If I smashed my skull in I would certainly upset my consciousness, just as if I smashed my television set I would be unable to watch what was on – something, I must admit, I am often tempted to do. But while my TV would be broken, the program I was watching would be unaffected, and would still be running on millions of other TVs. I believe that my brain acts in some way as a radio or television receiver. It doesn’t ‘cause’ the consciousness I have any more than my TV or radio ‘causes’ what is broadcast on them.
Fear is doing much of the dirty work here. It’s a useful emotion— as when it motivates us to escape from danger or fix the underlying problems that are its causes. After all, higher organisms evolved the biological capacity for fear because it helped them survive, which allowed them to pass their genes to future generations. Yet while a certain degree of fear can help us stay resilient in an ever-changing and often hazardous world, if fear is too great, and if we see no avenue for relief, it becomes horribly toxic. Most importantly, persistently high levels of fear tend to divide people into shortsighted, rigidly exclusive, and antagonistic groups.
N.B. My encapsulation: fear is a warning device, not a navigating device.
What sets Thucydides apart from the rest is the importance he attaches to honor, which can encompass shame, vengeance, ambition, and other correlates of ego. For the most part, honor is not taken very seriously today, unlike past epochs when it was something paramount to be defended at all costs, even at the cost of one’s life. The exceptions that prove the rule today are revealing: prisons and ghettos, places close to a state of nature, where to violate the code or lose respect can mean death; and the military, whose members serve a higher cause and offer up their lives in exchange for the king’s shilling. However, political actors—like the warriors in Homer’s Iliad, albeit in a less flamboyant manner—are also vitally concerned with reputation. It is a rare politician who will admit error, or even that he has changed his position on an issue.
[D]igital media turned out to be an even better tool for display, which, as the psychologist Jonathan Haidt has pointed out, is very different from communication. “We are obsessed with our reputations,” Haidt told me. “Social media has such profound effects on so many social systems because it creates a form of community in which we’re ostensibly talking to each other, but we’re really signaling virtue to people we care about.”
The list of ten fetters includes four items that are not prima-facie aspects of craving or attachment: doubt, aversion, agitation, and ignorance.
Nothing inherently exists, with its own parts and attributes, independently of our conceptual designation.
The rapidity of these developments [associated with the growth of cities] had made city-dwellers acutely aware of the pace of change. In the countryside, where life was ruled by the seasons, everybody did the same things year in and year out. But in the towns, where life was being dramatically transformed, people could see for themselves that their “actions” (karma) could have long-term consequences.
Efficient breathing activates the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and the relaxation response. In all, the efficient breather is much calmer and more clearheaded, and probably healthier and happier, than her inefficient friend [fast, hard breathing promoted by the sympathetic nervous system].
Courage is the backbone of man. The man with courage has persistence. He states what he believes and puts it into execution. The courageous man has confidence. He draws to himself all the moral qualities and mental forces which go to make up a strong man.
