**The penguin… ** It went viral because it hit several very deep psychological points. Because animals let us talk about ourselves without ego defense. Most viral content today is driven by sparking outrage. The penguin felt so calming, a feeling - “I don’t know where I’m going. I just know it’s not there.” Existentialism. Meaning isn’t discovered by following the “correct” path; it’s created by choosing despite absurdity. For those that built identity on achieving. For those that reached milestones, and found it left them feeling empty. Water in Jungian symbolism almost always represents the unconscious; the ocean, specifically, is the collective unconscious. The penguin’s colony lives here. The ego must separate from the collective psyche or it never becomes itself.
Things I found this week…
- Men play chess on Tsvetnoy Boulevard during heavy snowfall, Moscow, RSFSR, 1956
- Via @nickcammarata - i hate how well asking myself “if i had 10x the agency i have what would i do” works
- Kierkegaard’s prose, Either/or
- Joseph pilates on the connection between physical neglect and moral decay:
Science can at one and the same time eliminate poverty, ill health and unhappiness, if it will but investigate all and not confine itself only to matters close at hand and make bold to venture far beyond the horizon of its present narrow circle of orthodox activity. I appeal to the intelligent to put an end to the old system and to exploit my scientific system of acquiring and maintaining health. As civilization advances, we should find the need for prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals growing steadily less and less. But do we find this to be the case in this era? Certainly not! Teach the human race to care properly for itself and you will do away with these abominable institutions. What a sad commentary upon our civilization to know that this deplorable “plague” can be annihilated if properly handled, and how criminal it is to think that the “cure” is offered but not accepted because of petty politics and jealousies! Why boast of this age of science and invention that has produced so many marvelous wonders when, in the final analysis, we find that man has in the race for material progress and perfection, entirely overlooked the most complex and marvelous of all Creations — Man himself! Were man to devote as much time and energy to himself as he has devoted to that which man has produced, what astounding and almost unbelievable progress would be made; a progress eclipsing all he has so far successfully accomplished, miraculous as that is! Just think that over, my friends. Man should bear in mind and ponder over the Greek admonition — “Not Too Much, Not Too Little.”
Man’s neglect of himself is destructive of his physical and mental efficiency and tends toward the gradual and progressive weakening of his morale with resulting ever-increasing dishonesty, immorality, loss of all true perspective of his responsibilities to himself and to his fellow man, with corresponding loss of idealism and ethical culture. Those are not mere words — they are facts. Is civilization responsible for man’s present-day physical and mental condition? This question is not so difficult to answer if we but try to see with the eyes of the Creator. Granting that modern science and civilization do not materially benefit the savage from the standpoint of improving his mental capacity, still, at least, he is not harmed or “crippled” from the standpoint of his physical development. This fact can be quickly demonstrated by comparing the physical condition of an average “civilized” man with the physical condition of an average savage.
- Your Health, Joseph Pilates