this may be the last Phillips I read for a long time. the writing felt too circuitous, and in places, more self-pleasuring than dialogic. more than ever, the hyper-mediated nature of psychoanalytic "thinking" puts me off. there was a time it used to help me gain some freedom from myself. now it just gets in the way of living.

this book was also sort of missing a key piece for me: the goldenness of giving up pleasure. the sacredness we find in ourselves when we cultivate emptiness. the lack of a spiritual dimension, thinking of giving up only in a "what does it mean to the ego/narrow terms of the incarnational self" felt dissatisfying. 

I went to the book to gain some support for the arduous process of giving up attachment. but it felt like there was no real investment in the possibility of giving up. like it was always some kind of a lie, or bargain. I think giving up is real. it is possible. it is freeing. the “gain” arrives because you sacrifice in the true sense— without expectations, without hope. and it’s a conscious act. yes, this— I wanted to read about giving up as a conscious act one undertakes because nothing else will do. not because nothing else is available.