- “Meditation, in contrast, is the accidental moments of actual harmony that arrive anyway when you are trying to get something, even in trying to get harmony or calm. This often happens outside of the intention to meditate, and most people access the beginnings of this through other events, such as walking, working, athletic activities, or transitional moments, such as between waking and sleeping. The effect, in brief, is one of harmony and well-being, from which other insights or intuitive glimpses can naturally emerge. The moment you notice this, the meditation is over.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “Historically, techniques to attain altered states of consciousness, usually called meditation, or sometimes prayer, actually involve various forms of concentration, the first level of this kind of internal work. The linear scale of progression is Concentration, then Meditation, and finally Contemplation. Virtually all categories of meditation are, in actuality, forms of concentration. What makes them so are the innate “goals” or ambitions attached to them: to achieve a state or to acquire something, like relaxation, insight or “advancement.” This then constructs a dichotomy, or dualism, between the pursuer and the thing pursued. That is, you are conscious of or believe in something “better,” you are separate from it, and there is effort to attain it.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “If you are “playing” too much or “working” too much, you will have a reaction on the other side, which indicates your pace is off, too slow or too fast.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “The nature of yearning is urgent so as to guarantee evolution, change.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” ― Walt Disney
- “True strength. There is no conflict with vulnerability or humility. Indeed, vulnerability and humility are essential here, and ultimately what makes strength true. One does not don the mask of strength in response to fear, which is a con, like those crazy small reptiles that stand up on their hind legs and spread useless wings to intimidate as a last resort. You stand there in self-respect for Christ’s sake and take it with some courage, responding in accordance with your honest values, taking sincere responsibility for them. Stand up for who you truly are, not the image you would like to sell, nor shrink to fit into the false harmony around you.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Curiosity fuels creativity, reduces confirmation bias, and prevents stereotyping. But the more we emphasize efficiency, the less curious people become. To promote a culture of curiosity, make time to ask “What if?” and “How might we?” Adam Grant
- “I look at the idea of rest as rotating one’s qualitative focus, not just doing less or changing activity. The role of rest is recovery. If you keep pushing the same quality button (fast or slow, concentrated or dispersed, hard-working or lazy…) for the same component all the time, of course it’s going to become depleted, just like if you keep working a single muscle in the same fashion or don’t use it at all.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. Richard Feynman
- “Freedom and responsibility themselves are at stake. One does not find freedom or enact responsibility by surrendering to another’s conceptualization of these ideas. Living out the rules of conscience laid down by someone else for the attainment of an unquestioned goal, a freedom designed and articulated by someone else, is the surrender of human imagination and intuition.In the more extreme versions of this, we end up with a collective momentum resulting in events such as Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, the Inquisition, or similar events recently in Africa and elsewhere. That comes from allocating one’s conscience to someone else, not attending to one’s own deeper intuitive sense of right and wrong.” ― Darrell Calkins
- “Resolution of conflicting interests within each of us—the desire to fulfill a personal purpose versus the desire to forget about it and just go have fun, for example—takes time and focus and application of a lot of qualities, like playing a difficult piece of music with two hands on the piano. Many people are looking for a simple pill to make that apparent dichotomy go away. Once they discover it doesn’t exist, it’s very frustrating.” ― Darrell Calkins
- Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. Blaise Pascal (See also: humility quotes)
- “The essential dynamic underlying almost every elite and esoteric physical art is work with the breath, so there’s information available. I would only add that it’s unfortunate that so much work is done with it, and not much play. Laughter has got to be the single healthiest activity one can perform. Just think how healthy you would be if you could sincerely laugh at that which now oppresses you. I’ve mentioned before that one good measure of someone’s depth of spirituality is how long it takes before they become offended. Imagine laughing hysterically at the criticisms, complaints and impositions you receive. At the least, you’d be breathing well.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Intellectual curiosity is a superpower. Anthony Pompliano
- “We men are fascinated by the things we don’t really understand. It gives us something to think and talk about: like females, they drive us nuts.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy
- “A balanced diet” is not so much about protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. The real ratios to consider, at least for the typical American or European, are energy consumption/expenditure, pleasure/actual need, food/everything else.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- “One could make a nice link between imagination and spirit. To make that link, all we need is some inspiration. Essentially, imagination has the innate potential to compel or inspire and to set in motion causation. That’s why it exists.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Intellectually curious people — people who are capable of learning throughout their career, of asking questions (good questions), of adapting and collaborating with others from different disciplines; people who are capable of really thriving in this world of non-routine work, in other words — are the people who are going to do better. Georgina Venning
- “Nothing stands still, even if it looks as though it does. Look at a light in the room you are in right now. It appears to be stationary, while the fact is that millions of rays are moving towards you at the speed of light (299,792,458 kilometres per second). Even in every “inanimate” object, particles are moving rapidly and constantly. Nothing within or outside of you remains completely still.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Read to satisfy your own natural curiosity, not to impress or accomplish. Naval Ravikant
- “The typical image of a depressed, lazy and tired person is someone hunched over and inert. Often, the assumption is that if one had more enthusiasm and inspiration, he would then stand up straight and move. In many cases, this equation is backward. But, as with everything related to one’s physicality, balance is the key. An overly erect and rigid posture may convey confidence and power to some, but it also causes a subtle accumulation of tension and rigidity on various levels, including psychological and emotional.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why. Bernard Baruch
- “You have everything already inside you necessary for the true response to any challenge you will meet. Usually, it’s just a question of assembling some elements in a way that you didn’t think to do before (which brings us to intuition…).” ― Darrell Calkins, Re:
- Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form. Vladimir Nabokov
- “In my work, I try to create situations in which we take ideas, information, experiences and qualities to a pragmatic arena. Then within those, to relearn or experiment with how we respond to internal and external variables. There’s no point to understanding something but remaining incapable of applying it. I think real knowledge and understanding is experiential, and the easiest way to access those is through our physical being.” ― Darrell Calkins
- “All places that the eye of heaven visits are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; there is no virtue like necessity.” ― William Shakespeare, Richard II
- If knowledge is power, then curiosity is the muscle. Danielle LaPorte
- “The purest definition of “religious” is: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality.” ― Darrell Calkins
- There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe. Friedrich Nietzsche
- “People generally believe that stress is responsible for depletion, but apathy and uninspired systematic repetition are equally responsible. Or rather, systematic repetition produces as much or more stress and anxiety as anything else.” ― Darrell Calkins, Re: