Each moment and circumstance is unique, and should only be experienced directly and not through projections and filters of personal attitude. It seems most people crave some kind of pre-empting way of seeing things so that they don’t have to experience being present in the new and unfamiliar moment.
“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the true labor of thinking”- Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792).
I saw this quote on a poster when on a 3rd grade field trip to Thomas Edison’s laboratory in West Orange, NJ in 1963, and its profoundness stuck and stayed with me ever since.
Although, with what I’ve come to recognize, I would amend this penetrating observation as follows:
There is no expedient to which a person will not resort to avoid the perceived danger in simply and fully experiencing what is heretofore unknown and presenting in the new moment, without substituting some preconceived projection.