Child Rearing

"On the other side, if the mind be curbed, and humbled too much in children; if their spirits be abased and broken much, by too strict an hand over them, they lose all their vigour and industry, and are in a worse state than the former. For extravagant young fellows, that have liveliness and spirit, come sometimes to be set right, and so make able and great men; but dejected minds, timorous and tame, and low spirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom attain to any thing..." (John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1692)

My Calloused, Divided Soul--Thanks to Individualism

I have no idea what to write. I only feel within me something like a gigantic inchoate thing, a single word, that seeks expression in many words. I have become calloused on the one hand, and sharp on the other hand in my dealings with people. Accustomed to not receiving love, I am accustomed to not giving love, and even worse, I have come to despise uncensored love. My countenance is not warm and friendly. Why won't I let myself be vulnerable? On the one hand I pride myself in being cold, sharp and abrupt, on the other hand I lament over it seeing that the world is less divine and beautiful because of it. In my failure to to be how I know I should be, the world is less beautiful. I know, that to be soft and loving is higher. At least intellectually I know this, and in my heart, when I stop to come in touch with it there. How I unceasingly criticize humanity and Americans for  their lack of intimacy, their lack of warmth, their superficial concern, their selfishness, and individualism, and yet the opposites of these go against my grain, though my soul yearns for unity, intimacy and interdependence with others! I entered into a battle which I did not realize I had already lost, a battle which I have officially lost by this time. I was not able to retain my vulnerability which I judged ought to be done, and that only if more dared to be vulnerable, the world would be as it should. Instead, I have become heartless, rough and brusque like the rest. Where is my empathy? (Written September 2011).

Hate, From Conscience of Deserving To Be Hated

"To have done more hurt to a man

than he [the doer] can,

or is willing to, expiate,

inclines the doer to hate the sufferer.

For he must expect revenge or forgiveness,

both which are hateful." (Hobbes, Leviathan)

This quote is maybe an accurate psycho-analysis of the dynamic between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Strong and weak: relative categories

Some of us can be preoccupied with being in our own eyes the kind of person we would like to be or think we need to be. Why we would like to be a certain way versus another is affected in one of two ways or both: we strive to be the opposite of what we dislike in others (for example if we observe an unattractive attitude in someone, we may say to ourselves "That is so ugly. I never want to be like that."  The other thing that influences the kind of image we put before us is the image constructed for us by a beloved. A significant other might dislike characteristics about you (e.g. being the reserved type) and want you to have others (e.g. to be talkative or perhaps bubbly). One should be careful of this second influence, because the change is not always warranted, and the motivation for changing not natural or organic, not to mention that his or her opinion of you is sometimes perception or even projection (due to what he/she might dislike in his or herself either because it is disliked in itself or because another significant other disliked it in him or her). On this topic I recommend the book Touching the Holy: Ordinariness, Self-Esteem, and Friendship by Robert J. Wicks. The thrust of this book is that we should learn to bring down the idol that is the image we have set up for ourselves and embrace whatever we see in ourselves and judge to be ordinary and not extra-ordinary, whatever in our view does not make us stand out. It's funny how we (or at least I) wish to be special in the eyes of others. To wish to be special is good. But my desire to be special takes the form of something more, I believe. I'm not sure how to put it in words yet. It is very much felt.