“
I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.
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Jane Austen
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You create more space in your life when you turn your excess baggage to garbage.
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Chinonye J. Chidolue
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Because what we associate with the idea of love is purely chemical. It can be broken down into scientifically proven phases: it starts with a dose of testosterone and estrogen, what we would think of as ‘lust,’ followed by the goofy ‘lovesick’ phase, which is a combination of adrenaline, dopamine, and a drop in serotonin levels—which, by the way, makes our brains behave exactly like the brains of crack addicts—and ends up, if we make it through phases one and two, with ‘attachment,’ where the body produces oxytocin and vasopressin, which basically make us want to cuddle excessively. It’s science. That’s all.
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Cynthia Hand (The Last Time We Say Goodbye)
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You live with an attachment to a future outcome that generates chronic excess anxiety and you call that anxiety "hope.
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Katherine Morgan Schafler (The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power)
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That's one of the things that "queer" can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically. The experimental linguistic, epistemological, representational, political adventures attaching to the very many of us who may at times be moved to describe ourselves as (among many other possibilities) pushy femmes, radical faeries, fantasists, drags, clones, leatherfolk, ladies in tuxedos, feminist women or feminist men, masturbators, bulldaggers, divas, Snap! queens, butch bottoms, storytellers, transsexuals, aunties, wannabes, lesbian-identified men or lesbians who sleep with men, or ... people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such.
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Eve Sedgwick
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Perception requires imagination because the data people encounter in their lives are never complete and always equivocal. For example, most people consider that the greatest evidence of an event one can obtain is to see it with their own eyes, and in a court of law little is held in more esteem than eyewitness testimony. Yet if you asked to display for a court a video of the same quality as the unprocessed data catptured on the retina of a human eye, the judge might wonder what you were tryig to put over. For one thing, the view will have a blind spot where the optic nerve attaches to the retina. Moreover, the only part of our field of vision with good resolution is a narrow area of about 1 degree of visual angle around the retina’s center, an area the width of our thumb as it looks when held at arm’s length. Outside that region, resolution drops off sharply. To compensate, we constantly move our eyes to bring the sharper region to bear on different portions of the scene we wish to observe. And so the pattern of raw data sent to the brain is a shaky, badly pixilated picture with a hole in it. Fortunately the brain processes the data, combining input from both eyes, filling in gaps on the assumption that the visual properties of neighboring locations are similar and interpolating. The result - at least until age, injury, disease, or an excess of mai tais takes its toll - is a happy human being suffering from the compelling illusion that his or her vision is sharp and clear.
We also use our imagination and take shortcuts to fill gaps in patterns of nonvisual data. As with visual input, we draw conclusions and make judgments based on uncertain and incomplete information, and we conclude, when we are done analyzing the patterns, that out “picture” is clear and accurate. But is it?
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Leonard Mlodinow (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives)
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Inside mind there are two parts: the controlling mind (ego), and the relaxed but aware mind (self). The controlling mind is the overthinking mind. It is the ego. It tries too much and has many doubts and conflicts. It overthinks and overdoes. It is full with excessive possessiveness and attachments. On the other-hand, the relaxed but aware mind has the natural ability to face and overcome the problems of life with awareness and efficiency.
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Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
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Hyperarousal causes traumatized people to become easily distressed by unexpected stimuli. Their tendency to be triggered into reliving traumatic memories illustrates how their perceptions have become excessively focused on the involuntary search for the similarities between the present and their traumatic past. As a consequence, many neutral experiences become reinterpreted as being associated with the traumatic past.
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Marion F. Solomon (Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology))
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Excessive attachment either to material goods, to other individuals, or even attachment to the concept of ‘I’ is the major source of human suffering. And doesn’t it follow that such suffering can be ameliorated by avoiding the attachment?
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Irvin D. Yalom (The Schopenhauer Cure)
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Because love, compassion, and joy can lead to excessive attachment, their warmth needs to be balanced with equanimity. Because equanimity can lead to excessive detachment, its coolness needs to be balanced with love, compassion, and joy. Established together, these radiant qualities express mental harmony.
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Jack Kornfield (Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are)
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Excessive attachment for material things puts a man in such a bewildering condition of existence. Bhayaṁ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syāt (Bhāg. 11.2.37):
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Anonymous (Bhagavad-gita As It Is)
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The certainty of those with whom we disagree—whether the disagreement concerns who should run the country or who should run the dishwasher—never looks justified to us, and frequently looks odious. As often as not, we regard it as a sign of excessive emotional attachment to an idea, or an indicator of a narrow, fearful, or stubborn frame of mind. By contrast, we experience our own certainty as simply a side-effect of our rightness, justifiable because our cause is just. And, remarkably, despite our generally supple, imaginative, extrapolation-happy minds, we cannot transpose this scene. We cannot imagine, or do not care, that our own certainty, when seen from the outside, must look just as unbecoming and ill-grounded as the certainty we abhor in others.
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Kathryn Schulz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
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Let us not, however, exaggerate our power. Whatever man does, the great lines of creation persist; the supreme mass does not depend on man. He has power over the detail, not over the whole. And it is right that this should be so. The Whole is providential. Its laws pass over our head. What we do goes no farther than the surface. Man clothes or unclothes the earth; clearing a forest is like taking off a garment. But to slow down the rotation of the globe on its axis, to accelerate the course of the globe on its orbit, to add or subtract a fathom on he earth's daily journey of 718,000 leagues around the sun, to modify the precession of the equinoxes, to eliminate one drop of rain--never! What is on high remains on high. Man can change the climate, but not the seasons Just try and make the moon revolve anywhere but in the ecliptic!
Dreamers, some of them illustrious, have dreamed of restoring perpetual spring to the earth. The extreme seasons, summer and winter, are produced by the excess of the inclination of the earth's axis over the place of the ecliptic of which we have just spoken. In order to eliminate the seasons it would be necessary only to straighten this axis. Nothing could be simpler. Just plant a stake on the Pole and drive it in to the center of the globe; attach a chain to it; find a base outside the earth; have 10 billion teams, each of 10 billion horses, and get them to pull. THe axis will straighten up, ad you will have your spring. As you can see, an easy task.
We must look elsewhere for Eden. Spring is good; but freedom and justice are beter. Eden is moral, not material.
To be free and just depends on ourselves.
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Victor Hugo (The Toilers of the Sea)
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The ambivalent strategy involves clinging to the care-giver, often with excessive submissiveness, or adopting a role-reversal in which the care-giver is cared for rather than vice versa. Here feelings of anger at the rejection are most conspicuously subjected to defensive exclusion. Although these strategies have the function of maintaining attachment in the face of difficulties, a price has to be paid. The attachment patterns so established are clearly restricted and, if repeated in all relationships, will be maladaptive.
