feel obligated to catch up. There are dozens of pages before me, and I’ve only read through two or three.

Then there’s a knock at the door. I almost ignore it at first, but then I realize I’d better see who it is. When I go to check, there’s no one. I look around the empty hallway, halfway expecting someone to appear, but there really is no one. Strange, but I don’t have time to think about it.

107. The Possibility Of Hope

When I’m overwhelmed by the bleakness of the world, my suffering feels inevitable. Everything around me feels final and limiting. Meaning and purpose feel distant or even absent. My present situation feels like the only one available to me and any kind of change feels impossible.

In such a state, there is no way for me to break out of the cycle of suffering. My actions will be mostly reactions to my misery, attempts to temporarily assuage the pain I feel. But by acting in this way, I only guarantee further suffering down the road. I need to see what I must do to bring my suffering to an end, but I cannot because my attention is completely distracted.

106. A Surprising World

You always see the world from your own point of view. You know the world is not your perception of it, and it might even be quite different from what you see. There are many parts of the world you haven’t seen, parts beyond the range of your present understanding. You know such things exist, because you’re sometimes surprised by the things you discover.

But sometimes it feels like it’s been ages since you saw anything genuinely new. You’re then tempted to conclude that you’ve seen it all, and the world has nothing left to offer you. But then you’re surprised once again and you realize the foolishness of your conclusion. Others see the world differently than you do, and sometimes they know things you don’t know. This is evidence enough to regularly remind you that you haven’t actually seen everything.

105. Creativity Means Creation

To be creative is to make something new. An idea forms in your imagination and then develops into a vision of a something real and tangible. You intuitively follow your vision, giving it structure and life. What was once imaginary becomes a real entity in the world.

The most familiar form of creative action is the making of artworks — paintings, songs, films, performances, stories, and so on. But creativity is present in all of our practices, regardless of whether we are baking bread, playing a sport, building a house, or simply choosing what to wear. Creativity is never limited to those who call themselves artists or to any one area of experience or expertise. It can exist everywhere and anywhere we can imagine, and it is open to all of life.

104. Systemically Flawed

When something goes wrong, we look around for someone to blame. There must be some person (or group of people) who is responsible. We want to hold that person accountable, just as we are held accountable for our actions. This basic reciprocity is the foundation of our social relationships, and helps to ensure they remain predictable and reliable.

When there is wrongdoing outside of our personal sphere, we tend to demand the same kind of accountability from the people involved. We believe that whoever was in charge must be held responsible. We are not wrong about this, but the situation is also more complex than it seems.