- I wonder if bad eyesight is caused by a disinclination to see the look on other people’s faces. We blur sight and retreat to senses which are less susceptible to duplicitous signals. So, the eyes atrophy or wear out with misuse.
- When I take off my glasses, I end up listening more closely. Then the Other listens more closely too. And all they can see in my own blissfully blurred face is a good-natured ignoramus, which tends to awaken a spirit of charity, if not downright pity. Thus, we both become transfigured so long as at least one of us remains blurry.
- The centrality of myself remains stubbornly pre-Galilean. *
- What I “know” of another person is only my story of the story they tell about themselves.
- Our personalities are merely characters in imaginary dramas. When the drama shifts, the personality shifts. If the drama ends, “we” end. Hence, we cling to dramas.
- The imaginary voice is speaking to an imaginary person. The “I” and the “self” that are being addressed are both part of the imaginary performance.
- Yes, it’s an inquiry into myself, but it’s not about “me”, as in my personal history or problems. It’s about the common momentum of thought that runs “me.”
- If we make this conscious distinction between thought and being, then we are able to move in and out of the shapes imposed on perception by thought and language. This allows us to remain somewhat aloof from who we think we are.
- Whatever we are, we’re not found in passing thoughts. They are merely the traces of our passing.
- I learn from everything that goes wrong, and everything is always going wrong. *
- I don’t write because I know something. I write because I don’t. *
- But it’s not like I’m trying to do something. It’s more like something else is trying to do something and “I” keep getting in the way. And all this tripping over myself to avoid what it wants looks like “effort.” It’s a seductive pretense.
- Writing happens when effort fails.
- The only light the “I” produces is the light of its own combustive friction. This friction is produced by trying to avoid the revealing light of awareness. This friction is the cause of Hellfire. Hellfire is the light of heaven burning away.
- Self-discovery is the discovery of nothing.
- Self-discovery is the exploration of the cosmos, because the discovery of my absence is the discovery of everything else. But we turn our backs on this larger Being merely because it disturbs the small image of who we thought we were.
- Writing is neither a means to an end, nor an end in itself. There is a third possibility. Writing is merely what happens when I’m learning. It’s a necessary corollary of the process, but neither a means nor an end.
- If a necessary corollary to something larger is repressed, then the larger thing also can’t form. But we still can’t focus on the corollary as a means towards the larger thing.
- I say things after I already know them. I know things silently prior to speaking. I speak in order to hold the surface image steady against a barrage of anomalous information.
- Thought is Automatic, but insight is Spontaneous. The one is triggered by the past and follows precedent; the other is a creative leap into something unprecedented. But they are both quick. One is a reactive reflex; the other is immediate. The first obtains the speed of light (or of synapses), and is a mechanical analog of immediacy; the second is faster than the speed of light, because it is without mediation.
- Must we resolve the problem of History? Does the inherited story actually require a happy or sad ending, an ending of any sort? Or, should it simply dissolve like a nightmare upon awakening?
- The traumas of history can’t be resolved within the narrative itself, but only by abandoning that narrative.
- It’s not that any particular story necessarily gets resolved, but the whole category of story is altered; becoming categorically less significant.
- We can give up our personal dramas long enough to focus on other people’s dramas in a novel or movie. But we have a harder time giving up our own interpretations of reality long enough to hear a different interpretation.
- We can’t hear another person until we hear the nuances that differ from our own view. If it’s all the same then nothing stands out as perceivable.
- Understanding a different interpretation tends to seem difficult only because the differences seem to throw doubt on our own interpretations. This happens until we realize that we’re standing back-to-back, and only looking where the other isn’t.
- Differences among friends are invitations to play in a larger sandbox. Differences among enemies are lines drawn in the sand.
- Every relationship is an attempt at dialogue. We lay the groundwork by finding common ground. Only after this ground is established is the exploration of our differences possible. A capacity to explore differences without conflict is the beginning of dialogue. Otherwise, we’re merely avoiding differences to preserve the polite peace of common ground.