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Jeremy Holmes (John Bowlby and Attachment Theory (Makers of Modern Psychotherapy))
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I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.
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Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
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I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.
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Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
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Excessive thinking and more so attachment to thoughts dominate our daily activities. But why? The mind thinks. But you must not. It is a choice. Remember. You are not your thoughts.
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Steve Leasock
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Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide.
(Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?)
Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other.
In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own.
I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel.
Is there a tunnel?" he said.
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Don DeLillo
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The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific. Therefore the base classes, primarily the women, practice an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants, except in countries where they are obtainable at a very low cost. From archaic times down through all the length of the patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. Drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence. Infirmities induced by over-indulgence are among some peoples freely recognised as manly attributes. It has even happened that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from such an origin has passed into everyday speech as a synonym for "noble" or "gentle". It is only at a relatively early stage of culture that the symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a superior status, and so tend to become virtues and command the deference of the community; but the reputability that attaches to certain expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably lesson the disapprobation visited upon the men of the wealthy or noble class for any excessive indulgence. The same invidious distinction adds force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on the part of women, minors, and inferiors. This invidious traditional distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples of today. Where the example set by the leisure class retains its imperative force in the regulation of the conventionalities, it is observable that the women still in great measure practise the same traditional continence with regard to stimulants.
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Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class)
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Julius, isn’t it precipitous to dismiss so quickly a concept that has offered consolation to much of humanity for millennia? It is Epictetus’s idea, and Schopenhauer’s as well, that excessive attachment either to material goods, to other individuals, or even attachment to the concept of ‘I’ is the major source of human suffering. And doesn’t it follow that such suffering can be ameliorated by avoiding the attachment?
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Irvin D. Yalom (The Schopenhauer Cure)
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How many ills, how many infirmities, does man owe to his excesses, his ambition – in a word, to the indulgence of his various passions! He who should live soberly in all respects, who should never run into excesses of any kind, who should be always simple in his tastes, modest in his desires, would escape a large proportion of the tribulations of human life. It is the same with regard to spirit-life, the sufferings of which are always the consequence of the manner in which a spirit has lived upon the earth. In that life undoubtedly he will no longer suffer from gout or rheumatism; but his wrong-doing down here will cause him to experience other sufferings no less painful. We have seen that those sufferings are the result of the links which exist between a spirit and matter; that the more completely he is freed from the influence of matter – in other words, the more dematerialized he is – the fewer are the painful sensations experienced by him. It depends, therefore, on each of us to free ourselves from the influence of matter by our action in this present life. Man possesses free-will, and, consequently, the power of electing to do or not to do. Let him conquer his animal passions; let him rid himself of hatred, envy, jealousy, pride; let him throw off the yoke of selfishness; let him purify his soul by cultivating noble sentiments; let him do good; let him attach to the things of this world only the degree of importance which they deserve – and he will, even under his present corporeal envelope, have effected his purification, and achieved his deliverance from the influence of matter, which will cease for him on his quitting that envelope. For such a one the remembrance of physical sufferings endured by him in the life he has quitted has nothing painful, and produces no disagreeable impression, because they affected his body only, and left no trace in his soul. He is happy to be relieved from them; and the calmness of a good conscience exempts him from all moral suffering.
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Allan Kardec (The Spirits' Book (Cosimo Classics Sacred Texts))
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Though it is a misfortune for a child to have no parents, it is equally dangerous for him to be too closely bound to his family. An excessively strong attachment to the parents is a severe handicap in his later adaptation to the world, for a growing human being is not destined to remain forever the child of his parents.
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C.G. Jung
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The offerings of Machiavelli (1469–1527), Guicciardini (1483–1540), La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) and La Bruyère (1645–96) give us an indication of the manoeuvres that workers may, aside from their regular advertised roles, have to perform in order to flourish: The need to beware of colleagues: ‘Men are so false, so insidious, so deceitful and cunning in their wiles, so avid in their own interest, and so oblivious to others’ interests, that you cannot go wrong if you believe little and trust less.’ GUICCIARDINI ‘We must live with our enemies as if they might one day become our friends, and live with our friends as if they might some time or other become our enemies’. LA BRUYÈRE The need to lie and exaggerate: ‘The world more often rewards signs of merit than merit itself.’ LA ROCHEFOUCAULD ‘If you are involved in important affairs, you must always hide failures and exaggerate successes. It is swindling but since your fate more often depends upon the opinion of others rather than on facts, it is a good idea to create the impression that things are going well.’ GUICCIARDINI ‘You are an honest man, and do not make it your business either to please or displease the favourites. You are merely attached to your master and to your duty. You are finished.’ LA BRUYÈRE The need to threaten: ‘It is much safer to be feared than loved. Love is sustained by a bond of gratitude which, because men are excessively self-interested, is broken whenever they see a chance to benefit themselves. But fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that is always effective.’ MACHIAVELLI ‘Since the majority of men are either not very good or not very wise, one must rely more on severity than on kindness.’ GUICCIARDINI
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Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety (NON-FICTION))
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Excessive preoccupation with psyche and evil - either from supportive or antagonistic standpoints - fosters a degree of self-consciousness and self-importance that is very likely to eclipse the ever-present mystery of God's truth. Discernments are essential, but it is not at all necessary or helpful to become attached to making them. If possible, it is best to see psychological phenomena such as dreams, fantasies, images, and thoughts as manifestations of God's potential in the same way that nature, art, relationships, and all other phenomena are. Gazing into an empty, blue sky, kneeling in prayer in a cathedral, and recalling memories associated with a dream can all be worthwhile spiritual explorations. The can also all be distractions from spiritual exploration. The beauty of the sky or the cathedral can create an absorption with sensate experience, just as dream analysis can create ego-absorption.
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Gerald G. May (Care of Mind/Care of Spirit: A Psychiatrist Explores Spirtual Direction)
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Based on their implicit and explicit memories of unmet childhood needs, many narcissists develop the notion that such needs will never be met later on in life. This fear is at the root of the narcissist’s flimsy and unanimated attachments to others. He compensates for the fear of not having his needs met through a well-executed excessively autonomous style. This combination of fear and overcompensation also leads to a lack of intimacy with himself, a void of self-knowing.
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Wendy T. Behary (Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed)
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How nice that our former stable boy has begotten a namesake from my elder daughter,” the countess remarked acidly. “This will be the first of many brats, I am sure. Regrettably there is still no heir to the earldom…which is your responsibility, I believe. Come to me with news of your impending marriage to a bride of good blood, Westcliff, and I will evince some satisfaction. Until then, I see little reason for congratulations.”
