The Pearl: Love, Death, and Abstinence
Written by Martin Vidal | 08/08/2021
Food for Thought:
This article discusses what, to me, is the only real tragedy in dying: being separated forever from the people we love. At times I’ve found this thought too overwhelming to contend with. When you look at the people you love, it seems an unbearable cruelty to internalize that someday you will absolutely have to part from them for all eternity. We all recognize that life is short, but we rarely discuss how short love is because of it. I wish I could love the people I love forever and ever, and this article is a brief discussion of that.
Read it here.
Personal Development:
One of the most useful tools I’ve ever come across for becoming disciplined has many names. It has been variously called “lapse-activated pattern,” “abstinence violations,” and “what-the-hell effect.” It’s what psychologists consider one of the “seven deadly threats to self-regulation.” The what-the-hell effect is when you break a rule you’ve set for yourself, using the excuse that it’ll only be a one-time thing, but it results in a pattern of breaking from the rule. For example, you say you’re going to exercise every day, but then one day you’re feeling lazy, and think to yourself, What the hell, one day won’t hurt, I’ll just take today off. However, the what-the-hell effect tells us that a few days later you’re likely to take another day off, and then another, and eventually the whole system will break down.
For me, when dieting, exercising, or working on a project, the weight of my record is a strong motivator. Once I go two weeks without missing any days, I feel like I can go forever because breaking from it once will mean I’ll end my streak of discipline. I once went two months exercising every day and only eating half my normal calories using this technique. I also went a year and 6 months without drinking any alcohol, and years without drinking any carbonated drinks, by employing this method.
If you want to get disciplined, consider that first week or two the shaky period, when you have to exert the most willpower to stay on track. After that, put the weight of your progress on any single deviation, and you’ll find that the feeling of being so invested will serve as a strong motivator for sticking the course.
For more content like this, see The Ambition Handbook: A Guide for Ambitious Persons.
Book Quotes:
“Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.” (p. 84)
“For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.” (p. 106-107)
“The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.” (p. 208)
“But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls.” (p. 235)
“There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.” (p. 422)
You can find the full book here.
A Song I Love:
By the Time You’ve Finished Your Coffee
Korantemaa’s “By the Time You’ve Finished Your Coffee” is a masterpiece. The musicality and lyrics blend into an atmosphere that is full of sadness, longing, and an almost forbidding significance. The slow melody and texture of her voice create a sense of intimacy that feels like you’ve snuck in somewhere you weren’t allowed—as if you’re violating a person’s privacy—but what you’re hearing is too compelling to pull yourself from. Lines like “I wish that time was solid/ so I could give it to you now,” “I wish I could hear your silence,” and “Cause you are gold to me/ a piece of art to me,” capture exactly what it feels like to be hurt by love. Her references to “sippin’ on coffee” and “puttin’ on your headphones” provide detailed focal points to create an image and point of resonance between artist and listener. The song is beautiful, gripping, and virtuosic. Enjoy.
Listen to it here.
A Tiny Thought:
Passion knows no direction; it gives us pain just as readily as pleasure.
Until next week,
Martin Vidal
Author of The Ambition Handbook and Flower Garden
Website: www.martinvidal.co