Author
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Topic: Being Human
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Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 09:47 AM
I thought that, if I could only adjust my perception, and get it to accord with some perfect, mystical vision of truth, then everything would make sense. Somehow, the crooked line would be straight, and the rape of a child, just the thinnest veil, concealing the soul's benediction. All chaos would reveal itself as an ingenious kind of order. All evil would be the greatest and most mysterious form of good. My lifestyle, I imagined, would not change, -- or, would not have to change. Anything that transpired here, in the outer, material world, -- any and all things marked by various characteristics, -- would, ultimately, cease to exist as separate, distinct, and actual realities; hence, nothing I did, or did not do, would bear the slightest actual significance. The consequences of my actions, and the willing of one course of action over another, would cease to disturb my quietude, for I would have anchored myself in the true, harmonic vision of eternity. All my thoughts, deliberations, choices and actions would be centered in the higher will of God, and in a very palpable sense, would cease to exist for me. But this hasn't happened.Instead, I have discovered something too simple to overlook, but too solid to confront and dismantle by the power of analysis alone. I have discovered what, to many men, men of action, requires no introduction, and is far too obvious to be given more than a moment's thought. I have discovered a world so substantial, dense, and close to home, that I can only marvel now at not having seen it. But, then, I was a philosopher, a thinker, and my entire orientation and way of being inclined me to look upon things with suspicious, far away eyes; to see beyond, around, over, beneath, and through things; -- in short, not to see things at all; to be blind. What I discovered is only the world. And that, behind this world, there was no deeper reality, which only the mind, soul, or spirit may touch. Behind this world, if such an expression has any place in use, there is only action. I discovered action. Like so many before me, hamstrung by thought or crippled by insight, I emerged from the adolescence of philosophy with a profound conviction in the inadequacy and ineffectuality of pure contemplation. The truth, I found, was infinitely more plain and prosaic than philosophy, -- or, god forbid, poetry, -- would have it. The truth, which Abraham Lincoln articulated to my perfect satisfaction, is "When I do good I feel good, and when I do bad I feel bad,". These feelings, that something was not right with the world, were not mistaken or illogical impressions. They were not unconscious symbols of a frustrated perception, unable to conceive of the great and eternal, underlying order of natural and man-made events. No! These simple feelings, which I had looked upon with suspicion, and thought to annihilate by the power of pure insight, were, in fact, telling the truth. What the tragic Prince Hamlet discovered, I discovered. I only hoped it was not too late for me "to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them"; to take action. And to be the man of principles, who lives by them, rather than the man of philosophies, who lives only in his head; and struggles desperately to reduce all principles to phantoms, when they ought to be raised to manifestations! My friends, the material world is only false insomuchas it exists to bear the fruit of our selfish intentions. But where your intentions align with your highest principles, and your actions proceed therefrom, then, the material realm is a reality you can accept and enter into positive -- even amiable -- relations with. Don't seek for what is real in the realm of the empty and the abstract. Feel, here and now, the presence of your emotions, your empathy, your conscience. There is no insight; no truth; nothing to see. Only "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (Gandhi). Don't immitate the monkeys, who see, hear, and speak no evil; or the ostrich, with her head in the sand. See it, hear it, and say what you have seen and heard. Stare injustice in the face, and do not turn the other cheek to look the other way. Your voice is needed. Your indignation is righteous. Do not silence yourself, and imagine you have silenced the devil. Do not seek complacency, and believe you are bringing peace. Do not lull your firey soul to sleep, to wander in dreams of spirit. Here is the world. Here are the hungry. Here is the greed that starves and deceives them. Do not stand aloof, puzzling out the meaning. Give censure or give strength. Play your part. Be real!
