Peter Jones

So the idea is that...

Your brain works this way no matter who you are, no matter how good you are.

These are the eight patterns of thought that tempt you every single day.

So pride, that's a kind of egotistical tendency.

Or self-belief, at its more modest degree.

I'm pretty good at this.

I'm excellent at making coffee.

Maybe other people want to share my coffee, and then it goes too far.

I'm the best at making coffee, and all other coffee is terrible.

So they're spectrums of thoughts, which I suppose they're excessive thoughts.

Have none of these and you are an angel.

You're not really human at all.

But start to think along these pathways of ego, desire, appetite.

Those are things that make us human, these kinds of tempting thoughts.

Well, look, there are different approaches.

For Evagrius, the goal was to eradicate them all in himself.

He wanted to reach a state he called apatheia, which is to feel none of these things.

It's water off a duck's back.

He would be in a true state of bliss where he felt no temptation or desire.

But, you know...