#sm

It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated. ↗

— J. Maarten Troost

#escapism #overload #life

Ordinary life goes on--that has saved many a man's reason. ↗

— Graham Greene

#life

A Drunkard accuses a Drunkard... A sot became extremely drunk - his legs And head sank listless, weighed by wine's thick dregs. A sober neighbour put him in a sack And took him homewards hoisted on his back. Another drunk went stumbling by the first, Who woke and stuck his head outside and cursed. "Hey, you, you lousy dipsomaniac," He yelled as he was borne off in the sack, "If you'd had fewer drinks, just two or three, You would be walking now as well as me. ↗

— فرید الدین عطار

#life #sufism #life

It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects that you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return. ↗

— Sheila Heti

#life

Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#paganism #life

He had stylized himself--life was easier that way. He had chosen a physical mould just as writer chooses a technical form. ↗

— Graham Greene

#life

But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that. ↗

— Edna Ferber

#optimism #life

... nothing lasts long. We all come to life and gather allies and build empires and die, all in a single moment - maybe a single pulse of some giant processor somewhere. ↗

— Robin Sloan

#life

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation. ↗

— James Freeman Clarke

#generation #next #next election #politician #statesman

The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinking is no longer dominant, we are not united with it, nor am I united with you, but we all just are. The movement from object to subject, as described in both Eastern meditation and modern psychotherapy, is training for this union, but its perception usually comes as a surprise, even when this shift is well under way. It is a kind of grace. The emphasis on sexual relations in the tantric teachings make it clear that the ecstatic surprise of orgasm is the best approximation of this grace. ↗

— Mark Epstein

#desire #dualistic-thinking #grace #meditation #objectification