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Lipton’s Journal/February 21, 1955/623: Difference between revisions
Lipton’s Journal/February 21, 1955/623 (view source)
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I truly have the feeling that my self-analysis will succeed in making me a happier more effective rebel. More effective because I’ll be less afraid, more confident of my real stature. For example, for the first time in my life, I am becoming aware of how much effect I have upon people in my personality. Until now, ridiculously, I could only understand how people acted on me—I never realized how much I stimulate, frighten, warm and chill people around me. No wonder my I-characters were always acted upon rather than acting. | I truly have the feeling that my self-analysis will succeed in making me a happier more effective rebel. More effective because I’ll be less afraid, more confident of my real stature. For example, for the first time in my life, I am becoming aware of how much effect I have upon people in my personality. Until now, ridiculously, I could only understand how people acted on me—I never realized how much I stimulate, frighten, warm and chill people around me. No wonder if my I-characters were always acted upon rather than acting. | ||
The secret to being a successful rebel is to feel in one’s bones the wisdom of the two. Most rebels—for the rebel always has a strong {{LJ:sup}}—he would be a mystic otherwise. The only way he can accommodate the discrepancies of sup and {{LJ:er}} is to dream of a better society. So most rebels think in terms of a one. They think of what they should be, how they should act, and they attempt to force themselves—they give before they are ready to give, they refuse to take unless the taking fits the arbitrary (one) scheme they have set up for themselves. | The secret to being a successful rebel is to feel in one’s bones the wisdom of the two. Most rebels—for the rebel always has a strong {{LJ:sup}}—he would be a mystic otherwise. The only way he can accommodate the discrepancies of sup and {{LJ:er}} is to dream of a better society. So most rebels think in terms of a one. They think of what they should be, how they should act, and they attempt to force themselves—they give before they are ready to give, they refuse to take unless the taking fits the arbitrary (one) scheme they have set up for themselves. | ||
These days I wander, I allow myself to follow my curiosity—I read or watch something with absorption until I am bored, and the moment I am bored, I respect the boredom, it means I have taken enough of whatever has been given | These days I wander, I allow myself to follow my curiosity—I read or watch something with absorption until I am bored, and the moment I am bored, I respect the boredom, it means I have taken enough of whatever has been given (more accurately: allowed to enter), and now I must stop trying to force it, but instead “digest,” really take. So, from now on, so far as is possible, given the exigencies of outer life I am going to do what my body dictates. When I feel like exercising and not before, I will exercise; when I feel like staying up, I will stay up instead of trying to force sleep upon myself. My insomnia which used to be anxious, depressed and miserable, has been different the past few months—I do not sleep because I feel too active, my mind is too active, I am too full of life. Hence, I resent deeply forcing system upon myself. For insomnia like everything else is a double or more. The child’s insomnia—or rather its refusal to go to bed—is a legitimate expression of its taste for life, and within reason (outer social exigency) one should not suppress it. | ||
On the business of sleep one does well to obey that too. If one cannot sleep long enough (to fit the idea of the scheme) one should get up. If one can sleep longer—as indeed I can—one should, and then work longer. From now on, I will try to ease myself from the tyranny of the eight hours. There are times when I need no more than six hours of sleep or even four; there are other times when I must have ten. So be it. | On the business of sleep one does well to obey that too. If one cannot sleep long enough (to fit the idea of the scheme) one should get up. If one can sleep longer—as indeed I can—one should, and then work longer. From now on, I will try to ease myself from the tyranny of the eight hours. There are times when I need no more than six hours of sleep or even four; there are other times when I must have ten. So be it. | ||