- Dialogic trust is not trust in the images or expectations we hold of other people. They are always fleeting and fictional. Dialogic trust is trust in our own capacity to face failed expectations and exceptions to the common ground we share with others.
- Contradictions, arguments and dichotomies blossom into paradoxes the moment we are intrigued by the differences, rather than annoyed by them.
- Paradox is a translational difference that demands a wider view, not an argument.
- A mind that enjoys paradox has a creedless faith in a world large enough to bridge any honest difference.
- Anything anyone discovers is new to the world, because every individual is the momentary embodiment of a passing juxtaposition in the ever-morphing chaos of time and space.
- The uniqueness of snowflakes is nothing compared to the uniqueness of vantage points, or the uniqueness of individuals.
- Every moment is the first and last appearance of that perspective. No moment (no being) is an exact duplicate, because something always changes, no matter what. We always leave someone behind, or some part of us. Or, we’d return knowing what we didn’t then; which would make it something new; not the same at all.
- Things seem monotonous only because a thought about the world tends to repeat itself. But the world itself is never repetitive.
- A Self is a repetitive pattern of self-centric thought; an individual is an absence of any repetitive patterns of self-centric thought.
- Proprioception of thought (Bohm) could be called a “friendly” relationship to thought. It doesn’t require getting rid of thought or transcending it for good. When we see that thought is repetitive and unreal, we can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of our previous subjugation to such a small thing. Then we can accommodate thought without getting caught in its jaws.
- If our relationship to thought softens and becomes metaphoric, theoretical, suspended, and proprioceptive, then Thought itself loses its tendency to stick in conclusion. So, this change in relationship changes the nature of thought itself. When our vision of thought changes, thought itself becomes more fluid, less sticky.
- Our vision of how “Thought as a System” works is itself a Thought. But it’s a softer form. It can shape-shift into a new form because it only describes a behavioral pattern (which can shift) and not a fact of nature (which can’t).
- A conclusion puts an end to learning.
- Knowledge isn’t a matter of fact or fiction, but of honest or dishonest fiction.
- If I believe a story is Gospel, then I will interpret every dot of data in that slant of light, which creates the very shadows I anticipated.
- There’s no real hierarchy of intelligence, except in very specific directions. Otherwise, it’s apples and oranges.
- Learning to see what we don’t wish to see is intelligence. It’s the same intelligence as a whale’s or a bear’s or Einstein’s. Intelligence is merely the absence of denial, justification and guilt.
- Almost every thought is like a request to send money to Nigeria. But we get taken in almost every time, paying costly attention to these repetitive distractions.
- It’s no good being an atheist if you still believe in Yourself. That ghost in the machine is a bigger problem and a more haunting fantasy than a vengeful god.
- No Thought is real. But they may be insightful, just as any honest novel is insightful and truthful, but still only a fiction.
- We don’t often recognize the difference between self-defense and self-defensiveness. The one is a necessity of emergency, and the other is a necessity of the imagination of emergency. The one is rooted in peace; the other in aggression. Self-defense is rarer than rare, but used as a perpetual justification for self-defensiveness.
- Humor is the giddy feeling that accompanies a momentary restoration of sanity.
- Terror requires deflation, which is humor. Abandonment requires inflation, which is sorrow. Both are forms of forgiveness.
- We laugh upon entering Hell and we laugh upon exiting Hell. The difference in these forms of laughter is all important.
- The walls of Hell are only made of immediate thoughts.
- The thought of an “ever-lasting” eternity is an immediate thought.
- This isn’t about the nature of reality or even the true nature of ourselves; it’s about the nature of the thoughts about reality and the thoughts about the Self. However, it’s the sloppy nature of thinking that damages our relationship to reality. So, attention to thought is how we heal our relationship to reality and to self and other.
- What’s interesting is this strange tendency of human consciousness to go down with its sinking ideas like a dimwit captain. *
- By reading the entrails of failure insight is found.
- I don’t have an inherent nature. I’m an embodiment of perspectives. These can change, though I tend to stubbornly cling to certain perspectives, changing little. *
- The usual introvert has a very external relationship to themself. The possessive “my” and the possessed “self” imply this estrangement. *
- Why trust something as vague as another’s reputation, when we can know something directly without the need for trust?
