Seneca and Ghandi on Adversity and Civil Disobedience

Monday Meditation: 11/22/21

To get this post series started, I've highlighted the Thoughts to Ponder from this week's newsletter:

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity.  For he is not permitted to prove himself.
~ Seneca

I've talked about being civilized to death and our modern comfort crisis many times before.  Whilst I don't have the references on hand, mental health problems are more common at both ends of a U-shape-curve – occurring when there is too much struggle and not enough.  This quote is pointed at the later.  It is a strange paradox that our quality of life tends to decline when we pass a point of too much comfort – I'd also posit a lack of connection (to other people and to purpose in our life).  What's more is that in the modern / technological age we've never been more comfortable, yet we're constantly overstimulated and never actually relaxed.  Maybe the "good old days" were / can be when we're far less comfortable, but when we vacation, or even just lay down at night, we actually rest.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.
~ Mahatma Ghandi

On course with my apolitical political commentary, I'll never get tired of asserting that the personal is the political and that governments should fear their people.  I also won't let this segment get sucked into COVID (vaccine / booster mandates) as it easily could.  At any rate, humans have a "sacred duty" to honor themselves.  What does that mean?  To me it means that entities (such as "the state") can become entities quite misrepresentative of what they were designed and intended to accomplish.  So, a corrupt state requires us to differentiate between legal and ethical boundaries.  A lawless one, between moral and ethical obligations.

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Things I'm Grateful For:

• Not waiting until a national holiday to express my gratitude.

• I asked a 10 year old client this week what he was grateful for; and he said it best... "existing."

• I'm grateful for the opportunity to see deeply into people lives and allow myself to learn from them.