Though he displayed no emotion at his mother’s hard-hearted response to the news of Aline’s child, not to mention her infuriating preoccupation with the begetting of an heir, Marcus was hard-pressed to hold back a savage reply. In the midst of his darkening mood, he became aware of Lillian’s intent gaze.
Lillian stared at him astutely, a peculiar smile touching her lips. Marcus arched one brow and asked sardonically, “Does something amuse you, Miss Bowman?”
“Yes,” she murmured. “I was just thinking that it’s a wonder you haven’t rushed out to marry the first peasant girl you could find.”
“Impertinent twit!” the countess exclaimed.
Marcus grinned at the girl’s insolence, while the tightness in his chest eased. “Do you think I should?” he asked soberly, as if the question was worth considering.
“Oh yes,” Lillian assured him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “The Marsdens could use some new blood. In my opinion, the family is in grave danger of becoming overbred.”
“Overbred?” Marcus repeated, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her and carry her off somewhere. “What has given you that impression, Miss Bowman?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” she said idly. “Perhaps the earth-shattering importance you attach to whether one should use a fork or spoon to eat one’s pudding.”
“Good manners are not the sole province of the aristocracy, Miss Bowman.” Even to himself, Marcus sounded a bit pompous.
“In my opinion, my lord, an excessive preoccupation with manners and rituals is a strong indication that someone has too much time on his hands.”
Marcus smiled at her impertinence. “Subversive, yet sensible,” he mused. “I’m not certain I disagree.”
“Do not encourage her effrontery, Westcliff,” the countess warned.
“Very well—I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task.”
“What does that mean?” he heard Daisy ask.
Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus’s. “It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task…rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top.”
“Then if the countess is Sisyphus,” Daisy concluded, “I suppose we’re…”
“The boulder,” Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh.
“Do continue with our instruction, my lady,” Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus bowed and left the room. “We’ll try not to flatten you on the way down.
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Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
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1. What in my life, if taken away, would alter my value or identity? 2. What causes an unhealthy change of attitude, personality, or focus when “it” becomes threatened? 3. What is the thing outside of God that you put everything else on hold for? I sat there in a tsunami of convictions. Rather than the arrogant, hard-edged, I’ve-heard-this-stuff-before reaction, I asked God the three questions. And lo and behold, He had some answers. Not surprisingly, I am unhealthily attached to the very things I’ll be giving up during 7: approval, stuff, appearances, money, recognition, control.
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Jen Hatmaker (7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess)
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She had survived to age twenty-two with only the usual signs of wear: mild nutritional deficiencies, self-diagnosed anxious attachment style, self-diagnosed avoidant attachment style, stiff neck from excessive phone use. She googled things like “wildfires europe” and “heat wave crop failure famine” and “when will dublin underwater” and “will england fuck ireland over” and “will WHAT IS HAPPENING IN england fuck ireland over” and “why am i lonely” and “why do i hate existing” and “how many painkillers to die” and “how much carpet cleaner to die” and “why wont the government let me die.
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Naoise Dolan (The Happy Couple: A Novel)
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On the American desert are horses which eat the locoweed and some are driven made by it; their vision is affected, they take enormous leaps to cross a tuft of grass or tumble blindly into rivers. The horses which have become thus addicted are shunned by the others and will never rejoin the herd. So it is with human beings: those who are conscious of another world, the world of the spirit, acquire an outlook which distorts the values of ordinary life; they are consumed by the weed of non-attachment. Curiosity is their one excess and therefore they are recognized not by what they do, but by what they refrain from doing, like those Araphants or disciples of Buddha who are pledged to the "Nine Incapabilities." Thus they do not take life, they do not compete, they do not boast, they do not join groups of more than six, they do not condemn others; they are "abandoners of revels, mute, contemplative" who are depressed by gossip, gaiety and equals, who wait to be telephoned to, who neither speak in public, nor keep up with their friends, nor take revenge upon their enemies. Self-knowledge has taught them to abandon hate and blame and envy in their lives, and they look sadder than they are. They seldom make positive assertions because they see, outlined against any statement, as a painter sees a complementary color, the image of its opposite. Most psychological questionnaires are designed to search out these moonlings and to secure their non-employment. They divine each other by a warm indifference for they know that they are not intended to forgather, but, like stumps of phosphorus in the world's wood, each to give forth his misleading radiance.
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Cyril Connelly
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For the next week, every day, listen to the words of your friends or colleagues. Try to hear what others communicate as a need or want. Your goal is to begin to give to others out of things that you already have in your possession. They may just need to borrow something, or you may choose to give them a gift with no strings attached. Listen to statements like this: “I really need _______.” “I could really use a _______.” “I have been wanting to get ______.” Try to think about everyday things in your home that you could give to make a friend’s life easier and your life simpler. Match something you have in your possession with a need of a friend. No strings attached. Just let it go. Give it away. Be generous. Give something larger than usual. You will be amazed how others will respond positively and with surprise. Get a taste of what it feels like to give out of your excess this week.
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Jeff Shinabarger (More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity)
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suicide and scandal followed in his wake. The British weekly, the Sunday Referee (March 10, 1935) asked the question that over half a century later is only beginning to be answered. Who—and what—is Aleister Crowley? Around few men in contemporary life has been created such a wealth of fantastic fable and rumour as that which attaches to the name of this mysterious personality. Who indeed was this man, and why, if it were true he was guilty of so many unspeakable acts, was he never brought to justice or ever formally charged with any crime? To the modern student of Crowley, the answer to the second part of the question is simple. He was never charged with any crimes because there were no crimes to be charged with. And even if there were, to some, the magnitude and the importance of his work is such as to dwarf to insignificance an entire litany of personal flaws and excesses real or imagined. In the opinion of some of our contemporaries, Crowley was a genius of stellar magnitude. Currently his works enjoy a scrutiny and popularity that never was achieved in his
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Christopher S. Hyatt (Taboo: Sex, Religion & Magick)
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I was just thinking that it's a wonder you haven't rushed out to marry the first peasant girl you could find."
"Impertinent twit!" the countess exclaimed.
Marcus grinned at the girl's insolence, while the tightness in his chest eased. "Do you think I should?" he asked soberly, as if the question was worth considering.
"Oh, yes," Lillian assured him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "The Marsdens could use some new blood. In my opinion, the family is in grave danger of becoming overbred."
"Overbred?" Marcus repeated, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her and cry her off somewhere. "What has given you that impression, Miss Bowman?"
