EXCERPTS
Ask yourself: "Am I ready to stop equating cynicism with
insight? Do I dare take the risk that exposing myself to uplifting
entertainment might dull my intelligence?" If you doubt
your ability to handle relaxing breakthroughs, you should stop
reading now.
Science: looking for a black cat in a dark room. Philosophy:
looking for a black cat in a dark room where there is no black
cat. Psychoanalysis: looking for a black cat in a dark room
where there is no black cat—and finding it. Beauty and
Truth Laboratory: looking for a black cat in a dark room and
finding it.
Try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy
targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart,
true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be
specific to the person you’re addressing.
Once the full impact of Einstein's theory of relativity became
clear, an admiring journalist interviewed him about the process
by which he'd arrived at the revolutionary breakthrough. "How
did you do it?" the journalist asked. "I ignored an
axiom," Einstein replied.
When Columbus's ships first appeared on the horizon, the Arawaks
on the island of Guanahaní saw them as floating monsters.
They didn't have the conceptual framework to know them for what
they literally were. You can't perceive what you can't conceive.
Those who explore pronoia often find they have a growing capacity
to help people laugh at themselves. While few arbiters of morality
recognize this skill as a mark of high character, I put it near
the top of my list. In my view, inducing people to take themselves
less seriously is a supreme virtue. Do you have any interest
in cultivating it? How might you go about it?
Curiosity is our primal state of awareness. Wise innocence
is a trick we aspire to master. Open-hearted skepticism is the
light in our eyes. (p. 166)
Meditate on the theory that maybe you unconsciously don't want
to give up your dilemma because it prevents you from reaching
lofty goals you're too afraid or timid or lazy to strive for.
(p. 123)
