Sam Keen
Sam Keen
Sam Keenis an American author, professor, and philosopher who is best known for his exploration of questions regarding love, life, religion, and being a man in contemporary society. He also co-produced Faces of the Enemy, an award-winning PBS documentary; was the subject of a Bill Moyers' television special in the early 1990s; and for 20 years served as a contributing editor at Psychology Today magazine. He is also featured in the 2003 documentary Flight from Death...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
religious real world
At thirty I lived in a world where death wasn't immediately real; it was always something "out there." My deeply held illusions of immortality - a product of my very conservative religious upbringing - were still pretty much intact.
jobs real long
It's perfectly possible to spend forty hours a week on a job that's meaningless, as long as you know what your real vocation is and find some way to express it. Then you won't confuse your job with the meaning of your life.
together world realizing
We now realize that we're not living in a piecemeal world, but a world where everything is linked together.
religious reality air
As a mode of perception that often becomes a style of life, paranoia weaves around the vulnerable self or group an air-tight metaphysic and world view. Paranoia is an antireligious mysticism based on the feeling or perception that the world in general, and others in particular, are against me or us. Reality is perceived as hostile. By contrast, the religious mystic experiences the ground of being as basically friendly to the deepest needs of the self. That which is unknown, strange, or beyond our comprehension is with and for rather than against us.
world want realizing
Every time I come across a rattlesnake on my farm I initially react in fear and am tempted to kill it. Then I realize I wouldn't want to live in a world where all wild things - without and within - are domesticated.
moving technology reality
The major impediment to experiencing the sacred depths of ordinary moments is the speed and distraction of contemporary life that moves to the imperatives of the global economic order.In addition, we increasingly live in a virtual world in which our reality is filtered through media and information technology.
real successful ideas
Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.
american-author finding imperfect learning love
We come to love not by finding a perfect person but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
finding imperfect love perfect seeing
Love isn't finding a perfect person. It's seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
finding imperfect learning love perfect perfectly
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly
beginning birth call create equal giving goddess men present quite remember simple since three time wanting
Call it ""womb awe"" or even ""womb worship"" but it's not simple envy. I don't remember even wanting to be a woman. But each of the three times I have been present at the birth of one of my children, I have been overwhelmed by a sense of reverence... It was quite suddenly, the first day of creation; the Goddess giving birth to a world... Like men since the beginning of time I wondered: What can I ever create that will equal the magnificence of this new life?
writing thinking stories
I think we're always in the process of writing and rewriting the story of our lives, forming our experiences into a narrative that makes sense. Much of that work involves demythologizing family myths and cultural myths - getting free of what we have been told about ourselves.
dark night thinking
I think there are families that are very kind and supportive of people's ability to change. People who come from such families may go through life without dipping into the dark night.
thinking self darkness
I think it's increasingly hard to have deep self-knowledge without entering the darkness in some way.