All of this is a game. But you forgot that you are playing. The rush, the fears, the frustrations, the constant feeling of being behind, that something is missing, something is wrong with you. None of this is as real as it seems. And the most unsettling part is that on some deep level of your consciousness, you accepted being here. You chose this experience. Psyphoria podcasts: Exit the Illusion: Life is Just a Game: Here’s How to Hack It: Alan Watts
[Carl Jung]: ‘The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Being Nice Kills You: Why Pleasing Others is Slowly Destroying You
There is a type of suffering that leaves no visible marks, a silent persistent pain hard to name. ibid.
You act as expected. Modulate your voice. ibid.
As if you were living someone else’s life. As if you were an actor on the stage where the play never ends. ibid.
[Niccolo Machiavelli]: ‘It is better to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both.’ Psyphoria podcasts: Stop Being Disrespected: How to Never by Disrespected Again: Machiavelli
Have you ever felt that the kinder you are, the less respect people have for you? ibid.
Those who don’t set boundaries are pushed to the abyss. ibid.
True psychological strength lies in self-control, in firm silence, in a gaze that does not need to justify its existence. ibid.
The dilemma of kindness. How to know when your kindness has turned into weakness, and what to do when you realise you are being exploited. ibid.
[Nietzsche]: You revere your virtue as the highest thing. But virtue is your poison. Psyphoria podcasts: Rule Yourself: Follow No-One, Learn to Rule Yourself: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that being good makes you free. ibid.
The morality of the herd was not meant to free you. ibid.
The virtue that gives arises from excess … overflow of the spirit. ibid.
[Jung]: People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul. Psyphoria podcasts: Leave & Watch: Walk Away, And You’ll See Who They Really Are: Carl Jung
In certain relationships your simple decision to withdraw is enough to provoke a deep crisis in the other. ibid.
You become what they need. ibid.
Carl Jung said that we are all born originals, but we die copies. ibid.
You relate to the image you have constructed of them. And the most unsettling part, the other does the same with you. ibid.
Where power reigns, love is absent. ibid. Jung
[Schopenhauer]: There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. Academy of Ideas podcast: The Wisdom of a Pessimist: Arthur Schopenhauer
We explore Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of the world and his thoughts on how to respond to the sufferings and evils of Life. ibid.
‘Everything presses and strives towards existence.’ ibid. Schopenhauer
‘This disposition of egoism is essential to everything in nature.’ ibid.
‘My experiences with human beings, too, had taught me anything rather than belief in man’s original goodness and decency.’ ibid. Jung
The will, wrote Schopenhaeur, is not divine but demonic. ibid.
‘All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment beings this to an end; yet for one with that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that is denied.’ ibid. Schopenhauer