There has always been a part of me that saw wilderness and risk-taking as the path to freedom. Sam Keen More Quotes by Sam Keen More Quotes From Sam Keen Wise people are able to give themselves gracefully to seemingly contradictory experiences, because they know that they belong to different seasons of life, all of which are necessary to the whole. Spring and winter, growth and decay, creativity and fallowness, health and sickness, power and impotence, and life and death all belong within the economy of being. Sam Keen wisdomwisespring If we had a better understanding of the ways we think about enemies, we might be able to think of more rational ways of settling conflict. Sam Keen understandingherothinking The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder. Sam Keen lovemenideas In the beginning, we create the enemy. Before the weapon comes the image. We think others to death and then invent the battle-axe or ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them. Propaganda precedes technology. Sam Keen technologyenemythinking You can know what's in your life when you know what's in your heart. Sam Keen knowsheart The traditional gender ideals of the strong-silent man who plays his cards close to his chest and the mysterious woman who disguises her feelings with coyness go so far as to make a virtue of being unavailable and secretive. But wholehearted intimacy can develop only where two people are equally forthcoming and self-revelatory. To take the risk of loving, we must become vulnerable enough to test the radical proposition that knowledge of another and self-revelation will ultimately increase rather than decrease love. It is an awe-ful risk. Sam Keen strongmentwo Good men and good women have fire in the belly. We are fierce. Don't mess with us if you're looking for someone who will always be 'nice' to you. Nice gets you a C+ in life. We don't always smile, talk in a soft voice, or engage in indiscriminate hugs. In the loving struggle between the sexes we thrust and parry. Sam Keen nicestrugglesex We all yearn to fly. We are creatures of longing. We do not need to [physically fly] to be airborne. What I call the aerial instinct-the drive to transcend our present condition- is the defining characteristic of a human being. We are restless animals, eternal travelers who are forever in the process of becoming. Consciousness itself is a flight from the here and now to the beyond. Our reach always exceeds our grasp, which is what Heaven is for. Sam Keen foreveranimalheaven We can only choose whether we will feel and not what we will feel. Sam Keen feels A society in which vocation and job are separated for most people gradually creates an economy that is often devoid of spirit, one that frequently fills our pocketbooks at the cost of emptying our souls. Sam Keen souljobspeople The lover heals the world not by a vague and abstract love for everybody and everything, but by becoming passionate and vowing fidelity to concrete relationships, persons, institutions, and places. Sam Keen becominghealinglove The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous - large souled. Sam Keen gratitudeproducespiritual The telling of your stories is a revolutionary act. Sam Keen revolutionarystories Consensual paranoia - the pathology of the normal person who is a member of a war-justifying society - forms the template from which all the images of the enemy are created. By studying the logic of paranoia, we can see why certain archetypes of the enemy must necessarily recur, no matter what the historical circumstances. Sam Keen historicalwarenemy Without reverence we [people] will gradually descend into ecocide. In the degree that the imperatives of the market - the temple of the Mall - govern our lives, we are in escalating danger of destroying the commonwealth of all sentient beings - bugs and bees and buntings - on which we depend for a luxurious life on planet earth. Sam Keen buntingdegreespeople To really love a person completely is to come to a point where your stories are intertwined. Sam Keen intertwinedpersonsstories The abyss beyond our beliefs is something we have to pass through in order to see the world anew, to see it in terms not dictated so much by our culture, our parents, or our religious convictions. Sam Keen parentreligiousorder It's perfectly possible to spend forty hours a week on a job that's meaningless, as long as you know what your real vocation is and find some way to express it. Then you won't confuse your job with the meaning of your life. Sam Keen realjobslong Every time I come across a rattlesnake on my farm I initially react in fear and am tempted to kill it. Then I realize I wouldn't want to live in a world where all wild things - without and within - are domesticated. Sam Keen realizingwantworld I think we're inevitably going to be depressed when we focus the major part of our energy and attention on something that doesn't give us meaning, only material things. Sam Keen focusgivingthinking
