We do not change ourselves by adding to ourselves. More money? More possessions? More experiences? Accumulation prevents what we imagine it facilitates. Real change is radical subtraction, a letting go, swift and sudden.
Hey there! Buddy, speaking! Yessir, your ego! Your pleasure-seeking pain-avoiding wired-for-business hyper viper! Yes, it’s me! Me as you! The voice in your head that never shuts up! That likes and dislikes, desires and fears, judges and labels, worries and wonders, remembers and imagines, plans and organizes, reacts and repeats?! So times a-wastin’, dude! Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er!
Will the last person to leave the church please turn out the lights.
Men speak often of pleasure, seldom of joy. Pleasure is somewhere and something; joy is nowhere and nothing. Pleasure is planned, imagined, curated; joy is spontaneous, uncontrolled and now. Something else: Pleasure has an end. That’s where pain is.
Our desires are narrow, specific, repetitive and opportunistic. We conform to them, not they to us. There’s no benignity in a desire. After a while we start to look like what we want.
Men's Work 