![It allows us, for one thing, to engage in a bit of what I consider… if you wanted to sum up the wisdom of the east, you know, Oriental wisdom in just one sentence, it might be something like “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. I mean, there was a real well known Buddhist who told me “I can sum up the dao and the gita; all of that for you quickly… It’s this: Don’t sweat the small stuff. You westerners, you spend all your time sweating the small stuff…” Heidegger here says “Look, if you really internalise as a part of your self story that you too will be dead, gone, nothing, that that will be a freeing and liberating experience, but you have to be able to like… “work through it”, as it were, to use a psychoanalytic phrase “To work through it”.
Well what does it allow us to escape from? Well I actually have to say that this moment in existentialism has certainly been good for me, I think. It’s been a healthy thing for me. It cut short therapy, I went to a therapist once, I went three times, and on the third visit I went “Oh by the way I have a question. Why are we born to suffer and die?” and she went [unintelligible mumble], and that was the end of therapy for me. I figured that if she couldn’t help me with my fundamental problem, she wasn’t going to do much good on the trivial problems. I mean, I had a big problem: why are we born to suffer and die? She just went [utter nonsense]… she just went “Well I can write you a prescription for some Valium”, and I said “No thanks, I drink, I don’t need it” [crowd laughter] I belong to a large club; I am a drunkard… no, anyway…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rwyn2e7jpkbhgnmruwj5tqoq/bafkreieaugvqqmbqomozbpd2vcuk3qhiiyhf6bopnadp6jnji3g3jm5jny)
It allows us, for one thing, to engage in a bit of what I consider… if you wanted to sum up the wisdom of the east, you know, Oriental wisdom in just one sentence, it might be something like “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. I mean, there was a real well known Buddhist who told me “I can sum up the dao and the gita; all of that for you quickly… It’s this: Don’t sweat the small stuff. You westerners, you spend all your time sweating the small stuff…” Heidegger here says “Look, if you really internalise as a part of your self story that you too will be dead, gone, nothing, that that will be a freeing and liberating experience, but you have to be able to like… “work through it”, as it were, to use a psychoanalytic phrase “To work through it”. Well what does it allow us to escape from? Well I actually have to say that this moment in existentialism has certainly been good for me, I think. It’s been a healthy thing for me. It cut short therapy, I went to a therapist once, I went three times, and on the third visit I went “Oh by the way I have a question. Why are we born to suffer and die?” and she went [unintelligible mumble], and that was the end of therapy for me. I figured that if she couldn’t help me with my fundamental problem, she wasn’t going to do much good on the trivial problems. I mean, I had a big problem: why are we born to suffer and die? She just went [utter nonsense]… she just went “Well I can write you a prescription for some Valium”, and I said “No thanks, I drink, I don’t need it” [crowd laughter] I belong to a large club; I am a drunkard… no, anyway…
"It’s been a healthy thing for me. It cut short therapy, I went to a therapist once, I went three times, and on the third visit I went “Oh by the way I have a question. Why are we born to suffer and die?” and she went" - Rick Roderick, 1993
#FWakeHateItself /\ #FWakeTherapy