"Oh, I don't know..." she said idly. "Perhaps the earth-shattering importance you attach to wether one should use a fork or spoon to eat one's pudding."
"Good manners are not the sole province of the aristocracy, Miss Bowman." Even to himself, Marcus sounded a bit pompous.
"In my opinion, my lord, an excessive preoccupation with manners and rituals is a strong indication that someone has too much time on his hands."
Marcus smiled at her impertinence. "Subversive, yet sensible," he mused. "I'm not certain I disagree.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
“
With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us.
We eventually get used to the new state where our wishes have been fulfilled. We start taking those things for granted and there comes a time when we start getting tired of what we have.
We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are. The objects that are supposed to represent our qualities become our qualities themselves.
There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom and energy.
When people say something is impossible, they have already decided that they don't want to do it.
Differentiate between things you want and things you need.
Leave your unused space empty. These open areas are incredibly useful. They bring us a sense of freedom and keep our minds open to the more important things in life.
Memories are wonderful but you won't have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It's better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what's important today.
Don't get creative when you are trying to discard things.
There's no need to stock up.
An item chosen with passion represents perfection to us. Things we just happen to pick up, however, are easy candidates for disposal or replacement.
As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren't likely to want more.
Our homes aren't museum, they don't need collections.
When you aren't sure that you really want to part with something, try stowing it away for a while.
Larger furniture items with bold colors will in time trigger visual fatigue and then boredom.
Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste. The real waste is the psychological damage that you accrue from hanging on to things you don't use or need.
We find our originality when we own less.
When you think about it, it's experience that builds our unique characteristics, not material objects.
I've lowered my bar for happiness simply by switching to a tenugui. When even a regular bath towel can make you happy, you'll be able to find happiness almost everywhere.
For the minimalist, the objective isn't to reduce, it's to eliminate distractions so they can focus on the things that are truly important. Minimalism is just the beginning. It's a tool. Once you've gone ahead and minimized, it's time to find out what those important things are.
Minimalism is built around the idea that there's nothing that you're lacking. You'll spend less time being pushed around by something that you think may be missing.
The qualities I look for in the things that I buy are:
- the item has a minimalistic kind of shape and is easy to clean
- it's color isn't too loud
- I'll be able to use it for a long time
- it has a simple structure
- it's lightweight and compact
- it has multiple uses
A relaxed moment is not without meaning, it's an important time for reflection.
It wasn't the fallen leaves that the lady had been tidying up, it was her own laziness that she had been sweeping away.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
With daily cleaning, the reward may be the sense of accomplishment and calmness we feel afterward.
Cleaning your house is like polishing yourself.
Simply by living an organized life, you'll be more invigorated, more confident and like yourself better.
Having parted with the bulk of my belongings, I feel true contentment with my day-to-day life. The very act of living brings me joy.
When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All the creative marketing and annoying ads no longer have an effect on you.
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Fumio Sasaki (Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism)
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Why do we despise, ostracize and punish the drug addict when as a social collective we share the same blindness and engage in the same rationalizations? To pose that question is to answer it. We despise, ostracize and punish the addict because we don’t wish to see how much we resemble him. In his dark mirror our own features are unmistakable. We shudder at the recognition. This mirror is not for us, we say to the addict. You are different, and you don’t belong with us.
Like the hardcore addict’s pursuit of drugs, much of our economic and cultural life caters to people’s craving to escape mental and emotional distress. In an apt phrase, Lewis Lapham, long-time publisher of Harper’s Magazine, derides “consumer markets selling promises of instant relief from the pain of thought, loneliness, doubt, experience, envy, and old age.”
According to a Statistics Canada study, 31 per cent of working adults aged nineteen to sixty-four consider themselves workaholics, who attach excessive importance to their work and are “overdedicated and perhaps overwhelmed by their jobs.” “They have trouble sleeping, are more likely to be stressed out and unhealthy, and feel they don’t spend enough time with their families,” reports the Globe and Mail. Work doesn’t necessarily give them greater satisfaction, suggested Vishwanath Baba, a professor of Human Resources and Management at McMaster University. “These people turn to work to occupy their time and energy” — as compensation for what is lacking in their lives, much as the drug addict employs substances. At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear.
The addict dreads and abhors the present moment; she bends feverishly only towards the next time, the moment when her brain, infused with her drug of choice, will briefly experience itself as liberated from the burden of the past and the fear of the future — the two elements that make the present intolerable. Many of us resemble the drug addict in our ineffectual efforts to fill in the spiritual black hole, the void at the centre, where we have lost touch with our souls, our spirit, with those sources of meaning and value that are not contingent or fleeting.
Our consumerist, acquisition-, action- and image-mad culture only serves to deepen the hole, leaving us emptier than before. The constant, intrusive and meaningless mind-whirl that characterizes the way so many of us experience our silent moments is, itself, a form of addiction— and it serves the same purpose.
“One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove the emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.” So writes Eckhart Tolle. Even our 24/7 self-exposure to noise, emails, cell phones, TV, Internet chats, media outlets, music downloads, videogames and non-stop internal and external chatter cannot succeed in drowning out the fearful voices within.
