An Attitude of Progress and Embrace of the Unsettling

One of the many mini-obsessions I have among the larger obsession of how we make progress is this question of how we deal with the fact that given that progress so often looks and feels like disruption and threat, we resist the very forces that might move us forward.

Some delightful quotes on this theme are to be found in this piece by Maria Popova.

“Cut short of the floundering and you’ve cut short the possible creative outcomes”
- Denise Shekerjian

And from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”

"The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment."

Find the post here.