Nate

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts

“This state of affairs is known technically as the "double-bind." A
person is put in a double-bind by a command or request which contains
a concealed contradiction...
This is a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't
situation which arises constantly in human (and especially family)
relations...

The social doublebind game can be phrased in several ways:The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.
Everyone must play.
You must love us.
You must go on living.
Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.
Control yourself and be natural.
Try to be sincere.
Essentially, this game is a demand for spontaneous behavior of certain
kinds. Living, loving, being natural or sincere—all these are
spontaneous forms of behavior: they happen "of themselves" like
digesting food or growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquire
that unnatural, contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyone
deplores—weak and scentless like forced flowers and tasteless like
forced fruit. Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate
them. Faith—in life, in other people, and in oneself—is the attitude of
allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its
own time.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

“The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the dominance of outward conditions.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.”
― C.G. Jung