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Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)
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He was in love with France before he even reached Paris. Jefferson’s work in Europe offered him a new battlefield in the war for American union and national authority that he had begun in the Congress. His sojourn in France is often seen as a revolutionary swoon during which he fell too hard for the foes of monarchy, growing overly attached to—and unhealthily admiring of—the French Revolution and its excesses. Some of his most enduring radical quotations, usually considered on their own with less appreciation of the larger context of Jefferson’s decades-long political, diplomatic, and philosophical careers, date from this era. His relationship to France and to the French, however, should be seen for what it was: a political undertaking in which Jefferson put the interests of America first. He was determined to create a balance of global power in which France would help the United States resist commercial and possible military threats from the British.5 From the ancien régime of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette to the French Revolution to the Age of Napoleon, Jefferson viewed France in the context of how it could help America on the world stage.6 Much of Jefferson’s energy was spent striving to create international respect for the United States and to negotiate commercial treaties to build and expand American commerce and wealth. His mind wandered and roamed and soared, but in his main work—the advancement of America’s security and economic interests—he was focused and clear-headed. Countries earned respect by appearing strong and unified. Jefferson wanted America to be respected. He, therefore, took care to project strength and a sense of unity. The cause of national power required it, and he was as devoted to the marshaling of American power in Paris as he had been in Annapolis. E
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Jon Meacham (Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power)
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How is money created? An example: You buy a house or take out a mortgage on the excess value of your property. You want 200,000 Dollars. The following happens. The bank’s computer adds these virtual numbers - because that is what they are - to your bank account, and then you have to bleed for the next 30 years, WITH INTEREST. The bank attached a fictional number to your name and for 30 years you need to work to pay the money back. The bank didn’t build your house, nor did it pay for the materials. That was done by people like you and me. They too have to pay, because they also have a mortgage. And when you die, your kids will have to pay taxes on your estate. Often, they have to take out a mortgage of their own to do so[74]. Another example of how banks create money out of nothing: You go to the bank to lend 1,000 Dollars. One year later, you have to pay 1,100 Dollars back, including interest. The additional 100 Dollars come from fellow citizens, for instance in the form of wages or profit sharing. In other words, the extra 100 Dollars come from society. This can only happen when the total amount of money in circulation increases. That increase – inflation – is created when the bank creates more money. In other words: “Interest payments are a direct way to create money.” All the money that exists comes from the bank. This remarkable phenomenon has been described as follows by Mr. Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta: “If all the bank loans were paid, there would not be a dollar in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible - but there it is.”[75]
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Robin de Ruiter (Worldwide Evil and Misery - The Legacy of the 13 Satanic Bloodlines)
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One cannot erase from a human being's soul those actions which his ancestors loved most and carried out most steadfastly: whether they were, for example, industrious savers attached to a writing table and money box, modest and bourgeois in their desires, as well as modest in their virtues, or whether they were accustomed to live giving orders from morning until night, fond of harsh entertainment and, along with that, perhaps of even harsher duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, they had at some time or other once sacrificed the old privileges of their birth and possessions in order to live entirely for their faith ― their "God" ― as men of an unrelenting and delicate conscience, which blushes when confronted with any compromise. It is in no way possible that a man does not possess in his body the characteristics and preferences of his parents and forefathers, no matter what appearance might say to the contrary. This is the problem of race. If we know something about the parents, then we may draw a conclusion about the child: some unpleasant excess or other, some lurking envy, a crude habit of self-justification ―as these three together have at all times made up the essential type of the rabble― something like that must be passed onto the child as surely as corrupt blood, and with the help of the best education and culture people will succeed only in deceiving others about such heredity. And nowadays what else does education and culture want! In our age, one very much of the people - I mean to say our uncouth age ―"education" and "culture" must basically be the art of deception― to mislead about the origin of the inherited rabble in one's body and soul. Today an educator who preached truthfulness above everything else and constantly shouted at his students "Be true! Be natural! Act as you really are!" ― even such a virtuous and true-hearted jackass would after some time learn to take hold of that furca [pitchfork] of Horace, in order to naturam expellere [drive out nature]. With what success? "Rabble" usque recurret [always returns].
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
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you'll wonder again, later, why so many psychologists remain so vocal about having more and better training than anyone else in the field when every psychologist you've ever met but one will also have lacked these identification skills entirely when it seems nearly every psychologist you meet has no real ability to detect deception. You will wonder, later, why the assessment training appears to have been reserved for the CIA and the FBI is it because we as a society don't want to imagine that any other professionals will need the skills? And what about attorneys? What about training programs for guardian ad litems or anyone involved in approving care for all the already traumatized and marginalized children? You'll have met enough of those children after they grow up to know that when a small girl experiences repeated rapes in a series of households throughout her childhood, then that little girl is pretty likely to have some sort of "dysfunction" when she grows up. And you won't have any tolerance for the people who point their fingers at her and demand that she be as capable as they are it is, after all, a free country. We all get the same opportunities. You'll want to scream at all those equality people that you can't ignore the rights of this nation's children you can't ignore them and then get pissed when any raped and beaten little girls and boys grow up to be traumatized and perhaps hurtful or addicted adults. No more pointing fingers only a few random traumatized people stand up later as some miraculous example of perfectly acceptable societal success and if every judgmental person imagines that I would be like that I would be the one to break through the barriers then all those judgmental people need to go back in time and prove it, prove to everyone that life is a choice and we all get equal chances. You'll want anyone who talks about equal chances to go back and be born addicted to drugs in complete poverty and then to be dropped into a foster system that's designed for good but exploited by people who lack a conscience by people who rape and molest and whip and beat tiny little six year olds and then you will want all those people to come out of all that still talking about equal chances and their personal tremendous success. Thank you, dear God, for writing my name on the palm of your hand. You will be angry and yet you still won't understand the concept of evil. You'll learn enough to know that it's not politically correct to call anyone evil, especially when many terrible acts might actually stem from a physiological deficit I would never use the word evil, it's not professional but you will certainly come to understand that many of the very worst crimes are committed by people who lack the capacity to feel remorse for what they've done on any level. But when you gain that understanding, you still will not have learned that these individuals are more likable than most people that they aren't cool and distant that they aren't just a select few creepy murderers or high-profile con artists you won't know how to look for a lack of conscience in noncriminal and quite normal looking populations no clinical professors will have warned you about people who exude charm and talk excessively about protecting the family or protecting the community or protecting our way of life and you won't know that these types would ever stick around to raise kids you will have falsely believed that if they can't form real attachments, they won't bother with raising children and besides most of them will end up in prison you will not know that your assumptions are completely erroneous you won't understand that many who lack a conscience keep their kids close and tight for their own purposes.
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H.G. Beverly (The Other Side of Charm: Your Memoir)
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Whether they mean to or not, driven parents make their children feel evaluated constantly. An example would be a father who makes his kids practice the piano in front of him so he can point out their mistakes. This kind of excessive oversight often sours children on seeking adult help for anything. As a result, in adulthood they may resist connecting with potential mentors. Certain they know the best way to do things, driven parents sometimes do outlandish things. One mother insisted on going to her adult daughter’s house to pay her bills because she was sure her daughter wouldn’t do it right. Another mother bought her adult son a used car he hadn’t asked for and was hurt when he didn’t want it. And one young man’s father made his son weigh himself every day in front of him when he gained weight. If you think back to the infant attachment studies described at the beginning of this chapter (Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton 1971, 1974), driven parents seem similar to some of the emotionally insensitive mothers of insecurely attached babies.
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Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
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To make good on payments, Hamilton knew he would have to raise a substantial loan abroad and boost domestic taxes beyond the import duties now at his disposal. He proposed taxes on wines and spirits distilled within the United States as well as on tea and coffee. Of these first “sin taxes,” the secretary observed that the products taxed are “all of them in reality luxuries, the greatest part of them foreign luxuries; some of them, in the excess in which they are used, pernicious luxuries.”28 Such taxation might dampen consumption and reduce revenues, Hamilton acknowledged, but he doubted this would happen, because “luxuries of every kind lay the strongest hold on the attachments of mankind, which, especially when confirmed by habit, are not easily alienated from them.
