13. 5 images, 5 texts

  1. The process is like the universe that bursted from ‘Let there be light’, which makes the designer a deistic god who has the first and the last say but otherwise remains more or less indifferent and leaves the world to itself.
  2. ‘Because our well-being is tied to understanding, we begin to story our world, we make a story an active process. Our stories are our provisional interpretations of what is going on and what it might mean to us.’ (from ‘A Life of Meaning’ by James Hollis)
  3. There is a big gap between who we think we are and who we actually are, a tension between self-imposed limitations and the real potential. As we try to define ourselves in narratives, we cling to an illusion that we actually are definable – that our intellect can grasp our nature.
  4. But what’s more interesting here, is the etymology of the term [eudaimonia], combining ‘eu’ (‘good, well’) with ‘daimõn’ (‘spirit’), which refers to old beliefs that one goes through life accompanied by a spirit impersonating what we would call today ‘the best version of oneself’, and that suggests a collective sense of presence of not quite tangible reality that could be, of potential scenarios encompassing each living being that comes into this world.
  5. One of the most effective ways to remember a long number, for example, is building a scenario based on a chain of associations with each digit. The more specific, in terms of setting time and place, and the stronger emotions connected with it (both positive and negative), the better.