In any long-term plan, it is essential to establish stages to be completed, each one ending with a smaller goal. During the process, these milestones, rather than the overall goal, will be used as references, and it is on them that the mind should focus. This avoids aiming for a target that is too distant, which may cause hesitation about the possibility of achieving it. By focusing on small goals and stages with a clearly visible end, motivation gains the consistency necessary to avoid being affected by what is unlikely to happen.
The Exercise of Discipline
The exercise of discipline, even in seemingly unimportant tasks, strengthens the sense of continuity between days, producing, in the long term, an awareness of one’s own rhythm that is satisfying as it evolves. From this springs the pleasure of simply continuing what was started in the past, with greater skill than yesterday and less than tomorrow. Over time, evolution becomes a source of pride, and one experiences in the routine, which brings to fruition a long-term project, a strong emotional involvement.
The Mistrust With Which Modern Man Approaches…
The mistrust with which modern man approaches the most impressive accounts of the past is disconcerting. His mind freezes: he constructs the unbelievable conditions reported to the point where he can understand them logically, but the meaning seems to escape him, blocked by an insurmountable wall, until finally he feels mockery and contempt welling up, justified by the as magical as unfounded claim that the account is untrue. But this serves only to free him from the problem of refuting or having to admit that it simply happened. Once the discomfort is overcome, it is time to emotionally credit some imbecilic contemporary.
Hermann Hesse Is a Model Writer
Hermann Hesse is a model writer. It is a pity that he is such a rare example, whose pages never waste the reader’s time. When reading him, one gets the feeling that the subject matter is always important, the artistic motivation always genuine; and even in those moments when the author allows himself to fly into more nebulous and uncertain areas, as he does in Demian, one realizes that the intention is none other than to artistically express real experiences. Sometimes, he also tackles themes that are not his favorites, but are necessary themes, and which give his work that important breadth that shows that the author was not blind to the bigger picture of life. Reading him is always a great pleasure!