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Yin Knowflake Posts: 611 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 09:56 AM
While Eeyore frets... ... and Piglet hesitates ... and Rabbit calculates ... and Owl pontificates ... Pooh just is.~The Tao of Pooh ETA. Pooh does. Read the book. LOL. IP: Logged |
cpn_edgar_winner Knowflake Posts: 1550 From: Toledo, OH Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 09:58 AM
good stuff valus. very good stuff. maybe it is that simple.IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 10:03 AM
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aerialcircus Knowflake Posts: 327 From: Western Massachusetts, US Registered: May 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 11:03 AM
“The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “The Over-Soul” IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 11:22 AM
I was rereading his essay on Thoreau this weekend. I've read it a few times; its one of my favorites. His essay "Experience" is perfection.From "Experience": quote:
"People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here at least we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into reality, for contact with which we would even pay the costly price of sons and lovers. Was it Boscovich who found out that bodies never come in contact? Well, souls never touch their objects. An innavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, -- no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If tomorrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principle debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me, -- neither better nor worse. So it is with this calamity; it does not touch me; something which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature. The Indian who was laid under a curse that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a grim satisfaction, saying, There at least is a reality that will not dodge us. I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition. Nature does not like to be observed, and likes that we should be her fools and playmates. We may have the sphere for our cricket-ball, but not a berry for our philosophy. Direct strokes she never gave us power to make; all our blows glance, all our hits are accidents. Our relations to each other are oblique and casual. Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in their focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at one time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh or giggle? or if he apologize? or is infected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go buy food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates from too much reception without due outlet? Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment yeild, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of the year and the state of the blood? I knew a witty physician who found the creed in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian. Very mortifying is the reluctant experience that some unfriendly excess or imbecility neutralizes the promise of genius. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but never acquit the debt; they die young and dodge the account; or if they live they lose themselves in the crowd. Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. In truth they are all creatures of given temperament, which will appear in a given character, whose boundaries they will never pass; but we look at them, they seem alive, and we presume there is impulse in them. In the moment it seems impulse; in the year, in the lifetime, it turns out to be a certain uniform tune which the revolving barrel of the music-box must play. Men resist the conclusion in the morning, but adopt it as the evening wears on, that temper prevails over everything of time, place and condition, and is inconsumable in the flames of religion. Some modifications the moral sentiment avails to impose, but the individual texture holds its dominion, if not to bias the moral judgements, yet to fix the measure of activity and enjoyment.... Temperament puts all divinity to rout."
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GypseeWind Knowflake Posts: 1625 From: Dayton,Ohio USA Registered: May 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 12:45 PM
...But when you say, "when I do good, I feel good, and when I do bad I feel bad," by whose judgements of good and bad are you going by? To some I may be an angel, to others I may be a devil. Isn't that all very subjective?IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 02:15 PM
Hence, the eternal conundrum, Gypsee. We must think, and think on big questions, but where do we stop? What if there are no final answers to these questions? What if every situation is utterly unique? If the one who asks the questions is the one who gives the answers, what need or purpose is there in thinking at all? Perhaps instinct and intuition are better guides, if we can learn nothing by reasoning with ourselves which we did not already know. Or perhaps reason serves for some, and instinct or intuition for others. Perhaps everything, and every philosophy, has its season. Mercury reaches the twelfth house, only to return to the first; when we have reached the end of thought, we have only the light of instinct to go by. IP: Logged |
Yin Knowflake Posts: 611 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 02:41 PM
Question. Doubt. Unravel. Put back together. Laugh. Scream. Cry. Live. Burn.DO. IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 04:14 PM
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katatonic Knowflake Posts: 1960 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 04:34 PM
perhaps we are here to EXPERIENCE and no experience is intrinsically bad or good "but thinking makes it so" as shakespeare pointed out...ie you can take a dire situation and see it as a movie plot (think 3 musketeers, or star wars) or as the end of your life...IP: Logged |