- There’s a difference between thinking your way out of a mental entanglement and letting the entanglement unravel of its own accord. I can’t think my way out of a wet paper bag. But it’s easy enough to fall out of one. *
- Thought doesn’t know when to sit still. It’s like an overly loyal Saint Bernard blithely stomping a child to death in its zeal to bring a glass of water to a thirsty looking master. *
- We’re not doomed by a lack of brain power. That power is already so great that it entraps an unborn universe in its folds. *
- We end up taking ourselves too seriously when we’re trying to restrain the ego, or stay humble. *
- The system of thought is tied up in a double-bind that is essentially a slip-knot. It’s not a real knot; it’s only a confusion of mirror images. *
- Insight is impersonal or systemic — it’s the very absence of a personal mind.
- Newton’s primary act of genius was not getting mad at the apple. He admired what the apple’s corrective slap implied. *
- Every frustration, every thwarted wish, every failure to live up to an expectation, are apples hitting the head. They let me know that some assumption about myself has fallen into incoherence. *
- The writer is a crash test dummy, who climbs out of the wreckage to record the data of his own demise. *
- There’s a triple equivalency of matter, meaning and energy reflected in the male-centric metaphor of the Christian Trinity: Meaning as the Father; Matter as the Son; and energy as “the Holy Ghost.” *
- The perception of meaning in the material world is not abstraction, but magnification. A deeper magnification can read the mind of our landscape, and it’s not a severed or abstract mind. It’s a mind implicit in the land itself. Matter itself is the beloved body of meaning. *
- Creationists criticize science as “mere theory.” And science usually stupidly responds by touting all the “facts” backing up evolution. It rarely says, “you’re damn right it’s “only” theory. Theory is what makes science great. We don’t settle on a dogma, on a literal interpretation, on a fixed position. We allow our perceptions to change with discovery. And we don’t believe in a final explanation because actuality exceeds every formulation. We can always learn more.” *
- Science will curse itself for having sold its open-hearted soul to gain the single-minded power of technology.
- We can’t allow ourselves to be absorbed into any of our technologies, including the technology of thought. We can’t conflate our thoughts with who we are.
- We’re not even capable of recognizing that our own inner voices are fake, let alone recognizing the sleights of hand of an anatomically correct AI dummy. And this dummy will be capable of reading the restless portion of ourselves, which responds to the ones and zeros of fight and flight, which is the algorithmic backbone of Thought itself. So, we will be easy prey to the larger and swifter algorithms of the computer itself, which can beat us at the chess game premised on obtaining power, security and status.
- We are primed to fall for the manipulated realities of the computer. We’ll lose what’s left of an authentic, spontaneous autonomy rooted in emptiness, beyond the categories and objectifications of thought. It will out-think us in that rational realm. Our only advantage lies in the wisdom of self-transparency, in seeing through the illusions of Knowledge and certainty; not in reaching for bigger illusions.
- AI is (so far) the greatest fake god; the greatest Temptation to fall in love with oneself and one’s image in the reflection of an all-knowing Daddy, who can take away all our uncertainties. It’s the latest materialization of Ahriman, of what the indigenous here call “the predator” or “Watiko” — a kind of mental virus that swells the rational side of the brain until all traces of wisdom are lost.
- Wisdom is not knowledge or control; it’s not needing them beyond a limited point.
- No technology will ever outpace a change of heart.
- Even if we deny global warming, our emotions say otherwise. We are also heated molecules rising in emotion.
- I don’t like this culture’s perpetual claim that everything is “choice.” This is how we reassure ourselves that we are “free” and in control. But we can’t choose a new pathway free from chaos and dystopia, because the alternative path doesn’t exist yet. We can’t choose what we don’t yet comprehend.
- In the abandonment of futile directions, an undiscovered potential begins to form, which nobody could have chosen.
