Category: Sage Advice
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Care of Soul and Body
Care for your soul as if you will die tomorrow; care for your body as if it will last indefinitely. (The formulation is mine; the thought is borrowed from Evagrios Pontikos.)
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Don’t Harbor the Negative
When negative thoughts drift into port, note them, but don't let them drop anchor. Let them drift out again.
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Don’t Spoil Your Success
You may spoil your success if you compare it with someone else's. Beware of comparison. Not all comparison is invidious, but the potential for envy is there. Invidia is the Latin for 'envy.' An invidious comparison, then, is one that elicits envy. One can avoid envy by avoiding comparison. To feel diminished in one's sense…
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Proper Equilibrium
Paul Brunton, Notebooks, vol. 15, Part II, p. 76, #316: He will maintain a proper equilibrium between being aware of what is happening in the world, remaining in touch with it, and being imperturbable towards it, inwardly unaffected and inwardly detached from it. Small is the number of those who can appreciate this as an…
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Homo Homini Lupus
A 28-year-old Gypsy girl from the Tene Bimbo crime family 'befriends' an 85 year-old single man, marries him, and then poisons him, causing his death, in an attempt to steal his assets. The two were made for each other, the evil cunning of the woman finding its outlet in the utter foolishness of the man. …
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Journeys and Preparations
We plan our journeys long and short. We lay our plans for trips abroad well in advance. And those who leave their homeland and emigrate to another country take special care. Why then are we so careless about the journey on which all must embark and none return? "Because it is a journey into sheer…
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Of E-Mail, Doing Nothing, and a Life Worth Living
I do appreciate e-mail, and I consider it rude not to respond; but lack of time and energy in synergy with congenital inefficiency conspire to make it difficult for me to answer everything. I am also temperamentally disinclined to acquiesce in mindless American hyperkineticism, in accordance with the Italian saying: Dolce Far Niente Sweet To…
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Why Do You Carry a Notebook?
If I am wearing a shirt with pockets, I almost always carry a 3 X 5 notebook and a pen in my top left pocket. People sometimes ask why I carry it. I have a prepared response: It's in case I get a good idea. Haven't had one yet, but you never know. And if…
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Be Neither Bohemian nor Bourgeois
The barfly and the gambler, the flâneur and the floozy, fritter away their time. And they are condemned for so doing by the solid bourgeois. But the latter thinks, though he may not say, that the pursuits of the monastery and the ivory tower, though opposite to the low life's dissipation, are equally time-wasting. Prayer, meditation, study…
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Anything
People will say anything, which is why one should not let oneself become upset over (almost) anything anyone says. Do you know the word bushwa? We ought to raise it from its desuetude.
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No Day Without Political Incorrectness
So today being St. Patrick's Day I think I will engage in some 'cultural appropriation.' I have been invited to a street party at which corned beef and cabbage will be served, and I shall partake. I'm not big on parties, but a little socializing with one's neighbors is conducive to comity. The wise do…
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Ambition Beyond Ability
He who is ambitious beyond his abilities courts unhappiness.
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Advice on Sex from Epicurus
Robert Blake is back in the news, which fact justifies, as if justification is needed, a re-post from 18 May 2011. ……………………………. Epicurus (circa 341-271 B.C.) wrote the following to a disciple: I understand from you that your natural disposition is too much inclined toward sexual passion. Follow your inclinations as you will provided…
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Why Budget?
I have never made a budget in my life. Never having made one, I have never had to adhere to one. The budgeter is involved in a negative enterprise: he essays to control and curtail spending. He allocates so much money for this, and so much for that, and strives to stick to his limits.…
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Life as a Self-Improvement Project
You are well-advised to view your life as a self-improvement project, but beware of viewing the lives of others likewise. I mean: as your improvement project. If you are drawn to a member of the opposite sex, be sure you are drawn to her for what she is, not for what you fancy you can make of…