monotony

• indicates immaturity of creative imagination

14:5.8Mo­not­ony is in­dica­tive of im­ma­tu­rity of the cre­ative imag­i­na­tion and in­ac­tiv­ity of in­tel­lec­tual co-or­di­na­tion with the spir­i­tual en­dow­ment. By the time an as­cen­dant mor­tal be­gins the ex­plo­ration of these heav­enly worlds, he has al­ready at­tained emo­tional, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial, if not spir­i­tual, ma­tu­rity.

• never encountered in universal economy

28:6.18The uni­ver­sal econ­omy is based on in­take and out­put; through­out the eter­nal ca­reer you will never en­counter mo­not­ony of in­ac­tion or stag­na­tion of per­son­al­ity. Prog­ress is made pos­si­ble by in­her­ent mo­tion, ad­vance­ment grows out of the di­vine ca­pac­ity for ac­tion, and achieve­ment is the child of imag­i­na­tive ad­ven­ture. But in­her­ent in this ca­pac­ity for achieve­ment is the re­spon­si­bil­ity of ethics, the ne­ces­sity for rec­og­niz­ing that the world and the uni­verse are filled with a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ing types of be­ings. All of this mag­nif­i­cent cre­ation, in­clud­ing your­self, was not made just for you. This is not an ego­cen­tric uni­verse. The Gods have de­creed, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive,” and said your Mas­ter Son, “He who would be great­est among you let him be server of all.”

• wears and exhausts

48:6.37You will learn that you in­crease your bur­dens and de­crease the like­li­hood of suc­cess by tak­ing your­self too se­ri­ously. Noth­ing can take prece­dence over the work of your sta­tus sphere—this world or the next. Very im­por­tant is the work of prepa­ra­tion for the next higher sphere, but noth­ing equals the im­por­tance of the work of the world in which you are ac­tu­ally liv­ing. But though the work is im­por­tant, the self is not. When you feel im­por­tant, you lose en­ergy to the wear and tear of ego dig­nity so that there is lit­tle en­ergy left to do the work. Self-im­por­tance, not work-im­por­tance, ex­hausts im­ma­ture crea­tures; it is the self el­e­ment that ex­hausts, not the ef­fort to achieve. You can do im­por­tant work if you do not be­come self-im­por­tant; you can do sev­eral things as eas­ily as one if you leave your­self out. Va­ri­ety is rest­ful; mo­not­ony is what wears and ex­hausts. Day af­ter day is alike—just life or the al­ter­na­tive of death.

• multiplies perplexities and difficulties

143:3.7Their re­turn from this hol­i­day marked the be­gin­ning of a pe­riod of greatly im­proved re­la­tions with the fol­low­ers of John. Many of the twelve re­ally gave way to mirth when they noted the changed state of ev­ery­body’s mind and ob­served the free­dom from ner­vous ir­ri­tabil­ity which had come to them as a re­sult of their three days’ va­ca­tion from the rou­tine du­ties of life. There is al­ways dan­ger that mo­not­ony of hu­man con­tact will greatly mul­ti­ply per­plex­i­ties and mag­nify dif­fi­cul­ties.