Category Archives: Comforting Thought

Comforting Thought: The appetites of the soul by Aldous Huxley

Two great appetites of the soul – the urge to independence and self-determination and the urge to self-transcendence – were fused with, and interpreted in the light of, a third – the urge to worship.
~ Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven & Hell

Comforting thought: The silence of the bird and the lily by Søren Kierkegaard

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) implored people to learn from the silence of the lily and the bird. In other words to learn to refrain from speaking. He believed that we should learn this because we humans possess the power of speech and so we should learn the art of silence. According to Kierkegaard ourContinue reading “Comforting thought: The silence of the bird and the lily by Søren Kierkegaard”

Comforting Thought: Memory is a radio station that only plays the songs you want to hear

Music and the nostalgia of our youth “Why do we all (not just the Woodstock generation) seem to insist that the music of our youth was better? Because everyone has this experience, it cannot be objectively true. One study found that in the same way that we tend to remember positive life events more stronglyContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Memory is a radio station that only plays the songs you want to hear”

Comforting Thought: If We Want to Do Something Well – We Cannot Do It All

“Opt out of the relentless pursuit of personal optimisation of our lives. “Opt-out of picking and choosing a new partner when we get bored of the person we have been with for many years simply because we are bored.” Svend Brinkmann #quote #philosophy #psychology #consumerism

Comforting Thought A frog in a well never knows the vast ocean

There is an ancient Taoist expression that ‘A frog in a well never knows the vast ocean’. This is a reminder to be humble and to accept the world as being vast, with our own knowledge of it limited. We must never assume to have the answers to everything, but instead be humble students.

36 Questions for Creating Closeness

At many times in my #life I’ve felt like I was alone and this made me feel extremely sad and lost. However in contrast, the really best times of my life have been where I’ve bridged that gap and managed to develop a genuine and real #connection with someone and formed a meaningful #friendship or #relationship. Here are 36 questions that help to create closeness.

Comforting Thought: The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Comforting Thought: Getting Real, the Velveteen Rabbit

“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.”
— Marcus Aurelius #quote #stoic #philosophy #soul #life

Comforting Thought: James Baldwin on why art is important

If you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them too – the terms with which they are connected to other people. This has happened to every one of us, I’m sure. You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevski. This is a very great liberation for the suffering person, who always thinks that they are alone. This is why art is important. ~ James Baldwin