'As the old Zen proverb tells us: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. Even spiritual enlightenment can't eliminate life's tedious tasks. The tasks always remain the same. What changes is the attitude taken toward these tasks. And the mindful presence with which they are quite deliberately performed. In our efforts to avoid anger, pain, boredom or anxiety, we avoid being fully present in the moment. But this avoidance of what we feel in the present actually exacerbates symptoms and diminishes our quality of life. When we ignore, reject or remain unconscious of our inner child, he or she is unhappy, resentful and influences our lives in negative and significant ways. But becoming conscious of and better relating to this same sad, neglected inner child can turn this all around. Once they can conceptualize the problem in terms of a conflict between the little one within and the often underdeveloped or absentee adult self, some reconciliation, negotiation and cooperation between the two can be established. Then the adult self can deal with adult things, and the valuable and lovable inner child, no longer needing to be in control of the personality or trying to do adult things it cannot, can happily contribute to our playfulness, creativity and innate capacity for wonder, awe and joy. The secret is to spend some quality time each day together, much like a good parent does with their outer child.'

'Mental health is not defined by the absence of anxiety. The experience of anxiety is universal. No one is immune to it. Anxiety is an inevitable part of the human condition. Chronically avoiding or repressing existential anxiety gives rise to neurotic or pathological anxiety, such as phobias and panic attacks. The secret to dealing positively with anxiety is to accept it, tolerate it, listen to its message, and learn to channel it's immense energy constructively. Anxiety can, when correctly utilized, motivate, energize, invigorate and vitalize. And it is closely connected with creativity of all kinds. As philosopher Soren Kierkegaard recognized, "Anxiety is our greatest teacher." He also called anxiety "the dizziness of freedom." The trick is first to transform your negative attitude toward anxiety. To normalize rather than pathologize it. To welcome rather than run from it. To, whenever practically possible, tolerate rather than medicate it. To embrace rather than escape from it. To try to understand rather than dismiss out of hand its psychobiological, spiritual and existential significance. -- When the daimonic is habitually denied, it becomes more negative and dangerous. But when we acknowledge its presence and reality, it can be the life-giving source of energy, strength, power, spirituality and creativity. This can be said of the unconscious in general. So it is vitally important to learn to listen to one's unconscious carefully, and to what it has to say about what's happening in the psyche now and what needs to happen if the future, both inwardly and outwardly.'

"Everyone who is alive wants to see freedom in their own lifetime. YOU will never be free. This is a multi-generational project. And people don't want to face that." -- 'How statism helps people manage their anxieties.' -- "And this is the sad distorted mirror of statism. People do care about the poor. And the state takes that and inflicts a false and violent mythology of 'solutions' upon the poor. So here's the horrible irony that goes on in people's minds... the very act of imagining that state solutions are helping the poor – which you believe in order to manage your own anxiety about the poor – is itself an exploitation of the poor. Your concern for the poor is manipulated. And your fear that the poor will be exploited is turned into you exploiting the poor. So the question: what to do about the poor – creates anxiety in people. 'The existence of poverty makes me anxious. So what am I going to work to get rid of – poverty? No! My anxiety!'"

'#Level 1: Pathological (delusional projection, denial, distortion, splitting) #Level 2: Immature (acting out, fantasy, idealization, passive aggression, projection, projective identification, somatization) #Level 3: Neurotic (displacement, dissociation, hypochondriasis, intellectualization, isolation, rationalization, reaction formation, repression, regression, undoing) #Level 4: Mature (altruism, anticipation, humour, identification, introjection, sublimation, thought suppression)'

'After extinction, the fear memory is merely suppressed, not erased, and therefore these memories could resurface under certain conditions, such as unrelated stress. In some cases, the re-emergence of the emotional memory is maladaptive, leading to anxiety disorders. While researchers have traditionally seen long-term memory as fixed and resistant, it is now becoming clear that memory is, in fact, dynamic and flexible. As a result, the act of remembering makes the memory vulnerable until it is stored again-a process called reconsolidation. During this instability period, new information could be incorporated into the old memory.'

'"Zoloft is most commonly prescribed for the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders, but it would be ridiculous to limit such a multi-functional drug to these few uses," Pfizer spokesman Jon Pugh said. "We feel doctors need to stop asking their patients if anything is wrong and start asking if anything could be more right." -- In today's fast-paced world, Vernon said, people don't have time to deal with mood changes. "Zoloft has always helped clinically depressed people modulate serotonin levels and other chemical imbalances that make life unlivable for them," Vernon said. "But now, Zoloft can also help anyone who needs their emotions leveled off. Do you find yourself feeling excited or sad? No one should have to suffer through those harrowing peaks and valleys."' -- One pill to rule them all

'Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking. If there are no gaps there is no emotion. Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/language) for emotion. When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/industrial/financial/fast visuals/fast words) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing. There comes a time when there are almost no gaps. People become incapable of experiencing/tolerating gaps. Emotion ends. Man becomes machine. -- #A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression/Anxiety. #A (travelling) society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression/Anxiety. #A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression/Anxiety.' -- So true.

Sherry Turkle: '“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be. Texting hits directly at both those jobs.” Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”As for peace and quiet, she said, “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind. “If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.”'

'Ecclesiastes: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." -- Carl Jung, said, "We live not only our own lives but, whether we know it or not, also the life of our time." We are actors in a moment of history, taking part in it, moving it this way or that as we move forward or back. The moment we are living now is a strange one, a disquieting one, a time that seems full of endings. Too bad there's no pill for that.' -- Red Pills. And lots of 'em.

'There is a behavioral connection between the unconsciously “for show” lives of those living in glass condos and the consciously “for show” lives of those spending more and more of their time online, where domestic activities are recorded in achingly specific detail. The result is a cultural confusion about private and public.' --- Sherry Turkle: “There is real confusion about intimacy and solitude. Are we alone in these buildings, facing the anonymity of the city, or are we connected to the city? What do we show and what do we hide? That mirrors what happens when we’re on the computer, on our networks in Facebook. We are no longer able to distinguish when we are together and nurtured and when we are alone and isolated. I can be in intimate contact with 300 people on e-mail, but when I look up from my computer I feel bereft. I haven’t heard a voice, touched a hand, for hours or days. I think people are no longer certain where the self resides.”