Pablo Picasso, 1937, Weeping Woman
Mind, Virtue

Our Emotions Are Ours to Control

When emotions take over, they tend to make us slightly pitiful around the edges. We need to develop a parent to control the toddler. Quotes from Wilde, Nietzsche & more.

Caravaggio, 1597-99, Narcissus
Circumstance, Meaning

Get out of Your Own Way

Get out of your own way. Once the obstruction is released there is life that will flow. And this is the truth. Life still exists beyond what hinders us. With quotes from Tolstoy, Descartes, Schuller & Seneca.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch, 1806, Bilderbuch für Kinder
Circumstance

A Note to the Wounded

And to the wounded- there will be further battles, but we shouldn’t live in fear of returning to the trenches. Quotes from Aristotle, Keats, Lewis & Chapin.

Osmar Schindler, 1888, "David und Goliath". Colour lithograph
Meaning, Virtue

The Function of Fear

Fear offers us a very plain choice; be courageous or be a coward. A hero or a reprobate. With quotes from Michel de Montaigne, Seneca, George R.R. Martin & William Shakespeare.

Gustave Dore, 1855-1861, Dante’s The Divine Comedy-Inferno, Canto XXXIV
Meaning, Virtue

Self-Deception: A Trip to the Underworld (2/3)

We don’t want to venture down there and face the damage we have caused. The alternative however, is more devastation every time the truth comes knocking; and it will keep coming. So, we muster every ounce of courage we have left, open the hatch door, and delve underground.

John Singer Sargent, 1919, Synagogue, Boston Public Library
Meaning, Virtue

Self-Deception- A Fragile Fantasy (1/3)

Even though we may think the ‘reality’ we have built is solid, when it holds no truth, it is under constant danger of collapsing. One cracked brick is no big deal, but if every brick we use is cracked, we end up with a completely unstable structure.