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Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
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Religion is a perfect illustration of the dangers of excessive attachment to beliefs. The ego will use any belief to strengthen its identity, whether these beliefs are religious, political, or metaphysical.
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Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
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a frugal diet based mainly (but not exclusively) on plant foods; constant physical activity, but without excesses; strong attachment
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Luigi Fontana (The Path to Longevity: How to reach 100 with the health and stamina of a 40-year-old)
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Berning concluded that he couldn’t run the risk of using Ivar’s new numbers. He simply had to find a way to send the Wisconsin regulators something that added up at least $4,400,000, the amount Lee Higginson already had told investors was International Match’s income. In an extraordinary auditor-to-client letter, Berning wrote to Ivar on December 11, that “In view of the fact that the circular stated that the earnings for the first six months ‘were in excess of $4,400,000’, I thought it best to increase this amount slightly.” Increase this amount slightly? Yes, at Berning’s request, Ernst & Ernst reported net income for International Match of $4,475,000, a nice round number that was higher than the income Ivar and Lee Higginson previously had reported to investors. In a letter to Lee Higginson, Berning did not highlight the fact that he had adjusted the earnings. Instead, he merely noted, somewhat opaquely, that “the figures shown on the attached are subject to any necessary adjustment upon the final closing of the books of the various companies at the end of the fiscal year.”60 Meanwhile, Berning and Ivar still had not met in New York. Berning summed up his most recent work in a letter to Ivar: “It is therefore to be sincerely hoped that the enclosed will be the final chapter with respect to the State of Wisconsin.”61 Indeed, with the “adjusted” numbers, it was.
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Frank Partnoy (The Match King: Ivar Kreuger and the Financial Scandal of the Century)
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Prep time: 8 hours. Cook time: 3 minutes a batch. Makes 18 raised donuts. Hint: Make the dough the night before and let it rise in the fridge overnight. Ingredients: 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of whole milk, warmed to 105 degrees
¼ cup sugar
One package active dry yeast (2½ teaspoons)
10 tablespoons butter (1¼ sticks), melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
Oil for frying (using a neutral flavored oil will get better results, like corn, safflower, peanut, or canola) Directions: Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it reaches 105 degrees, or is warm to the touch. Stir in sugar. Next, add the yeast and stir until dissolved. Let yeast mixture sit for 5 minutes until the yeast starts to bubble on the surface. Pour into the bowl of mixer. Add melted butter and beaten eggs. Using the paddle attachment, beat ingredients together. With mixer on slow, add the flour and salt, stirring until the dough comes together. Mix for five more minutes to activate the yeast. Turn sticky dough into a lightly oiled bowl and turn once to coat both sides. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. Remove dough from the fridge and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll dough out until it is ½-inch thick. Using a 3-inch donut cutter, cut out the donuts. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly spray the parchment paper with oil to keep donuts from sticking. Place donuts and holes on parchment paper, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about one hour. Donuts will be very light and delicate. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. This is where the fried donuts will go immediately after the fryer to absorb the excess grease. Keep plenty of paper towels on hand for replacements! To fry the donuts: Using a deep pot, Dutch oven, or home fryer, heat two to three inches of oil to 375 degrees. Use a thermometer to hit the right temperature. Carefully add the donuts to the hot oil in small batches, usually three at a time. Once donuts reach a nice golden brown (about 1½ minutes), turn over and cook the other side. I use chopsticks for this part, but you can use a slotted spoon. When donuts are a beautiful light brown, remove from fryer and place on paper towels. Cool slightly, then dip in your favorite donut glaze. *See Donut Glazes below.
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Darci Hannah (Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop (Beacon Bakeshop, #1))
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Avoidant attachment: some key signs —No distress caused by mother’s absence —Shows little interest when she returns —Avoids eye contact —Shuns physical touch —Excessive independence —Resists help to complete tasks Avoidant attachment may be the result of abusive or neglectful caregivers.
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Katherine Faulkner (The Other Mothers)
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In one such study, published in an Australian psychology journal, researchers noted that children of ISIS parents often displayed "intense affects, efforts to ward off recurrence, behavioural re-enactment, somatic problems, emotional and behavioural deregulation, anticipatory anxiety and fear, a schematic view of a dangerous and distrustful world, dissociation, negative self-attributions, mood disturbance, misinterpretation of events and expectation of caregiver abandonment. A traumatized child may engage in 'excessive clinging, compliance, oppositional defiance and distrustful behaviour, and they may be preoccupied with retribution and revenge.' For children exposed to ISIS-related violence, the basic building blocks of attachment and caregiver relationships will be altered. Although trauma may not arise through direct violence, it can develop through an impending sense of doom, or being a heightened state of continued arousal.
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Jessica Roy (American Girls: One Woman's Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister's Fight to Bring Her Home)
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I have no notion in loving people by halves, it is not in my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.
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Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
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Events that cause out-of-home placement often occur during the toddler or preschool years. At that age it is normal for children to believe that they are the cause of life’s events. Children’s egocentricity, which is a normal part of personality development, results in excessive feelings of responsibility. Children are shamed by the meaning that they derive from maltreatment or loss—that it was something that emanated from them.
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Deborah D. Gray (Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents)
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Girls’ Night Out Two female friends had gone out drinking, just the girls, and had made excessively close friends with a large but uncertain number of cocktails. Walking home feeling no pain at all, they suddenly both realized they needed to pee. There was no toilet in sight and no open restaurants or anything, but they were passing by a graveyard and one of them suggested they flush their systems there, so they did, fertilizing some unknown person’s final resting place. Of course they had no toilet paper, this fact having slipped their minds in their inebriation. The first woman took off her panties, used them to wipe herself, and tossed them aside. Her friend didn’t want to do the same because she was wearing some fancy underwear and didn’t want to ruin it, but she was lucky enough to find a wreath on a grave with a big ribbon attached and wiped herself with that (after all, the intended recipient had no use for it, or for anything else). After finishing, they made their unsteady way home. The next day one woman’s husband phoned the other husband and said, “You know, we have to talk to our wives about these damned girls’ nights out. When my wife came home last night her panties were missing. I have no idea what she was up to, but it can’t be anything good!” “You think that’s bad,” said the other husband. “My wife came back with a card stuck between the cheeks of her butt that said, ‘From all of the firemen at the fire station, in heartfelt appreciation.
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Ronald T. Boggs (The Funniest Joke Book! Best Collection Of Jokes In The Kindle Library!)
