7 replies to this topic

[bacopa]

My revised question!


We're all presented each day with a plethora of ideas from the media and pop culture in general. It's as if there is a big brother of mood dictating how we should think and feel about numerous different ideas and situations that come up in society. It is easy to get caught up in the games that people play whether it's social games, work games, or any other kind of modality that is common to the human experience. Like Methuselah Mouse said

If people ACT as a solipsist, then they are such...and this kind of ego driven unconscious belief set creates an interior state that is indefensible because it is patently false - yet is invisible to most people's awareness...and until it dawns on them that the defensiveness and emotianal pain we feel is usually caused by, initiated by or derived from the effort to defend this solipsist interior image/belief.

To my argument this basically says how seriously we take ourselves has a direct effect on how we respond to the social/societal problems found all around us. Someone who is ego driven and believes the individual comes first and that "we are the world," will find it very difficult to survive in a world filled with people who are less intellectually driven... that's why I loathe going to malls and other consumerist havens because the culture is completely superficial and I feel empty as I walk through and I feel my own individuality slowly being taken over by whatever trends are in style for that very day. I often find myself asking what information to take in and what games to participate in which is common, but it still eats away at me not knowing how to simply "be" at times. I want to take most of my life seriously but I struggle with how to or "should I" questions. I sometimes don't know how to deal with normal everyday situations where people are talking about uninteresting things to me and it bugs me when I over think "how to" think and whether or not I should "play the games" or simply be myself and dictate how I wish to do things. that's my question and my problem rolled up into one which is probably pretty typical type of problem for thinkers

Edited by dfowler, 22 November 2003 - 05:36 PM.

[Da55id]

Devon - In exchange for your heartfelt but somewhat jumbled question, I'll give you a heartfelt but somewhat jumbled answer that's sort of in the same galaxy but not on the same block :-)

For many people, truth must be unassailably immune to falsification - absolute. Such people have a very very very difficult time becoming wise because they typically stop exploring a provisional truth when an item becomes obviously true to them - say -when they are in their late teen years. Certaintly seems to me to have a biological basis during that time - perhaps to encourage generational discontent and separation - thus encouraging accelerated household formations. How else can one explain the irrational act of refusing free food, shelter, medical care, education and near total (yet unwanted) devotion of parents toward children - in exchange for bills, responsibility and growing networks of obligations?

During the next several years, obvious truths become like compressed geological strata in a subconscious day to day operating modality know colloquially as "common sense". These peer (social/media/pop culturally) derived truths only gradually become questioned as one discovers that - quite simply - they frequently don't WORK. They lack sufficiently generalized utility as one progresses through the panoply of human experience. It typically take multiple failures of a belief system (self evident truth) before one is either dead, collects sufficient power and resources to generate a reality distortion field such that a truth can hold sway within one's realm of influence, or, the pain of dissonance between one's obviously true reality, and what ACTUALLY IS becomes painful to the point where one begins an iterative introspective sojourn. ie it hurts so bad, I think maybe I need to change.

Physical pain has utility in that it facilitates the miracle that keeps us generally from losing fingers, toes, eyes and other important body parts over astonishingly long periods of time. But, what is EMOTIONAL or spiritual pain FOR? What is it's utility? Even more basically, what IS it that hurts when it hurts? In shorthand terms, it's our ego. The solipsist sense that we are the pinaccle of importance to the universe - and if we die - the universe dies. While few thinking people will SAY or even on brief examination think they believe this, acts speak louder than words. If people ACT as a solipsist, then they are such...and this kind of ego driven unconscious belief set creates an interior state that is indefensible because it is patently false - yet is invisible to most people's awareness...and until it dawns on them that the defensiveness and emotianal pain we feel is usually caused by, initiated by or derived from the effort to defend this solipsist interior image/belief. As a closet solipsist, for most of my life, I intensely feared death - daily dread. Being dead certainly had to be less painful than the daily fear of it. So, instead of making the pain stop by unwise means, I eventually asked the question...when I fear or am angry or anxious or jealous or feel abandoned and unappreciated, what IS it that hurts? I decided it was Ego based on solipsism. It didn't take long to ask the question - "so, what is the utility of this ego thing" is it worth all this pain? What is my ego protecting me from now? Early in life, I'm sure it was helpful as a survival item, but now, the plain truth (to me) is that it was/is utterly useless and prevented me in nearly every way from being happy, truly productive and generally flourishing in usefulness to myself or any/everybody else.

In other words I was just like pretty much everybody else I'd ever met.

I think there are a few very very useful things to know. One is that almost all the important things about humans are unquantifiable. How long is integrity? How heavy is loyalty? How big is altruism? How beautiful is beauty? Is a dozen hugs the right number? Am I ignorant enough to enjoy living indefinitely? When is there enough kindness? How many chapters is enough on "how to be good".

Another is that in the long run, there is such a thing as bad, and there is such a thing as good.

That the theory of causality is extremely useful

Here's another truth - everything so obvious that it seems inane to spend the slighted time seeing it is miraculous - we need indefinitely long lives to gradually heal from an ego driven reductionist consumerist materialist "atmosphere" and gradually we can learn to see again.

There is an art to seeing since it is the mind that sees more than the eyes.

fleas do not believe in DOG

fish take on the shape their in
from the water in which they swim

I'll stop now :-)

[Da55id]

I found this URL to be very thought provoking...perhaps you've all seen it before?

http://www.haciendap.../article29.html

[kevin]

I came across it while I was doing some reading on 'futile care theory'.. nice ain't it..

If anti-aging research doesn't come up with some ways to keep people healthier we'll all be making some pretty lousy decisions on what to do with our elderly parents and relatives..

[bacopa]

Bottom line my question must have been pretty stupid! I realized afterwards that I wasn't getting at any real truth myself accept just a typical human kind of existential type question thanks for your reply.

[bacopa]

I didn't even realize what you were saying until just now. Which is sad, but anyway that was a brilliantly written piece of writing and I guess my muddled question spoke volumes of my hangups and such...but once I stop seeing beyond my ego than I'll be better able to get the most out of life hopefully for as long as possible. But my atheistic hang-ups are apart from my solopsist hang ups in that I often question the obvious amazed at humans ability to think abstractly in general. But the scientist in me would say that I'm only fooling myself in trying to become so philosophical and "enlightened", and society would label me as "stupid" for thinking and asking such questions.

I try not to be too ego driven but I suppose I am in the long run...anyway I don't think my problem is appreciating and seeing the wonderments of the grey areas.. I think the problem for me is my inability to adapt quickly enough to different situations and I have OCD which I think causes me to obsess greatly about seemingly unimportant and obvious truths. But the fact that you have matured beyond this is amazing because so many people are ego driven. I'm especially impressed by people who seem to have faith in humans ability to see things philosophically and more importantly you have not given up on the idea that we are more than just advanced apes and that we are capable of intellectual thought on many levels. I'm stuck on science for now which can often downplay the human condition which can lead to a fear of intellectual pursuits. thanks for your insite.

Edited by dfowler, 22 November 2003 - 11:37 PM.

[kevin]

heh.. welcome to the club devon... what would be really a cause for worry is if you weren't asking those kind of questions...

[bacopa]

maybe I'm more "normal" than I fear!

Edited by dfowler, 22 November 2003 - 05:21 PM.