Goals and contingencies are important. But they exist in the future and the past, beyond the pale of the sensory realm. ———– Practice (the path of mastery) exists only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. ———To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most esssential and enduring in your life.

There is a human striving for self-transcendence. It's part of what makes us human. With all of our flaws we want to go a little bit further than we've gone before and maybe even further than anyone else has gone before.