Mastery

[droqen]

Regarding Robert Greene's
"Mastery"
recommended to me by Aya (sp?)

[droqen]

Cool table of contents. Introduction making big claims, ones that resonate.

P.1

THE ULTIMATE POWER
. . . almost all of us, at some point, have had glimpses of it in our own experience. . . . pressed by circumstances, we feel unusually energized and focused. Our minds become completely absorbed in the task before us. . . . [ideas] come to us as we all asleep, out of nowhere, as if springing from our unconscious. . . . We might normally experience life in a passive mode, constantly reacting to this or that incident, but for these days or weeks we feel like we can determine events and make things happen.

P.2

. . . our minds focus and penetrate to the core of something real. At these moments, it is as if our minds--turned outward--are now flooded with light from the world around us, and suddenly exposed to new details and ideas, we become more inspired and creative. . . . this feeling of power and heightened creativity generally [eventually] fades away. We return to our distracted state and the sense of control is gone. If only we could manufacture this feeling, or somehow keep it alive longer . . . but it seems so mysterious and elusive.

. . . Let us call this sensation mastery--the feeling that we have a greater command of reality, other people, and ourselves. Although it might be something we experience for only a short while, for others--Masters of their field--it becomes their way of life, their way of seeing the world. . . . at the root of this power is a simple process that leads to mastery--one that is accessible to all of us.

P.5

Over the centuries, people have placed a wall around . . . mastery. They have called it genius . . . have thought about it as inaccessible. . . . seen it as the product of privilege, inborn talent, or just the right alignment of the stars. . . . made it seem as if it were as elusive as magic. But that wall is imaginary.

. . . more than anything else, the [six million year long] evolution of the brain was designed to lead us to mastery, the latent power within us all.

Now this is how you do a list.

See also ~ Inspiring Awakeness

[droqen]

p9
When we take our time and focus in depth, when we trust that going through a process of months or years will bring us mastery, we work with the grain of this marvelous instrument . . . We . . . move to higher and higher levels of intelligence. . . see more deeply and realistically. . . practice and make things with skill. . . learn to think for ourselves. . . become capable of handling complex situations without being overwhelmed.

[If] we believe we can skip steps, avoid the process, magically gain power through political connections or easy formulas, or depend on our natural talents, we move against this grain and reverse our natural powers. . . . It is the height of stupidity to believe that in the course of your short life. . . you can somehow rewire the configurations of your brain through technology and wishful thinking. . .

[droqen]

This is a very simple idea. It is so, so simple.

[droqen]

There is a story about Charles Darwin. A life that follows happenstance—a childhood passion connected to something greater. Greene rejects the magical-thinking explanation which really explains nothing (the 'invisible wall' of "natural talent and brilliance") and instead looks for a pattern—and identifies one:

P11
The basic elements of this story are repeated in the lives of all the great Masters in history: a youthful passion or predilection, a chance encounter that allows them to discover how to apply it, an apprenticeship in which they come alive with energy and focus.

[droqen]

P.45

. . . ignore your weaknesses and resist temptation to be more like others. . . . direct yourself toward the small things you are good at.