Casting Doubt

A lot of people still think of propaganda as the art of making lies sound truthful, but...they want to make truthfulness an irrelevant category. It’s not about proving something, it’s about casting doubt. Most political ideologies have not been about casting doubt — they’ve claimed to be telling the truth about the way the world is or should be. But this new propaganda is different. Putin isn’t selling a wonderful communist future. He’s saying, we live in a dark world, the truth is unknowable, the truth is always subjective, you never know what it is, and you, the little guy, will never be able to make sense of it all — so you need to follow a strong leader.

Sean Illing & Peter Pomerantsev in a Vox  interview 

the problem of love

Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable. -Erich Fromm (born March 23, 1900)

For Jesus

For Jesus there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only people to be loved. -Henri Nouwen

as we shall forget

We have nothing to fear the future except as we shall forget how God has led us in the past. (adopted from Ellen G. White)

the most difficult of all our tasks

For one human being to love another: That is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. -Rainer Maria Rilke

The first principle

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard Feynman 

It's over

Many people leap to the conclusion that “it is over” means that the life situation has to go. They get divorced. They walk out of the office, never to return. They leave the church. They abandon their education. They leave their country. They do these things, even though all that they were being called on to do was to leave the relation that they had had to these things. Even when the ending is literal, as it is in death, the most important relinquishment is not of the person but of the life.

William Bridges, The Way of Transitions

The fewer the better

The fewer words the better prayer -Martin Luther

Finding God in the Next Person

Gandhi—who did not have a good track record as a family man—is reported to have said, “If you don’t find God in the very next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.” I would add, ‘If you don’t find God in the person who forgets to put the toilet seat down or brings home a disastrous report card or violates the 11:00 p.m. curfew, it is a waste of time looking for God further.” Families are social entities, but more importantly they are spiritual communities.

Margaret Guenther, The Practice of Prayer

In a crisis

In a crisis the only asset you have is your credibility. -Paul Volcker

Why Toilet Paper?

When people are told something dangerous is coming, but all you need to do is wash your hands, the action doesn't seem proportionate to the threat. The novel coronavirus is engendering a sort of survivalist psychology, where we must live as much as possible at home and thus must 'stock up' on essentials, and that certainly includes toilet paper. After all, if we run out of [toilet paper], what do we replace it with?

Stephen Taylor, The Psychology of Pandemics

everything is coming your way

If everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane. -Steven Wright

Climb Down & Sit with Them

The hardest habit for me to break was the instinct to turn the conversation round to the positive. It took a while for me to understand that if a friend is in a dark place, the most compassionate thing we can do is to climb down into that place and sit with them for a while. “If a person trusts you enough to talk about their distress, trying to cheer them up is like shutting them up – you are dismissing and trivialising their feelings. Give them the space to say how bad they feel and stay with it. Swerving away from it, talking about a silver lining, can signal you don’t want to hear it.” Focus on your friend and their words. Thinking too much about your responses can be detrimental. “I make a constant effort to calm my mind down and tune into what is being said.”

Moya Sarner writing in The Guardian

Don't cry

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened -Dr. Seuss

Can you?

Can you show up not to fix things but just listen?

When am I Ready?

When patients ask me when they will be ready to terminate their therapy, I will reply, “When you yourself are able to be a good therapist.” This reply is often most usefully made in group therapy, where patients of course do practice psychotherapy on each other and where their failures to successfully assume the role of psychotherapists can be pointed out to them.

Many patients do not like this reply, and some will actually say, “That’s too much work. To do that means that I would have to think all the time in my relationships with people. I don’t want to think that much. I don’t want to work that hard. I just want to enjoy myself.”

Patients often respond similarly when I point out to them that all human interactions are opportunities either to learn or to teach (to give or relieve theory), and when they neither learn nor teach in an interaction they are passing up an opportunity.

Most people are quite correct when they say they do not want to achieve such a lofty goal or work so hard in life. The majority of patients, even in the hands of the most skilled and loving therapists will terminate their therapy at some point far short of complete fulfilling their potential. They may have traveled a short or even a goodly distance along the journey of spiritual growth, but the whole journey is not for them. It is or seems to be too difficult. They are content to be ordinary men and women and do not strive to be God.

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Where busy is a badge of honor

Where busy is a badge of honor, frantic is a sign of worth.

How to build healthy habits

Habits take a long time to create, but they form faster when we do them more often, so start with something reasonable that is really easy to do. You are more likely to stick with an exercise habit if you do some small exercise — jumping jacks, a yoga pose, a brisk walk — every day, rather than trying to get to the gym three days a week. Once the daily exercise becomes a habit, you can explore new, more intense forms of exercise.

Tara Parker-Pope writing in the New York Times

Belief in a conspiracy

Belief in a conspiracy is the almost inevitable consequence of the optimistic belief that truth, and therefore goodness, must prevail if only truth is given a fair chance. The simple truth is that truth is hard to come by, and that once found it may easily be lost again. -Karl Popper