Are we human sticky buns, glue-meisters clinging to persons, possessions and relationships? Trouble that way lies. Not that persons, possessions and relationships are inherently troublesome. Not at all. But stickiness? That’s the devil.
There are 300,000 items in the average American home, which itself is three times bigger than it was 50 years ago. We’re drunk on non-essentials, on what matters least, oblivious to what’s necessary.
To break our attachment to our thoughts, we should not engage with them. What’s required is that we cultivate a certain aloofness, a majestic indifferency to their false urgency and howls for attention.
Our thoughts and feelings are completely unbidden. We don’t say, ‘Now I’m going to worry for 20 minutes,’ and then do just that. Our thoughts and feelings cannot be controlled. They happen to us. And then something untoward occurs. We get attached to them.
Why on earth are humans in this predicament? Same as always—selfishness, mainly.
Men's Work 