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Confused Identities
‘Obstacles do not block the path. They are the path.’ — Zen Proverb
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Probably the most important question for me right now is:
What are the unnoticed, habituated ideas that defy the efforts of so many people with ‘good intent’ and persist in perpetuating and justifying the existing systems?
One example of many might be the promise of ‘quick wealth’ — Which in itself is nasty, but as such it is merely vulgar. What it leads to is much worse. A culture of not taking care of that which has no paycheck attached, an appetite for speedy gratification, a lack of ability to see the relational processes in the path of destruction, and the justification of all of it in the name of profit.
— Nora Bateson
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“In times of radical change and great uncertainty, it’s important to have containing ideas that give us a place to stand in the midst of the storms. One form of containing ideas can be found in proverbs, for instance, “the unimaginative mind is paralyzed by its own doubt.”
“Hatred is a failure of imagination.” That’s from Graham Greene, the writer. When we see hatred on the rise, the increase of hate speech and hate crimes, one way to understand what’s happening is a failure of imagination in which some people cannot imagine the value of…