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They certainty of those with whom we disagree (...) never looks justified to us, and frequently looks odious. As often as not, we regard it as a sign of excessive emotional attachment to an idea, or an indicator of a narrow, fearful, or stubborn frame of mind. By contrast, we experience our own certainty as simply a side-effect of our rightness, justifiable because our cause is just. (p.164)
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Kathryn Schulz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error)
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Additional (excessive) knowledge’ [vishesh gnan] will lead to interference, and ‘basic knowledge’ [samanya gnan] will lead to a state of non-attachment (vitaraagta).
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Dada Bhagwan (Anger)
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This dysfunction is represented by the four branches of the trauma tree: (1) addiction, not only to vices such as drugs, alcohol, and gambling, but also to socially acceptable things such as work, exercise, and perfectionism (check); (2) codependency, or excessive psychological reliance on another person; (3) habituated survival strategies, such as a propensity to anger and rage (check); (4) attachment disorders, difficulty forming and maintaining connections or meaningful relationships with others (check). These
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Peter Attia (Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity)
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Caregiver behaviors that could lead a child to take on a deactivating attachment strategy include: Neglecting or abusing the child. Being emotionally cold or rejecting the child. Giving the child hostile, angry or threatening responses. Discouraging a child’s expression of vulnerability. Encouraging (whether explicitly or implicitly) the child to be more self-reliant and independent. Caregiver behaviors that can incite hyperactivating attachment strategies include: Being unreliable, unpredictable or intrusive, where interactions are sometimes gratifying and connected, but at other times mis-attuned and disconnected. Punishing or criticizing a child for their independence or curiosity. Conveying messages that the child is not enough, or is incapable, stupid or failing in some way. Taking on a helicopter style of parenting, which might include excessive praise but also excessive control, protectiveness or perfectionism. Experiences of abuse or traumas that occur when the child is separated from their primary attachment figure, which can reinforce the notion that it’s dangerous to be apart from them. Both of these strategies can also occur simultaneously, meaning a child may experience both hyperactivation and deactivation, or may vacillate between the two survival strategies. We’ll discuss this more in the section about fearful-avoidant attachment.
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Jessica Fern (Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy)
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On the other hand, highly self-conscious people can see through their ego. They understand how belief works and how excessive attachment to a set of beliefs can create suffering in their life. In effect, these individuals become the master of their mind and are at peace with themselves.
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Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
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A person who does not pray habitually, no matter how believing or pious he may be, will not achieve full spiritual growth. Neither will he acquire peace of soul because he will always experience excessive scruples and never view things beyond their human or worldly significance. Thus, one will always suffer from vanity, selfishness, self-centeredness, ambition, meanness of heart, vileness of judgment, and a sickly willfulness and attachment to one’s opinions. A person who does not pray may acquire human wisdom and prudence, but not true spiritual freedom or that deep and radical purification of the heart. One will not be able to grasp the depths of divine mercy or know how to make it known to others. His judgment will always end up shortsighted, mistaken, and contemptible. One will never be able to tread God’s ways, which are far different from what many—even those who have committed themselves to a life in the spirit—conceive them to be.
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Jacques Philippe (Time for God)
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Marijuana, meanwhile, produces a chemical called THC that attaches to the second class of receptors (discovered in 1988). These receptors were then deemed “cannabinoid receptors,” and the brain chemicals that attach to them were called endocannabinoids (for endogenous cannabinoids). Because molecules in these plants attach to these receptors in our brain and elsewhere, they can, in small amounts, enhance our lives. Marijuana can calm the nausea in chemotherapy patients and improve the appetite of AIDS patients. Morphine and other opioids, of course, numb pain and allow for surgery to take place. In the bowels, opioids can control diarrhea—as Paul Janssen knew when he invented loperamide. But in larger quantities, far beyond what the brain can produce, these molecules prod our brain receptors to excess. THC in marijuana overwhelms the cannabinoid receptors and produces ravenous hunger and faulty memory. The morphine molecule locks with the opioid receptors to produce euphoria and numb pain. Opioid receptors in our lungs govern breathing; too much morphine molecule shuts down breathing, which is how overdose victims die. The morphine molecule also produces constipation in addicts. In withdrawals, without the drug, addicts suffer diarrhea. (Naloxone, the overdose antidote, is occasionally used to treat constipation.) (Interestingly, the natural substances that make humans high actually evolved in their plants as pesticides, to keep predator insects from feasting on their leaves. Nicotine is a pesticide that tobacco naturally produces. So is caffeine in coffee, cocaine in the coca leaf, morphine in the opium poppy, and perhaps THC in marijuana as well.) In
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Sam Quinones (The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth)
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Excessive attachments cause stress and pain. If you surround yourself with items that you have a sentimental attachment to, then you will never be able to let go of the clutter in your life.
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Nao Yasui (Japanese Minimalism : How to Tidy Up, Saving Money, Overcoming a Shopping Addiction, Tips from a Japanese Minimalist)
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Systemic symptoms–both branches (figures 4.2 and 4.3). A sixth group of symptoms from sternocleidomastoid trigger points can include disturbed perception of the amount of weight carried in the hands, cold sweat on the forehead, and the generation of excess mucus in the sinuses, nasal cavities, and throat. They can be the simple explanation for your sinus congestion, sinus drainage, phlegm in the throat, chronic cough, and continual hay fever or cold symptoms. A persistent dry cough can often be stopped with massage to the sternal branch near its attachment to the breastbone (Simons, Travell, and Simons 1999). Causes
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Clair Davies (The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook))
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An excessive respect for scientific truth has obscured our own truth. In our eagerness to understand reality, we forget that we are not here to understand reality, but only to express it. We, art, are reality. Art is a fact and not commentary attached to fact.
