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Human beings are what I think of as biomythic animals: we're controlled largely by the stories we tell. When we get the story wrong, we get out of harmony with the rest of the natural order.

Sam Keen

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Sam Keen
Age: 54
Author
Philosopher
Writer
Natural
Controlled
Tell
Harmony
Order
Animals
Stories
Beings
Human
Rest
Humans
Animal
Think
Wrong
Thinking
Story
Largely

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Mounting an expedition to actualize a Compassionate Commonwealth of all peoples...is the great spiritual challenge of our time.
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Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.
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Down to earth advice about the path that leads away from the kingdom of the hollow men.
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Our society has been eaten up by the economic view of things, which routinely forces us to work at jobs that don't mean anything.
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Mystical experiences (unlike scientific conclusions) cannot be communicated from one person to another. Philosophers and little children are continually amazed that we, unaccountably, find ourselves in a somewhat intelligible world.
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Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community.
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You come to love not by discovering the ideal individual, yet by figuring out how to see a blemished individual flawlessly.
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If some incarnation of evil as unambiguous as Hitler appeared again, I would have no moral qualms about killing the enemy. But in the modern world of moral murkiness, I prefer to keep my hands as clean of enemy blood as possible.
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Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.
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In the beginning, we create the enemy. Before the weapon comes the image. We think others to death and then invent the battle-axe or ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them. Propaganda precedes technology.
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What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.
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There has always been a part of me that saw wilderness and risk-taking as the path to freedom.
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