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The Concept of Voluntary Poverty
Our Preoccupation With Money
Chasing money is in a way proof that one hasn’t found the real reason for being alive. We haven’t identified a passion that could replace the concept of earning a livelihood from our minds. Wealth is tied to prestige, respect and social status and the thought of becoming untethered from our ‘network’ is a thought akin to dying.
If we focus our lives on what matters to us authentically, then we will fall out of this romance with dollar bills, and get into our passions, which require little or no money.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
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Peccatum Originale - Original Sin
St Augustine was deeply interested in finding explanations for the evident tragic disorder of the world.
Augustine contemplated the idea that human nature is inherently damaged because, in the Garden of Eden, Eve sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Her guilt was passed down to all people. As a metaphor for why the world is in a mess, Augustine implies that we should not expect too much from the human race.
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‘Kings and Philosophers shit, and so do ladies’. This is a blunt phrase of 16th-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne.
He wanted to let us feel closer to and less intimidated by people whose life might seem very impressive. Montaigne attempted to free us from uncertainty and shyness from thinking too much of others and too little of ourselves.
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Key Ideas
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Patronising pity can make the attention of others oppressive.
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Key Ideas
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Sigmund Freud discovered that there is a remarkable difference between what people will tell you when they are sitting up and looking at you in the eye, and what they will say to you when they ...
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We perhaps don't realise that seeing another person's face can discourage us from speaking the truth. We may hold back and edit our presentation in the light of their reactions.
With Sigmund Freud's example in mind, we should find our own forms of horizontal conversation. After dinner, we might suggest that we all go and lie down somewhere and become newly conscious of voices and nuances when we don't have to look at others' expressions.