Uh, we are all seeking both. That is the fundamental strain of being human — the struggle between a need for novelty and a need for familiarity. We are all both tribesman and traveler — though in varied proportion. I love the traveler more in my own particular self.
What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?
I don’t, but I have a lot of strategies for being more content in the face of various situations and environments — including uncomfortable ones. These include the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing, minimalism, travel (and specifically minimalist travel to places – the less familiar the better,) and intense physical activity.
I think comfort as a major objective in life is overrated, and virtually insures a discontented life. A life in which one can be content, whatever may come along, is a happy life.
sole to cold earth: it's the only way i know the limits of this world. feet pressing into this globe are my tether to reality. any other way, and the world could stretch forever. the feel of my weight, popping to heel or ball: pronating & supinating, rolling & reaching, in dance or destruction -- feet leaving the cold earth always reorient to the planet.
We fat all creatures else to fat us and we fat ourselves for maggots… a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”
HamLet to Claudius in Act IV, Sc. 3
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Hamlet to Queen Gertrude in Act I, Sc. 5
I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Hamlet to rosencrantz & Guildenstern in Act I, sc. 2
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Polonius to claudius & gertrude in act II, sc. 2
A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
hamlet to rosencrantz in act IV, Sc. 2
Nietzsche said:
“And if thou gaze long
into an abyss,
the abyss will also
gaze into thee.”
I must admit
the first several times
that I read this quote,
I couldn’t tell if it was wise,
or just had the patina of
wisdom that comes from
parallel sentence structure.
Crisscrossing subject and object
lends a ring of sagacity.
“If you can’t take
Mohammad to the mountain,
the mountain must come to
Mohammad.”
“Ask not what your country
can do for you,
but what you can do
for your country.”
“If you can’t get the carrots
out of the refrigerator,
get the refrigerator
out of the carrots.”
Yes, that last one is nonsense,
but it’s not nonsense like:
“The banana pirouetted fuchsia
all over the underside of
an A-sharp chord.”
The carrot quote probably took
your mind some time —
if only milliseconds —
to relegate to the
trash heap.
That’s why this sentence structure
is beloved by godmen &
politicians: because you can
sound wise even if you’re
kind of an idiot.
So, I was ready to classify Nietzsche’s
quote pseudo-wisdom when I realized
that my smartphone was the Abyss,
and it was certainly staring back at me.
It stared through all the data collection &
neuroscientific and psychological
research designed to keep
a person scrolling.
Maybe Nietzsche was on to something
that even he didn't fully understand.
Depends on the context. If I’m thinking about poetry or philosophy (which I often am,) then it pertains to the early nineteenth century movement that counterpoised the Enlightenment. Those “Romantics” disliked what they saw as the cold rationality of Enlightenment thinking; they valued spiritual and mystical experiences, and they believed it was important to not throw out the spiritual “baby” with the bathwater. That is, like many Enlightenment thinkers, they realized that it was necessary to jettison many of religion’s noxious ideas (e.g. the concept of “chosen people”) and also realized that mindlessly following moral dictates that may or may not have made sense in the pre-Christian Levant could be detrimental to their present-day life experience. However, unlike most Enlightenment thinkers, they did find value in spiritual views of the world as well as in the pursuit of mystical experiences. William Blake (even though he is often labeled pre-Romantic) provides an excellent example. His poems are spiritual to the core, and yet explicitly reject a lot of the moralizing and toxic aspects of conventional religion.
Of course, that variety of “Romantic” is usually given a big-R, and so I suspect the question is after a more colloquial definition. With that in mind, I believe “romantic” means “that which facilitates the unity of two (or more, I don’t judge) people in an immersive intimate experience of each other during a common period of time.” I’m not big on trappings. I think people obsess over trappings because it allows them to slack on the physical / cognitive demands of being fully engaged. This is why sex (done well) is such a great tool both for relationship building and for personal development. It makes it relatively easy (i.e. rewarding) to stay fully engaged in a common experience and in the moment, and to not fall into the attentional abyss.
1.) Move my body often and with vigor. 2.) Eat my veggies. 3.) Rest as though it’s an essential part of the process of living (i.e. not as though it’s goofing off between “doing stuff.”) 4.) Drop anything without value, making personal development as much a process of stripping away as it is of adding to.
Feel the breeze upon your face.
Let it be all you know.
Don't ponder atmospheric lows.
Just feel the breeze upon your face,
and know:
There is a breeze.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
You have a face.
(Though it may not be
what you think it is.)
drawing by Kikuchi Yōsai
On flows the river ceaselessly, nor does its water ever stay the same.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
No one owns a splendid view, so nothing prevents the heart’s delight in it.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
Knowing what the world holds and its ways, I desire nothing from it, nor chase after its prizes. My one craving is to be at peace; my one pleasure is to live free from troubles.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
These days, I divide myself into two uses — these hands are my servants, these feet my transport.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
When I chance to go down to the capital, I am ashamed of my lowly beggar status, but once back here again I pity those who chase after the sordid rewards of the world.
Kamo no Chōmei, Hōjōki
Reference: Saigyō Hōshi, Kamo no Chōmei, Yoshida Kenkō. 2021. Three Japanese Buddhist Monks. New York: Penguin Books. 112pp.
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