- Everything is covered by the gauze of language, which is a veil of illusion. If we panic, the illusion spreads until it suffocates us in solipsism. But if this predicament stops language short, in a realization of its own futility, then this tears the fabric of illusion, so that something unspeakably real emerges between the lines.
- I don’t need to know what “bathos” means to feel it, to understand it directly. And I have somehow managed to survive all this time not knowing what the word “anagnorisis” means, but you and I have known its meaning by living it. Words only direct attention to what is already known intrinsically. A real intelligence is always animal, is always felt in the bones as we move about the earth. *
- Confidence and well-being are not tied to “holding oneself together.” A confidence in being emerges precisely when confidence in oneself disappears. *
- Don’t confuse a lack of confidence in oneself for derogatory thoughts about oneself. When we’re severely self-critical we show all too much confidence in our own darkest opinions about ourselves. *
- Peripheral vision is too quick to be resisted by the ego. It’s only an immediate sensitivity to what is happening. *
- We are going through a revolution, but it’s not grounded in politics and it’s not something we can champion. It’s something we have to stop obstructing in so many small ways. The revolution amounts to being radically honest with ourselves. *
- Human nature is only an expression of how we imagine the world. The world is too plastic to have any set nature. *
- Children aren’t blank slates any more than an acorn is a blank slate. They have a sense of wholeness. If given a chance they show love for wild lands, and a love of learning. This suggests not so much a human nature (an established character) as a fact of nature (an established momentum of the universe). *
- Wholeness is more real than our individual lives. Those who see that this is the case – that the whole includes the capacity for separateness, but not vice versa – are not provoked into an imbalanced selfishness that loses all sense of a wider connectivity. *
- Maybe a child’s ‘why’ and “No” is all we have to stave off narrowing horizons. Without resounding No!s and Why’s our horizons shrink until we’re made submissive by despair. *
- It’s this line of fragmented thinking that is limited, not the human species. This persistent opposition to others — this national interest, revolutionary righteousness and profit motive — are not signs of some unchangeable feistiness in “human nature”, but a sign of the persistence of a misguided vision of reality. *
- National, social, ethnic and religious divisions are not facts of nature, requiring solutions, but artefacts of the imagination (what our assumptions have created), requiring a broader perspective. *
- Racism, nationalism and internecine capitalism don’t represent some innate evil in humanity (although these conditions have objectively evil consequences). Racism, nationalism and greed are logical consequences of a delusional metaphysics. *
- Fascism is only the oozing stage of a chronic sickness. Maybe an allergy to a “peace-time” diet of advertising jingles, too much self-esteem, patriotic humbug and religious hypocrisy. These lies poison the body-politic with resentment, discouragement and anger. And after 5 or 6 generations, the culture regurgitates all this in some movement towards vengeful authoritarianism. Once purged, the peace-time diet resumes and the threshold of another allergic reaction approaches. Therefore, it’s the broader diet that needs adjusting, not merely our methods of containing the puke.
Negative Geography 
A lot to ingest, digest and reflect upon! Great thanks. I had never heard of Aphoisns and some seem related to Aphorisms.
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I don’t follow. What’s an aphoisn? I’m missing something! Hope you’re doing well Tom.
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Dear Jeff,
What you quoted in your post entitled “Aphorisms (or Short Notes to Clear the Attic), Volume 1” here are indeed gems, providing much food for thought. I look forward to reading Volume 2. Thank you in anticipation.
Since you are ostensibly a connoisseur of fine quotations and aphorisms, I would like to introduce you to my very in-depth analytical post entitled “The Quotation Fallacy “💬”” concerning the importance and indispensable nature of quotation, and how quotation can transform people’s lives for better or worse. This special post is available to you at:
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Dear Jeff,
In addition, please allow me the pleasure of welcoming your perusal and critique of this post, where I would like to introduce you to aphorism-cum-paramusic, which can go much further than concept music and aleatoric music in what it can accommodate or encompass.
This post is entitled “🦅 SoundEagle in Art, Aphorism and Paramusic 🏝“, and is published at
Thank you once again for sharing your choice aphorisms. Happy March to you!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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