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April
1998
April 6
This is why modern civilization is in almost every respect a
vicious circle. It is insatiably hungry because its way of life
condemns it to perpetual frustration. ... the root of this frustration
is that we live for the future, and the future is an abstraction,
a rational inference from experience, which exists only for the
brain....
...To pursue [the future] is to pursue a constantly retreating
phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead.
This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly
anyone enjoys what he has and is forever seeking more and more.
Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities,
but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes and
assurances.
~ Alan Watts ~
The Wisdom of Insecurity
(Vintage Books, 1951, pages 60-61)
April 13
"Education is what's left over
after you have forgotten
everything that you have learned."
~ B. F. Skinner ~
April 20
- Addictions act as camouflage, a way of hiding from and protecting
against our real needs, which remain unconscious. But as psychological
dependency becomes physiological habituation and then abuse, the
user becomes filled with guilt and shame for the self-destructive
behavior. So instead of escaping shadowy feelings, addicts find
themselves face-to-face with them, believing themselves once more
to be bad, unworthy, and unlovable. In this way an addiction creates
more shadow content by failing to address the shadow directly,
allowing it to erupt indirectly and therefore to remain unconscious."
~ Connie Zweig, Ph.D., and Steve Wolf, Ph.D. ~
Romancing the Shadow: Illuminating the Dark Side of the Soul
(Ballantine Books, 1977, page 51)
April 27
- But girls today are much more oppressed. They are coming of
age in a more dangerous, sexualized and media-saturated culture.
They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated,
which in junior high means using chemicals and being sexual. As
they navigate a more dangerous world, girls are less protected.
-
- As I looked at the culture that girls enter as they come of
age, I was struck by what a girl-poisoning culture it was. The
more I looked around, the more I listened to today's music, watched
television and movies and looked at sexist advertising, the more
convinced I became that we are on the wrong path with our daughters.
America today limits girls' development, truncates their wholeness
and leaves many of them traumatized.
~ Mary Pipher, Ph.D. ~
Reviving Ophelia:
Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
Balentine Books, 1994 |
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