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Author Topic:   LOST (and found?)
guy_me_19
Knowflake

Posts: 153
From: India
Registered: Jun 2005

posted October 29, 2007 01:39 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for guy_me_19     Edit/Delete Message
Perhaps in dreaming more than in waking, I have often thought how much a person can go astray, to what extent and degree he can be lost before it can be safely assumed that he’s inevitably doomed, because there is no returning back. I never thought on the subject objectively and very analytically, like sitting at a place and concentrating my thoughts – no. Rather, it has been more like some quest wherein I have, in half awareness, searched for the answers outside of myself than inside, for the reason that I already knew that whatever there was to be sought within was either already sought or could come to the fore if only the soul were to come alive and engage in a dialogue.

In any case, even the lesser ideas that I, over the years, ‘thought without thinking’ kept coming together to take a formless form. So this is all the pool of water that has seeped through and accumulated in all this time: I think that the sense of the true purpose of one’s life is not lost even if one has procrastinated, lazed, or killed several of his dreams one after another. Hmmm… let me try again: I am saying that the sense of the nobility or general goodness of one’s being is never lost no matter how much a person has gone astray. And this sense stays with him till the very end; even when he meets his doom, it stays with him. And this also strengthens the sense of tragedy to the extent that the person knows well enough what he has lost. Yes! This is what I intend to say. This is the statement; rest if I write any further would only be detailing it.

Consider the character of Gail Wynand in Ayn Rand’s work of fiction, The Fountainhead. His life is a tragedy. He had a higher purpose in life but could not fulfil it. He only thought that he had become the man that he had always wanted to be – what he thought to be an ideal man, but when he met Howard Roark, who was that man, he subsequently understood that he had never been, right since the beginning what he wanted to be; more importantly, what, at least in his view, he could be and thus had to be or was “destined to be”. He only all along had had a strong sense of what an ideal man is - this he never lost, also, he never lost the sense of goodness of his being, and as long as a man does not lose this, he continues to think, since he has time on his side, that one day he shall be what, at least in his view, is “destined to be” or has to be.

Sometimes you read something which reverberates with your own foggy thoughts so strongly that you are completely shaken and stirred. It gives the all necessary base and at times even reason and logic to those foggy thoughts and vague feelings and strings them up with the rest of your consciousness, so you no longer doubt or disbelieve.

German philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche said in his book, Beyond Good and Evil: It is not the works, but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF.--


I read these words in the prologue to The Fountainhead written by the author. She said that the quotation, if interpreted poetically, ‘communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem—and sums up the emotional consequences for which The Fountainhead provides the rational, philosophical base…. This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history… Yet this is the view with which—in varying degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion—the best of mankind’s youth start out in life. It is not a view for most of them but a foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable unhappiness. It is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one’s life is important, that great achievements are within one’s capacity, and that great things lie ahead.’ The book details the journey of a man, Howard Roark, who never loses that ‘fundamental certainty’, that belief and has that reverence for himself that Neitzsche talks of. In the end, despite several odds, he accomplishes his dream and is successful.


On a slight tangent: The favourite of many, Gibran too has spoken on this subject. But when he says, ‘In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you’, does he not merely state the obvious? In fact, I have come to think that he would mostly state only the obvious. He would word that we perceive, but would go no further, also, it might require a Herculean mental effort, but is not impossible to word what he worded. He would ask rhetorical questions and use poetry instead of prose. When you do that, you only touch upon the subject as if that were enough; and leave it to the reader to contemplate and understand what has been asked to consider. Like again, if I ask you to ‘consider’ and to answer in your own thoughts the rhetorical question: ‘What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?’


To conclude, I believe that as long as one has time on his side, and that “‘Nietzschean’ BELIEF and self-reverence” is not lost, which Nietzsche said can by nature never be lost, one can – rejecting the thought that doom is certain and there is no returning back – do what he had set out for himself to do—in the words of Rand—‘at the dawn of his life’. The dream might dim over the years but its strong voice will never be completely lost. It will be heard in dreams, in poetry and in songs.

And there is no sight in the world more miserable as that of a man who "could have been". Truly, when such a life goes waste, it is a tragedy as was in the case of Gail Wynand.

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Skyhawk
Knowflake

Posts: 96
From: Kansas
Registered: Aug 2007

posted October 30, 2007 02:40 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Skyhawk     Edit/Delete Message
Lots to ponder here! My faith is too strong to ever feel lost. But I certainly get distracted from time to time! I don't really know if I consider it a tragedy.

A Course in Miracles states "God in His knowledge is not waiting, but His Kingdom is bereft while you wait. All the Sons of God are waiting for your return, just as you are waiting for theirs. Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. Yet your election is both free and alterable. You do not belong in time. Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever."

So my goal is to stay in the Eternal Now rather than to strive for greatness. If I truly let Spirit guide me, I will achieve the greatest Good for myself and everyone I meet. If someone else perceives it as great or tragic, that is their choice.

Thank you for all your thoughts!

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fayte.m
Knowflake

Posts: 8685
From: Still out looking for Schrödinger's cat
Registered: Mar 2005

posted October 30, 2007 08:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
guy_me_19!
Great posting!

Personally even though I have mostly only theories about the big picture and my place in it....I believe in virtually nothing as an absolute...
forever skeptical....
I am NOT lost at all!
I am a traveler, an explorer, the journey delights me, the myriad paths I walk down and back and then to take a look down another and then to walk in new places I cannot even begin to describe to anyone else....they would not understand, they have yet to experience what I have experienced...the eurekas, the awakenings, the epiphanies, the dreams, the visions, the memories, I happily
continue to move onward discovering more and more each day...dropping the pieces of the puzzle into my bit buckets of different puzzles, to await empirical evidence, a state of the undeniable not based on blind hope, faith, desire and wishes....but a knowing...a true communion with God.
I am far from lost!

------------------
"Heaven doesn't want me and Hell is afraid I'll take over and start a rehab for the damned!"
~Judgement Must Be Balanced With Compassion~
~Do Not Seek Wealth From The Suffering, Or The Dire Needs Of Others~
~Assumption Is The Bane Of Understanding~
~ if you keep doing what you did, you'll keep getting what you got.~
Everything changes.
Fear not the changes.
"My body is physically disabled, but I am not my body nor am I its disabilities!"
"I would rather," Truth said; "to walk naked than wear the raiments of Falsehood!"
}><}}}(*> <*){{{><{}><}}}(*> <*){{{><{}><}}}(*> <*){{{><{}><}}}(*> <*){{{><{}<}}(*> <3
~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~
~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~

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guy_me_19
Knowflake

Posts: 153
From: India
Registered: Jun 2005

posted October 30, 2007 11:15 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for guy_me_19     Edit/Delete Message
Fayte, I am happy to know that!

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