The time had come for St. Peter's annual two-week vacation, and Jesus offered to fill in for him at the Pearly Gates while he was gone. "It's quite easy, actually," said Peter."You sit at the registration desk, and when a person arrives, you inquire about his...
If society is corrupt, but not the individuals within it, then where did the corruption originate? How is it propagated? It’s a one-sided, deeply ideological theory. Even more problematic is the insistence logically stemming from this presumption of social corruption that all individual problems, no matter how...
Recently, I watched a three-year-old boy trail his mother and father slowly through a crowded airport. He was screaming violently at five-second intervals—and, more important, he was doing it voluntarily. He wasn’t at the end of this tether. As a parent, I could tell from the tone. He...
In ancient times, a king of Tartary was out walking with some of his noblemen. At the roadside was an abdal (a wandering Sufi), who cried out: “Whoever will give me a hundred dinars, I will give him some good advice.” The king stopped, and said:...
The ancient Masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it; all we can describe is their appearance. They were careful as someone crossing an iced-over stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapable as a block of...
Thirst for revenge is the most important source of ressentiment. As we have seen, the very term “ressentiment” indicates that we have to do with reactions which presuppose the previous apprehension of another person‟s state of mind. The desire for revenge—in contrast with all active and aggressive impulses, be they...
Whether or not they are frequent or intense enough to be harmful, the world is full of provocations. The only part of this scenario you can reliably control is your response. How you respond to proffered offenses depends on your experience of life as well as your attitudes and...
The IYI subscribes to The New Yorker, a journal designed so philistines can learn to fake a conversation about evolution, neurosomething, cognitive biases, and quantum mechanics. He never curses on social media. He speaks of “equality of races” and “economic equality,” but never goes out drinking with a...
How will the world look in fifty years? What will your everyday life be like? With which items will you surround yourself? People who pondered this question fifty years ago had fanciful notions of how ‘the future’ would look: highways in the skies. Cities that...
Whenever there is joy, you feel that it is coming from without. You have met a friend: of course, it appears that the joy is coming from your friend, from seeing him. That is not the actual case. The joy is always within you. The friend...
