literature quotes

When anxiety is present, it can cause me to take actions that are not only unnecessary but also harmful. The harm can be as simple as being distracted from treating myself and others with compassion. My attention is taken from me and given instead to the signal of danger that is threatening my attachment.

I cannot escape from anxiety simply by forcing myself to ignore the signal that I'm perceiving. In fact, I must see it, for it is by seeing that it becomes possible for me to respond from awareness.

His fear is so nebulous and vague that he cannot possibly grasp it, let alone confront it. Roughly it's a fear about what he is and what he isn't. About the person he probably should be but cannot seem to actually be. About what would happen to him if he tried to be this other self. About how his life would change and things would become even more uncertain than they already are.

As your interactions with others gradually cease, you stop participating in their shared reality, which means the norms and truths of that reality stop applying to you. Even the natural world, which seems to impose certain conditions on your existence, can be mostly avoided or at least mitigated through technologies that allow you to separate yourself from nature. When all of your basic needs can be met without interacting with anyone, then your isolation has become total. Your new world has a population of one, and its form is whatever you give it.