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Quote of the Day: Trapped in Slavery
There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. —Steven Wright
We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it. —Tennessee Williams
These two quotations epitomize the absurdity and fear that sometimes dominate the lives we are blessed with, as well as the hopelessness that we must be vigilant against if we are to be free.
Steven Wright’s quotation made me laugh, but it is so very true: how often have you felt trapped in your life, a slave to your perceptions and understandings, just like a group of people stuck on an escalator? Our lives are dominated by assumptions and expectations: if we have a job we don’t like, we feel we have no way out for an endless number of reasons; if we are struggling in a relationship, we don’t know if and how we should mend it or leave it; if we have gained an inordinate amount of weight, we feel trapped in our bodies.
But are we really trapped?
We are slaves to our lifetime experiences and understandings because we can’t, or don’t allow ourselves, to see beyond them. We are slaves because we don’t know that we are actually free. As Tennessee Williams suggests, we see no way out of our situation. Our fear and ambivalence about taking control of our lives dominate our reality.
This is the way that I believe most people on the Left live their lives. They are slaves to their perceptions and fears: Donald Trump will destroy the country. Inflation will last forever. Crime is impossible to overcome. These people have locked themselves in their own personal fortresses to protect themselves from “enemies” when they don’t understand that their worst enemies are themselves. They’ve even built a moat around the fortress just to ensure that they are protected from the unexpected. It rarely occurs to them that they don’t have to be slaves to their fear and illusions.
They only have to open their eyes, let down the fortress gate, sail across the moat, and walk into a world full of opportunity and blessings.
Published in Group Writing
You really nailed it with this one, Susan. The quotes suggest another to me. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
Point out that this uses wind power and they would be more likely to do it . . .
Book recommendation:
This is what I thought of immediately as I read the post. There is a reason placebos work — it is the amazing capability of our brains to change and alter perception. It’s two-edged sword — mind over matter only goes so far. But there is a built-in mechanism to make circumstance tolerable or even vivifying.
One of the best scenes in all of the Chronicles of Narnia is in the last book, when everyone is outside in the sunshine cavorting in victory and the dwarves are still determined to stay inside in the darkness of the stable or whatever it was, refusing to believe that the sounds they are hearing isn’t gruesome death, and that staying in here is the only safe plan. No one could talk them out of it.
Scott Adams is irreplaceable. I can’t recommend his daily podcast highly enough.
Thanks! Yes, too many people are afraid to just take the first step. So sad.
It’s really tragic, isn’t it?
Being able to accept what we can’t control while taking full responsibility for our choices and actions is the path to a live well-lived according to the Stoics.
The disordered lives leftism leaves in its wake is due in part to lies about magical control over circumstances and the concomitant elimination of personal obligation. Trump’s victory has turned into a mortal threat to many forms of magical thinking (sex is a mental construct, systemic racism defines our being, free speech is tyranny, all discomfort is an injustice…) which had existed to empower government and government adjacent entities to recreate the world in the image and likeness of self-indulgent fantasists. That was never a path to happiness. To make reality an enemy is to live in fear.
I’d love to see more about magical thinking in this context, its origins and persistence.
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I agree with the following caveat: Mrs Rodin considers him a misogynist (think Adam Tate with fewer muscle), and disagrees with his self-characterization as a “good” narcissist. So women be forewarned.
Wisdom is wisdom whatever the source. A quote I like is from Wayne Dyer:
“The past is a trail you leave behind, much like the wake of a speedboat. That is, it’s a vanishing trail temporarily showing you where you were. The wake of a boat doesn’t affect it’s course–obviously it can’t since it appears behind the boat. So consider this image when you exclaim that your past is the reason you aren’t moving forward.”
BTW: Looking the quote up lead me to suspect he borrowed the idea from Alan Watt.
Ah, those Buddhists come up with a good idea or two. Dyer often sourced them. And it’s a great quote, Terence.
Great post, Susan. It reminds me of a story shared with me by a friend, many years ago:
Her husband was a charming and very bright man, but his enthusiasms–and his prejudices–sometimes overtook him, and he would get hung up on irrelevancies, develop tunnel vision and show an inability to think outside the box. At such times, he’d become fixated on this or that issue or problem, and would have a very difficult time getting off the dime and moving on.
One day, when he had been visiting his daughter for a few days, he phoned his wife and complained that he couldn’t brush his teeth that morning because–shock horror!–his electric toothbrush had run out of battery, and so it wouldn’t move itself when he put it in his mouth! He was beside himself. What to do???? (I think it was your “escalator” quote that brought this particular story to mind.)
His wife (clearly a saint) patiently explained that he could put the toothpaste on the bristles, put the brush in his mouth, and then pretend that it never had a battery, and just move it up and down, and from side to side, all by himself, just like people did in the olden days before there were even such things as electric toothbrushes…This reassured him, and the problem was solved.
Sometimes, grace is required. Other times, it’s the old 2×4 between the eyes that’s needed, even it it’s ourselves we have to whack in the head.
Knowing how to respond is so important. Most times when I get in that spot it’s better to give me the whack in the head!
Thanks, She.
Great post Susan! Sometimes when a horse is tied at the hitching rail the rope comes untied. It often takes a while for the horse to realize he is no longer tied and can take a sightseeing turn around the stable. I often use that metaphor for myself. Sometimes I think I am tied up when I’m not.
No kidding, GC! We need to pay attention to our circumstances; it is so easy to get stuck when we desire comfort and familiarity.
I am sure your friend is clever in many other respects, but the obvious answer here involves chewing gum, a metal coat hanger, and car battery.
The last time I went full MacGyver I almost burned down the garage.
Yabbut can you really put a price on a winning smile?
I’ve always had one nit with this prayer – it implies if something can be changed, it should. If I changed the line to read “COURAGE to change the things I should“, then I’m on board . . .
There are the things that you can’t change. It doesn’t specify why you can’t change them. Consider the parable of that fence Chesterton moaned on about.
Wow! I wonder if Trump and Musk are bothering to consider that parable. Sounds very apropos!
The fence with the sign on it that reads “This way to the transgender opera?” Maybe the fence can stay but the sign’s gotta go.