Category: aphorisms
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Complaining or coalescing
Complaining requires believing that the complainer has been singled out for ill-usage. What hubris! What error in perception! For how is it possible for one to be singled out at all, let alone for ill-usage, if the world is good and beautiful? Complaining implies that the world runs contrary to one’s desires. In this respect, complaining…
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The worst sort of parents…
Excluding monsters, the worst sort of parents are those who do not raise their children to be capable of being parents themselves. For Kant, the enlightened person is one who is no longer under the thumb of a ‘guardian’–in this case, a parent upon whom he is dependent–but has learned to think for himself and…
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‘Luckiness is not getting what you want…’
Luckiness is not getting what you want but realizing that it wasn’t worth wanting after all. This is called adulthood. Unluckiness is getting what you want, only to grow thoughtlessly into old age. This is called childhood. Also: prose.
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‘Success is the easiest thing…’
Success is the easiest thing, also unaccountably boring, while failure is the hardest one, seeing as it is filled with struggle and doubt and a sense of what is dire. With earnestness, actually. Since moving to New York, I have met many successful people and yawned. They are ‘stressed out’ or not, ‘totally overwhelmed,’ ‘slammed…
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On contempt and compassion
When contempt is no more, then compassion is all there is. When compassion is all there is, then contempt can have no room.
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 