GypseeWind Knowflake Posts: 1625 From: Dayton,Ohio USA Registered: May 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 04:34 PM
Every situation IS unique, that is why it is imperative to try not to judge others.Every philosophy does have a season, and they are circular. Our morals and values go from puritanical to radically hedonistic and back again. What? oh, that didn't work, let's try this again, for x years until it morphs back into the thing it was before. The questioner is the answer-er. (You) are your own judge, jury, and executioner. All that really matters, IMHO, is when you leave this life, you can say, that for sure, you LOVED. All else falls away. IP: Logged |
AcousticGod Knowflake Posts: 1463 From: acousticgod@sbcglobal.net Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 22, 2009 05:21 PM
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/do-happy/ IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 23, 2009 08:55 AM
Nice, Gypsee.IP: Logged |
Yin Knowflake Posts: 611 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 24, 2009 10:54 AM
Gypsee, I you.AG, what a cool link. “We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.” –Dalai Lama IP: Logged |
GypseeWind Knowflake Posts: 1625 From: Dayton,Ohio USA Registered: May 2009
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posted September 24, 2009 12:19 PM
Yin, I smiley-heart head you too.I like Ag's link too. I wonder how his little self finds these cool things? IP: Logged |
AcousticGod Knowflake Posts: 1463 From: acousticgod@sbcglobal.net Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 24, 2009 03:00 PM
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listenstotrees Knowflake Posts: 485 From: Stonehenge Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 24, 2009 04:40 PM
I hear you.IP: Logged |
GypseeWind Knowflake Posts: 1625 From: Dayton,Ohio USA Registered: May 2009
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posted September 24, 2009 08:38 PM
Valus; I came across these lyrics and this video, it reminded me of you, even though it is written by a Sag, in true Sag-ish- Dr.Suess, type philosophy at its finest, hope you like it. (Only) Halfway To Everywhere You could be so energy electricity You could be lightening You could be anything A master peice A revolutionary You can see what you want to see Can you let it be? Learn or teach I'm only halfway to everywhere I'm only halfway to everywhere I'm thinking positively positively This is possible They can say right or wrong Never hear this song or look you in the eye I'm getting rid of negativity Lose the the loss in me Call it equality Good luck is a frame of mind Call it human kind And say it's destiny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jIce5cU6Y IP: Logged |
SunChild Moderator Posts: 424 From: Melbourne. Victoria. Australia Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 07:45 AM
Very nice Valus. IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 08:28 AM
Interesting, Gypsee.Thanks, LTT and SunChild.
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Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 08:48 AM
Marcel Proust said of Gustave Flaubert, that it was only because he had so deeply and honestly loved Flaubert's writing, that he had earned the right to criticize it. I feel similarly towards philosophy. I have had a long and intimate relationship with philosophy, and if I allow myself to critique her flaws, or limitations, it is only because I have, for many years, placed her above, beyond, and before all others. So many people rush to judge philosophy, or the philosopher, who have no considerable experience with either. They do not know what it means to be born with an overwhelming predisposition to ruminate, or how it feels to grow painfully beyond this staunch, prenatal conditioning. And even the majority of her protectors and defenders have not loved philosophy half as much, or given to her half as much, as I have. For these reasons, I feel relatively uniquely qualified to be her critic. ...Then again, perhaps I am only a jealous lover, prejudiced by my spurned attempts to make this mistress a wife. For all that I shared with her, and gave to her, she never surrendered her heart to me. Now I speculate that she has none, and was only ever a fickle girl; when the truth may be that it was I who had not the constancy of purpose to secure her love. But I digress; I philosophize.
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Yin Knowflake Posts: 611 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 09:43 AM
You are a poet, Valus.IP: Logged |
Valus Knowflake Posts: 1399 From: Registered: Apr 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 10:26 AM
"And you, too, have asked yourselves, 'Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall we call him?' And, like myself, you replied to yourselves with questions. 'Is he a promiser? or a fulfiller? A conqueror? or an inheritor? An autumn? or a plowshare? A physician? or one who has recovered? Is he a poet? or truthful? A liberator? or a tamer? Good? or evil?'"I walk among men as among the fragments of the future -- that future which I envisage. And this is all my creating and striving; that I create and carry together into One what is fragment and riddle and dreadful accident. And how could I bear to be a man if man were not also a creator and guesser of riddles and redeemer of accidents?" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Second Part, Chapter 20, On Redemption
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GypseeWind Knowflake Posts: 1625 From: Dayton,Ohio USA Registered: May 2009
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posted September 25, 2009 11:56 AM
Ahhh, redemption, that is the one I'm always chasing... another deep well with slimy things at the bottom...IP: Logged | |