Tags:: # Linked Book Notes - [[The untruth of fragility, what doesn't kill you makes you weaker]] - [[Running from our pains only makes the pain worse]] - [[Three methods for self-binding]] - [[Lying is an identity]] **Part I: The Pursuit of Pleasure** - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 2: Running from Pain > Page 38 · Location 477 "The famous seventeenth-century physician Thomas Sydenham said this about pain: 'I look upon every... effort calculated totally to subdue that pain and inflammation dangerous in the extreme.... For certainty a moderate degree of pain and inflammation in the extremities are the instruments which nature makes use of for the wisest purposes.' By contrast, doctors today are expected to eliminate all pain lest they fail in their role as compassionate healers. Pain in any form is considered dangerous, not just because it hurts but also because it’s thought to kindle the brain for future pain by leaving a neurological wound that never heals." - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 2: Running from Pain > Page 40 · Location 499 "Beyond extreme examples of running from pain, we’ve lost the ability to tolerate even minor forms of discomfort. We’re constantly seeking to distract ourselves from the present moment, to be entertained. As Aldous Huxley said in Brave New World Revisited, 'the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant... failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.' Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, adds, 'Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials.'" - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 2: Running from Pain > Page 44 · Location 552 "We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse." - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 2: Running from Pain > Page 46 · Location 573 "The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable." **Part II: Self-Binding** - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 5: Space, Time, and Meaning > Page 118 · Location 1359 "Binding ourselves is a way to be free." **Part III: The Pursuit of Pain** - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 7: Pressing on the Pain Side > Page 170 · Location 1950 "If we consume too much pain, or in too potent a form, we run the risk of compulsive, destructive overconsumption. But if we consume just the right amount, 'inhibiting great pain with little pain,' we discover the path to hormetic healing, and maybe even the occasional 'fit of joy.'" - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 8: Radical Honesty > Page 182 · Location 2093 "Telling the truth draws people in, especially when we’re willing to expose our own vulnerabilities. This is counterintuitive because we assume that unmasking the less desirable aspects of ourselves will drive people away. It logically makes sense that people would distance themselves when they learn about our character flaws and transgressions. In fact, the opposite happens. People come closer. They see in our brokenness their own vulnerability and humanity. They are reassured that they are not alone in their doubts, fears, and weaknesses." - Highlight (Orange) | Chapter 8: Radical Honesty > Page 192 · Location 2208 "When our lived experience diverges from our projected image, we are prone to feel detached and unreal, as fake as the false images we’ve created. Psychiatrists call this feeling derealization and depersonalization. It’s a terrifying feeling, which commonly contributes to thoughts of suicide. After all, if we don’t feel real, ending our lives feels inconsequential. The antidote to the false self is the authentic self. Radical honesty is a way to get there. It tethers us to our existence and makes us feel real in the world. It also lessens the cognitive load required to maintain all those lies, freeing up mental energy to live more spontaneously in the moment."