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Witold Gombrowicz (Diary (The Margellos World Republic of Letters))
“
Prospector Base was a cluster of five ten-meter-diameter inflatable domes, arranged in a tight pentagonal formation. Each dome touched two others on either side for mutual support against the fierce spring winds of the southern hemisphere. The void in the center of the pentagon was filled with a smaller dome, seven-and-a-half meters in diameter. The only equipment the central dome contained was the base water recycler unit. The recycler received wastewater from the galley, and from the shower and sink. Dubbed “the hall” by the EPSILON engineers, hatches connected the smaller central dome with each of the larger five domes that surrounded it. Each large dome was accessible to the others only via the hall. The larger dome closest to the landing party’s direction of travel possessed an airlock to the outside atmosphere. Known as the common room, it housed the main base computer, the communications equipment, the primary electrical supply panels, the CO2 scrubber, the oxygen generator and the backup oxygen supply tanks. The oxygen generator electrolyzed water collected from dehumidifiers located in all domes except the greenhouse and from the CO2 scrubber. It released molecular oxygen directly back into the air supply. The hydrogen it generated was directed to the carbon dioxide scrubber. By combining the Sabatier Reaction with the pyrolysis of waste product methane, the only reaction products were water—which was sent back to the oxygen generator—and graphite. The graphite was removed from a small steel reactor vessel once a week and stored in the shop where Dave and Luis intended to test the feasibility of carbon fiber manufacture. Excess heat generated by the water recycler, the oxygen generator, and the CO2 scrubber supplemented the heat output from the base heating system. The dome to the immediate left contained the crew sleeping quarters and a well-provisioned sick bay. The next dome housed the galley, food storage, and exercise equipment. The table in the galley doubled as the base conference table. The fourth large dome served as the greenhouse. It also housed the composting toilet and a shower. The final dome contained the shop, an assay bench, and a small smelter. The smelter was intended to develop proof-of-concept smelting processes for the various rare earth elements collected from the surrounding region. Subsequent Prospector missions would construct and operate a commercial smelter. A second manual airlock was attached to the shop dome to allow direct unloading of ore and loading of ingots for shipment to Earth.
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Brian H. Roberts (Crimson Lucre (EPSILON Sci-Fi Thriller #1))
“
While other people’s excessive attachments and personal falsity often seem glaringly apparent, it is never easy to know the lies of our own life.
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David G. Benner (The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery (The Spiritual Journey, #2))
“
Your ego also uses beliefs to strengthen its identity. In extreme cases, people become so attached to their beliefs they are ready to die to protect them. Worse still, they are willing to kill people who disagree with them. Religion is a perfect illustration of the dangers of excessive attachment to beliefs. The ego will use any belief to strengthen its identity, whether these beliefs are religious, political, or metaphysical.
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Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
As you replace your current story with a more empowering one—while, at the same time, letting go of your excessive attachment to things, people or ideas—you will be able to experience more positive emotions.
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Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))
“
The disorganized adaptation comes with a lot of confusion — cognitive, emotional, and somatic. This makes sense when you consider that the fundamental issue with disorganized attachment is that two major biological drives are in constant conflict. We’re instinctually driven to connect with others, but we’re also programmed to avoid danger and to survive. When there’s excess fear in our original patterning, we can feel that relationships are fundamentally dangerous, and yet we long to connect. Often
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Diane Poole Heller (The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships)
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Once you start getting attached to something through placing excess importance to it, this will generate an energy potential. Life will then act to reduce this potential energy by taking the thing away from you to restore balance.
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Quazi Johir (Life Mastery: Manifest the Reality You Want)
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Anxious Attachment Constant need for closeness/intimacy. Hypersensitivity to partner’s moods and actions. Tendency to be controlling when they feel threatened. Preoccupied by fear of abandonment. Prioritizes a partner’s wants/needs before their own. Unable to give a partner healthy space. Over-giving to partner, quick to dismiss their own needs. Excessive worrying/catastrophizing. Controlling behavior; requires a partner to prove their loyalty. Often adopts partner’s hobbies/interests to increase closeness. Feels deeply uncomfortable/unsafe expressing issues. Becomes overly dependent on their relationship. Vigilant for signs of abandonment/disloyalty. Constant need to please/gain approval. Unaware of/unable to express wants/needs. Poor sense of boundaries within a relationship. Requires frequent reassurance of partner’s commitment/care. Lets partner make the rules and set the tone of the relationship. Believes they must work to keep their partner interested. Highly jealous; suspects that their partner will be unfaithful. Has an unrealistic view of how a relationship should be. Feels uncomfortable receiving intimacy. Discomfort being single. Often jumps from partner to partner.
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Rikki Cloos (The Anxious Hearts Guide: Rising Above Anxious Attachment)
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excessive attachments are to be avoided, especially in relationships. For example, a parent can be so possessive of a child it becomes harmful to the child, a friend may lead one to sin, and so on. Excessive desires cloud our recognition of truth. They keep us from thinking clearly and cause anxiety. It is why you see agitation in so many persons here.
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Grace DeLuca (THE CRYSTAL PALACE: An allegory based on St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle)
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In the 1930s, a considerable number of Japanese fell to the easy temptation of blaming their social ills on foreign powers while attaching excessive, metaphysical significance to Japan’s nationalism, notching it up to the level of ultranationalism. The veneration of the emperor, who was regarded as a living god and the benevolent patriarch of Japan’s family-state, played a central role in this intensification of Japanese nationalism. Many Japanese claimed that an incomplete nation could be completed by imperialist expansion abroad and militarization at home. And not unlike in Nazi Germany, the fulfillment of old imperialist goals—some no longer viable—became an integral part of the ultranationalist agenda.
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Eri Hotta (Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy)
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Attach yourself to revenue, if you do that, then nobody can touch you.
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Turney Duff (The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess)
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All along the river, the people I spoke to were hard-working and deeply attached to the mental security blanket of having a decent house, clean car and steady job. They were relatively wealthy, but at the same time quite ambivalent about wealth, and disdainful of anything which smacked of excessive consumption. Family was important, but having expensive jewellery or a fancy haircut usually were not. People considered it essential to be productive and efficient, but would also think it an outrage to be expected to reply to a work email on the weekend. From Rotterdam to Ludwigshafen, they counted pennies and returned empty bottles, avoided running up debts, and were careful to save for rainy days. Food was enjoyed but unimportant, and a 'salad' was anything covered with mayonnaise, preferably fried first.
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Ben Coates (The Rhine: Following Europe's Greatest River from Amsterdam to the Alps)
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This is why total return matters—not just income. The total return to investors over three years was –13.7 percent even though each year the company started out showing a yield in excess of 15 percent. Also, the amount of dividend payments dropped over 30 percent. There are investors who will see 15 percent yields and think it's a can't-miss investment opportunity with little-to-no-risk involved because there's a dividend payment attached. Yield makes investors feel safe because it's tangible. As usual, higher returns come from higher risks, and a higher yield means higher risk. Either you own high-quality investments with a lower yield, but more safety in the short term, or you own riskier investments with a higher yield and less short-term safety of principal.
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Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan (Bloomberg))
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In short, most of your emotions are based on your personal story and the way you perceive the world. As you replace your current story with a more empowering one—while, at the same time, letting go of your excessive attachment to things, people or ideas—you will be able to experience more positive emotions.
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Thibaut Meurisse (Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings (Mastery Series Book 1))