Reflections
Contemplate these:
I will always be my parents’ son/daughter
I am no longer my parents’ son/daughter
Both of these statements are true.
There is seeing things from ‘both sides.’ Then again, there is seeing things in the round.
When I want to learn something, nothing can stop me.
When I don’t want to learn something, nothing can make me.
When I think I want to learn something but don’t, nothing can make me.
I do what I want 100 percent of the time. Most people confuse not liking what they are doing for not wanting to do it. What I am doing is what I want, not what I tell myself.
My self-justifying behavior is worse than the original act. It has a certain unsavory flavor. However, if I pay close attention to it ,that allows me to do something about it. Even worse is when I don’t believe that I am self-deceived in ‘good’ approaches. I am usually lost in this sphere.
Vanity-love:
The most agreeable form of this rather insipid relationship is the one in which sensual pleasure is increased by habit. In that case past memories make it seem something like real love; there is piqued vanity and sadness on being abandoned; and becoming seized by romantic ideas, you begin to think you are in love and melancholy, for your vanity always aspires to have a great passion to its credit. The one thing certain is that to whatever kind of love one owes one’s pleasures, so long as they are accompanied by mental exhilaration, they are very keen and their memory is entrancing; and in this passion, contrary to most others, the memory of what we have lost always seems sweeter than anything we can hope for in the future…………………
Stendhal