Endarkenment......................

 

..............from the essential pen of Martin Gurri:

The Endarkenment is the pathological disorientation that convulses a society after it has extinguished all sources of meaning and lost sight of all paths to a happier future. It’s the triumph of wish over facts, the infantilization of top echelons of the social pyramid—of hyper-credentialed, globally mobile people, wielders of power and wealth and media, who, on a routine basis, confuse their self-important imaginings with the world itself. It’s the widespread descent of everyone else, now deprived of teachers, preachers, and role models, into a cognitive underclass, prone to the most bizarre theories about how things work.

thanks Kurt

avoidance......................

 

It can be difficult to appreciate how much avoiding the standard ways of failing dramatically increases the odds of success.

-from the good folk at Farnam Street

intractable contingencies...............

Managing frustration by sidestepping the intractable contingencies of life is a growth industry; the demand for manufactured experiences is met by a growing economy of "affective capitalism . . . 

-Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming An Individual In Age Of Distraction

Uh-oh......................

 As blogger Tim Urban describes it, your brain gets hijacked by an instant gratification monkey, who picks what's easy and fun over the hard work that needs to be done. . . . 

     Many people associate procrastination with laziness.  But psychologists find that procrastination is not a time management problem—it's an emotional management problem.  When you procrastinate, you're not avoiding effort.  You're avoiding the unpleasant feelings that the activity stirs up.  Sooner or later, though, you realize that you're also avoiding getting where you want to go.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

Good advice...........................

 

an inextricable thread.......................

Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience.  Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it, to squash it, or silence it, only backfires.  The avoidance of suffering is a struggle.  The denial of failure is a failure.  Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.

     Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out unravels everything else with it.  To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain.  In contrast, if you're able to not give a fuck about pain, you become unstoppable.

     In my life, I have given a fuck about many things.  I have also not given a fuck about many things.  And like the road not taken, it was the fucks not given that made all the difference.

-Mark Manson, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*uck: A Counterintuitive Approach To Living A Good Life

Avoidance.......................

It is a sign of wisdom to avoid believing every thought that enters your mind.  It is a mark of emotional intelligence to avoid internalizing every feeling that enters your heart.

-Adam Grant,  Think Again:  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

The antidote for this.................

................................................may be as simple as this:

Sing along with Alfred E. Neuman here

thanks jess

Trapped.............................................

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
-Henri Nouwen

via

On the virtue of "not doing"........................

“Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well.”    -Robert Fulghum

To see what is worth "not doing,"  check out this list of 51 "Don'ts" from The Execupundit.