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Proverbs 23:30 · World English Bible

Proverbs 23:30 Meaning Those Who Stay Long at the Wine

Those who stay long at the wine; those who go to seek out mixed wine.

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What does Proverbs 23:30 mean?

The mind that lingers here is the mind that keeps returning to the ego's intoxication, the pleasant blur in which separation feels bearable. It even goes seeking a stronger mixture, wanting the numbness deepened, because sober sight would show the emptiness the blur is meant to hide.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 23:30 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The mind that lingers here is the mind that keeps returning to the ego's intoxication, the pleasant blur in which separation feels bearable. It even goes seeking a stronger mixture, wanting the numbness deepened, because sober sight would show the emptiness the blur is meant to hide. This is not weakness of the body but a decision made again and again to stay asleep.

What the mind calls indulgence is really avoidance, a way of not looking at the choice it fears to make. The tarrying ends the instant the mind is willing to be awake, for the blur was only ever a refusal to see.

Wine: the ego's intoxication, the false comfort that lets the belief in separation feel bearable Mixed wine: a stronger dose of that self-deception, the mind deliberately seeking a deeper numbness rather than truth

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 23:30 today

  1. When you reach for the endless scroll tonight, put the phone down for two minutes first and let whatever you were avoiding come up. It is usually smaller than the avoiding.
  2. If someone asks how you are and you feel the automatic "fine" coming, answer with one true sentence instead.
  3. On your next break, sit without a screen for the length of your coffee. Boredom is not the problem it feels like.

What am I keeping myself busy enough not to look at?

The same truth in other traditions

Zen

The practice is simply to wake up, again and again. Dozing off is comfortable, which is exactly why it keeps happening.

Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita 2

A mind carried off by pleasure and power loses its steadiness, and without steadiness there is no clear seeing at all.

Stoicism · Seneca

People are busy with anything that saves them from being alone with themselves. The distraction costs more than the quiet would.

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