What I’ve Been Reading

As we get older, however, we have to present to the world a consistent identity. We have to play certain roles and live up to certain expectations. We have to trim and lop off natural qualities. Boys lose their rich range of emotions and in the struggle to get ahead, repress their natural empathy. Girls have to sacrifice their assertive sides. They are supposed to be nice, smiling, deferential, always considering other people’s feelings before their own. A woman can be a boss, but she must be tender and pliant, never too aggressive.

In this process, we become less and less dimensional; we conform to the expected roles of our culture and time period. We lose valuable and rich parts to our character. 

Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene.

I was expecting lots of repetition from his older books but I was wrong. This is treasure trove to be savored life long. I cannot even being to quote from this brilliant work.

Thank you Mr. Greene; only you can research extensively and write chapters like “Know Your Limits” and “Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You”.

Confront Your Dark Side:
We can never alter human nature through enforced niceness. The pitchfork doesn’t work. Nor is the solution to seek release for our Shadow in the group, which is volatile and dangerous. Instead the answer is to see our Shadow in action and become more self-aware. It is hard to project onto others our own secret impulses or over idealize some cause, once we are made aware of the mechanism operating within us. Through such self-knowledge we can find a way to integrate the dark side into our consciousness productively and creatively. In doing so we become more authentic and complete, exploiting to the maximum the energies we naturally process. 

See Through People’s Masks:
You must understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing and the wearing masks so essential to smooth social functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill attracting attention, dominating the limelight and making yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself into a master decoder for their true feelings, working on your observation skills and practicing them as much as you can in daily life. 

Know Your Limits: 
The greatest protection you have against grandiosity is to maintain a realistic attitude. You know what subjects and activities you are naturally attracted to. You cannot be skilled at everything. You need to play to your strengths and not imagine you can be great at whatever you put your mind to. You must have a solid grasp of your social position - your allies, the people with whom you have the greatest rapport, the natural audience for your work. You cannot please everyone. 

Beware The Fragile Ego:
Finally, it is worth cultivating moments in life in which we feel immense satisfaction and happiness divorced from our success or achievements. This happens commonly when we find ourselves in a beautiful landscape - the mountains, the sea, a forest. We do not feel the prying, comparing eyes to others, the need to have move attention or to assert ourselves. We simply in awe of what we see, and it is intensely therapeutic. This can also occur when we contemplate the immensity of the universe, the uncanny set of circumstances that had come together for us to be born, the vast reaches of time before us and after us. These are sublime moments, and as far removed from the pettiness and poisons of envy as possible