Substack Notes Roundup #2
Pride, meaning, conquest, and more...
This is the second installment of the Substack Notes Roundup series. Here is the first one. You can also vote in the poll whether you find this series insightful or not. Hope you enjoy.
Pride is the root of all sins. The more it bothers us in others, the more we can find it in us. We regard ourselves as the greater person and believe certain things are beneath us. Distinctions:
A boy desiring the ‘well done’ from the father is not necessarily prideful. He can feel joy for pleasing his dad rather than say ‘look how good of a boy I am.’
Are we as parents proud of our children because they are our children, and thus make us the better parents? Or are we proud of them for living up to their true potential?
Ridding oneself of pride demands shifting the focus away from the self.
Life is the greatest gift, and for it to be most fruitful it has to be assigned with a strong ‘why’. Find it, lift it up high, and never lose sight of it. The more powerful the ‘why’ the greater the movement towards it.
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
— Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
nobody can save you but yourself and it will be easy enough to fail so very easily but don’t, don’t, don’t. just watch them. listen to them. do you want to be like that? a faceless, mindless, heartless being? do you want to experience death before death?
- Charles Bukowski, nobody but you
I guess the eternal battle between Good and Evil is a too far-fetched of a concept for some people.
Perhaps these people are so obsessed with the tropes of the physical world that they are actively restricting themselves from perceiving archetypal truths. Grey zones of morality exist in Tolkien.
Sex and temptations exist in Tolkien. Corrupt politicians and evil rulers exist in Tolkien. They are just not the main attraction because the author has a much more important story to tell.
The Einstein formula of success.
Figure out what problems are important.
Allow your interests to become interdisciplinary.
Rejuvenate stale disciplines by finding new and testable ways to support your theories.
“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
— Viktor Frankl
Thank you for reading. Your support means the world. If you wish to contribute independently to the development of this newsletter, please check the link below. Many thanks.
