#individualism — Public Fediverse posts

A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

The teaching which I received was genuinely democratic in one way. It was not so democratic in another. I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself. But I had also, consciously or unconsciously, been taught that socially and industrially pretty much the whole duty of the man lay in thus making the best of himself; that he should be honest in his dealings with others and charitable in the old-fashioned way to the unfortunate; but that it was no part of his business to join with others in trying to make things better for the many by curbing the abnormal and excessive development of individualism in a few.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 1 “Boyhood and Youth” (1913)

More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/8…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #teddyroosevelt #theodoreroosevelt #collective #commoncause #commoninterest #community #exploitation #individualism #mutualresponsibility #mutualsupport #progress #reform #respect #selfcenteredness #selfmade #selfishness

Only 2 Hands – A guided meditation as a poem

I only have two hands.
The world is beyond my control.
The world has always been beyond my control.
The world will always be beyond my control.
The world does not depend on me.
Is okay and natural that the world is beyond my control.
There was a time when I was not in the world, there
will be a time again when I am not in the world.
The world does not depend on Me,
and that is a wonderful thing.
I only have two hands,

I only have two hands,
but I have two hands.
This is the most amazing gift.
I am alive and I am aware
with these hands, I can make the world kinder, healthier and livelier.
With these hands, I can make the world harsher, angry, violent,
but the world goes on with or without me.

I only have one voice,
but I have a voice,
and that is the most Amazing thing.
I am awake and I am alert.
With this voice,
I can make the world wise fascinating and beautiful.
With this voice, I can make the world confusing or true,
false or clear,
a travesty or an equity.
But the world goes on With or without me.

I only have one lifetime in this form,
this form with two feet,
this form with two hands,
this form with one voice,
this form with this mind,
the moss goes on without me.
The ants go on without me.
The trees go on without me.
The sun burns on without me.

I cannot direct the affairs of the world.
I cannot direct the turning of the earth.
I cannot direct the tides of the oceans.
I cannot scrap and recreate my life circumstance,
but I can steer my life’s flow.
The affairs of the world are beyond my control, and always will be.
But I can mold the process of my living experience
When I am aware of how I shape my living experience, I create better results.

I cannot direct the affairs of the world,
just as I cannot direct the weaving of every spider’s web,
but participating with others in co creation.
I can still cultivate change in the natural world.
I can still cultivate change in the human world.
I have the realization that the natural world is real and fundamental.
I have the realization that the human world cannot be separated from the natural world.
I have the realization that the human world is an organic flowering of the natural world.

I have the realization also that the natural world goes on without the human world,
just as the human world goes on without me.
The world is not conditioned on people,
just as it is not conditioned on my existence.
I am alive, awake, aware and alert.
I have the realization that this life is a precious gift.
I resolve and aspire to appreciate this gift and spend it wisely.

The final bell is In 60 seconds.
Thank you for listening to only two hands, a meditation by Cooper Dozier.

[ Intro I removed so it reads like a poem:

Only two hands. By Cooper Dozier. A bell will ring before each speaking part. This meditation is 23 minutes long. The silences in between speaking parts are about 90 to 100 seconds long. There is no requirement to follow the meditation as presented. Feel free to take any path that appears to you. I hope we all have a fruitful exploration. Settle in. The first bell will ring in 30 seconds. Loosen up and stretch your joints if you like. Try to take a comfortable posture which you can hold. Should you encounter mental or emotional difficulties? Feel free to open your eyes. Take a break or stop if needed. ]

Featured Image:

"It’s not so much that there’s 50-something percent of the country that is committed to Trumpism. But there’s just a huge amount of the country that is not doing well—and I mean that in an emotional way, I mean that in a political way, civically."

#Trump #MAGA #SocialContract #individualism #CommonGood #solidarity
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"If we don’t take seriously some of these more underlying problems—that we are a deeply isolated and lonely and distrustful country that is focused on material wellbeing and status and is more dislocated and civically apathetic than maybe we’ve ever been—we’re going to get more Trumps, because that’s just fertile breeding ground for people like him."

~ Alan Elrod

#Trump #MAGA #SocialContract #individualism #CommonGood #solidarity
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https://newrepublic.com/article/208976/transcript-trump-america-deeply-unwell-it-time-say

Illumination in dark times
A genealogy of modern Western selfhood and a post-Western world

"Smith ... outlines a genealogy of modern Western selfhood: a radically individual, hypermasculine character that was formed during the rapid nineteenth-century expansion of the white man’s world. “Bold, conquering, and altogether assertive,” it was “dedicated to action,” hostile to reflection, indifferent to community and the environment, and guilty of possessing, Smith writes, an “undeveloped heart,” a term borrowed from E. M. Forster’s assessment of the British elite." "

" “We must alter our very relations with the world around us.” This means giving up the exalted and exaggerated idea of the West that boosts a masculinist self-image but severely constricts thought and feeling. “We should welcome our era’s uncertainties,...the not-knowing of how the post-Western story will come out.” Smith’s final warning—that “we will not survive the Western notion of the individual much longer”—should resonate today, as nineteenth-century individualism reasserts itself in the degraded Nietzscheanism of Peter Thiel and Stephen Miller." >>

* Mishra, P. (2026, April). "The Authority of Thought". Harper's Magazine.
https://harpers.org/archive/2026/04/the-authority-of-thought-pankaj-mishra/

* Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World by Patrick Smith. 2010 >>
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/169395/somebody-elses-century-by-patrick-smith/
#TheWest #WhiteSupremacy #masculinity #ImpulseControl #EthnoNationalism #WesternCivilization #AngloAmerican #parochialism #individualism #subjectivity #SettlerSociety #Culture #RacialInequality #war #EastWest #PostWesternWorld #DarkTimes #illumination #narrative #environment

Image: Double Bay War Memorial, Steyne Park, Sydney

https://youtu.be/EgGfQdv_rPc

#agriculture #animism #apocrypha #astrology #bible #collectivism #civilization #christianity #culture #cosmology #cosmos #earthmother #esotericism #individualism #judaism #knowledge #materialism #monism #monotheism #motherearth #mothergoddess #nephilim #neuroscience #neuropsychology #pantheism #philosophy #poetry #polytheism #psychology #religion #secretsociety #spiritualism #spirituality #symbolism #theism #theology #society

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A quotation from Thoreau

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, ch. 18 "Conclusion" (1854)

More info about this quote: wist.info/thoreau-henry-david/…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #thoreau #henrydavidthoreau #walden #rhythm #attainment #desperation #effort #enterprise #haste #individualism #pace #rushing #selfdirected #success