Kjersten

“The circumstances in which you get pleasure from pain are going to be rare. And this makes sense. As both Bentham and Darwin knew well, the hurt of pain is there to get us to stop doing certain things.”
― Paul Bloom, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning

“Once you no longer need to convince yourself that the world isn’t filled with uncertainty and tragedy, you’re free to focus on doing what you can to help. And once you no longer need to convince yourself that you’ll do everything that needs doing, you’re free to focus on doing a few things that count.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“Boredom is a cue that needs aren’t being met. It’s a signal that your environment lacks interest, variety, and newness. Just as the pain of a burn tells us where the damage is and motivates us to respond appropriately, boredom motivates us to seek out intellectual stimulation and social contact, to learn and engage and act. To be without boredom would be a curse.”
― Paul Bloom, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning

“The art of creating is nothing without the vast ongoing participation and collaboration of the real world, nothing without the thousandfold harmonizing of things and beings; and the creator’s pleasure is thereby inexpressibly rich because it contains memories of the begetting and bearing of millions. In a single creative thought dwell a thousand forgotten nights of love, which infuse it with immensity. And those who come together in the night, locked in thrusting desire, are gathering nectar, generating power and sweetness for some future poetic utterance that will sing the rapture.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke