John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
The Deception: The Ultimate Dream (p. 79)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
On her appearance on Bravo’s television show Work of Art in “INSIDE THE ARTIST’S STUDIO: NAO BUSTAMANTE” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/nao-bustamante-work-of-art-bravo in Interview Magazine (2010 Jun 11)
John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
The Deception: The Ultimate Dream (p. 79)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: If you are a mountain climber or someone who enjoys the countryside or the forest, you know that forests are our lungs outside of our bodies. Yet we have been acting in a way that has allowed millions of square miles of land to be deforested, and we have also destroyed the air, the rivers, and parts of the ozone layer. We are imprisoned in our small selves, thinking only of some comfortable conditions for this small self, while we destroy our large self. If we want to change the situation, we must begin by being our true selves. To be our true selves means we have to be the forest, the river, and the ozone layer. If we visualize ourselves as the forest, we will experience the hopes and fears of the trees. If we don't do this, the forests will die, and we will lose our chance for peace. When we understand that we inter-are with the trees, we will know that it is up to us to make an effort to keep the trees alive.
Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist
Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 5 : The Delphic Oracle as Therapist, p. 99
Context: The self is made up, on its growing edge, of the models, forms, metaphors, myths, and all other kinds of psychic content which give it direction in its self-creation. This is a process that goes on continuously. As Kierkegaard well said, the self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. Despite the obvious determinism in human life — especially in the physical aspect of ones self in such simple things as color of eyes, height relative length of life, and so on — there is also, clearly, this element of self-directing, self-forming. Thinking and self-creating are inseparable. When we become aware of all the fantasies in which we see ourselves in the future, pilot ourselves this way or that, this becomes obvious.
Sally Wen Mao Chinese-born American poet
On the “self” as a spectacle in “Jenny Xie Interviews Sally Wen Mao” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2019/01/jenny-xie-interviews-sally-wen-mao (Poetry Foundation; Jan 2019)
Erving Goffman (1922–1982) Sociologist, writer, academic
Frame Analysis (1974) quoted by Edward O. Wilson in On Human Nature (1978) Ch. 4 "Emergence" p. 93
1970s-1980s
“We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.”
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 194.