Month: October 2019

Authenticity & writing our own story

When I first came across the idea of authenticity it was in the context of states having freedom to decide their own form. Since then, it’s more often cropped up in fields of self-development and the like: that we should be free to become the person we wish to be. Not dissimilar, but not entirely the same either.

It sometimes now seems an overused word, with this sense of having become a mask for individualism: we can all do as we wish, no one can stop us, if it’s a problem it’s their problem etc. And, while I truly believe we all carry within us unique and important gifts to develop, work through and share with the world, mainly looking out for ourselves doesn’t seem quite right (Notes One).

It’s appealing philosophy, though, this idea that we should all unravel our perspective on life and express it unhindered. Letting the beauty of each individual inch out from underneath the blanket of collective thinking seems important – we’re much more than the roles we play and labels that might’ve been stuck to us (Notes Two).

Authenticity in the sense of everyone illuminating their own, overlapping section of reality seems beautiful. All doing our best to respond well to whatever touches our little patch of earth – all we’re born into, all we’ve met along the path, all that reaches the edges of our tiny island. If we’re all bringing things to light, resolving them, and not contributing to anything unhelpful then isn’t the world equally better off?

Don’t each of us experience part of our one, collective reality? We all have a story to tell and they all matter. Doesn’t what happens to one happen to all? Maybe authenticity’s each of us dealing skilfully with social manifestations as they appear in our presence? Us all being these pieces of the puzzle where darkness can be brought to light and things can start becoming better for everyone (Notes Three).

Because the idea of how best to “apply” the concept of freedom to the realities of life is fascinating. We might say individuals should be free to do as they please – that wonderful premise behind the West and these markets we so happily turn to – but it’s seeming quite problematic in practice (Notes Four).

If we all do as we please, where does that lead? Surely, we need some sense of commonality, mutuality, and holding ourselves back for the needs of others and the community. Otherwise, doesn’t this inevitably lead to conflict? If no one’s giving an inch and the other’s always to blame, society seems to risk gridlock.

Maybe collective needs must be as much on our minds as our own? Each having freedom to be plus an equal obligation to let others be. Everyone truly understanding the complex nature of society and where their decisions, words and actions are creating problems to be resolved. If writing our own story also means writing a coherent story for society, perhaps authenticity’s constructive for us all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Right to look out for ourselves?
Note 1: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 1: Tempting justifications of self
Note 1: What keeps us in check
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: All we want to do passes through community
Note 2: People, roles, reading that rightly
Note 3: “The Measure of a Man”
Note 3: The power of understanding
Note 3: What it is to be human
Note 4: Obligations and contributions
Note 4: Any escape from cause & consequence?
Note 4: What we create by patterns of behaviour
Note 4: Social starting points for modern ways

Ways to share this:

Picking up after one another

If we’re doing something but don’t quite do all that’s involved, what does that mean? Isn’t it that somebody – ourselves or someone else – ends up having to complete the task some other time? Anytime we’re not completely taking responsibility for what we’re involved in, someone along the line has to pick up those pieces.

At the level of society, that must create burdens: people carrying weight and those adding more. If we’re leaving rubbish behind in public spaces, someone will have to pick it up if these things aren’t to accumulate. It seems important to see life that way, to realise how anything we’re not fully seeing through becomes our community’s problem (Notes One).

More personally, it seems we can do something similar to ourselves: past, present and future self all perhaps stand in that relationship to one another. Procrastinating, planning insufficiently or letting things drift, aren’t we effectively just saving up problems for ourselves at another time? Understanding more, we’d perhaps avoid such a scenario (Notes Two).

If we saw the connections between our actions now and the consequences catching up with us later, might we do differently? Maybe changing our ways gets easier when we truly realise that we’re only doing it to ourselves. But, to think that way, we’d have to believe in and care about our future; if it looked like we might as well live for the moment, thoughts of acting responsibly towards our future might never arise.

Individually as much as collectively, maybe responsibility depends on believing something has value? That sacrificing our desires for the good of society was valued. That this path we’re asked to walk and all that’s expected of us along the way leads somewhere worthwhile. If our community doesn’t seem to value, appreciate or care for us then why would we be inspired to limit ourselves on its behalf?

I’m unsure where this train of thought has wandered – maybe to the point that if we’re to take full responsibility for anything then we may need to understand why and believe the reasons to be true? Maybe we need more inspiring reason than “because you must”, “everyone has to” or “this is how it is”. Beyond all the traditional threats, moralising and incentives is there any more comprehensive reasoning on offer? (Notes Three)

In many ways, I see this is pulling at the threads of society. It’s the sense of how to encourage and uphold the kinds of behaviour community life depends upon: responsible behaviour. Doesn’t society need us to act that way? To do what’s best for us and for others. To not go about creating problems. To find the right relationship to the present moment so we’re acting wisely with an eye to the future.

It’s the wisdom of thinking beyond the present moment – considering all the personal and systemic ripples going out from the choices we’re making and example we’re setting. Thinking that way mightn’t come naturally, but otherwise won’t we all be living with the consequences?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Market forces or social necessities
Note 1: Any escape from cause & consequence?
Note 1: The idea of think globally, act locally
Note 1: Ethics, money & social creativity
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 3: Do we really need incentives?
Note 3: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 3: If society’s straining apart, what do we do?
Note 3: What keeps us in check
Note 3: Tell me why I should

Sometimes it seems that the foundation of life perhaps rests in believing our own worth, as explored in Love of self.

Ways to share this:

Things with life have to be maintained

In very real ways, anything with life requires ongoing involvement to sustain itself. Nothing just ticks over, there’s got to be all this activity of cleaning things up, fuelling growth and repair, supporting functions for a lifetime’s duration (Notes One). It’s true of nature and, on a tangent, for projects. It all depends on something of a plan, a vision and commitment, plus the motivation to do all that’s needed to achieve those goals.

Nature plays its part, obviously. Each living creature seems perfectly capable of fulfilling its potential and meeting its requirements, given the right conditions. Plants, birds, mosses, trees and animals need little from us to be as they are (much as we might love to intervene, shaping and redirecting their existence). Nature’s remarkably self-sufficient, provided it lives where its needs can be met and in harmony with what’s around it.

Isn’t it only once “we” reached the point of overcoming our limitations and extending our footprint on this planet that things really began to change? We stepped into this new position and began encroaching on the needs and requirements of nature: taking away or altering habitats; moving plants and animals to different locations and expecting new things of them; rearranging this natural world to meet our own “needs”.

It’s incredible, the challenge humanity brings with it. Isn’t it the case that, having intervened in so much of Earth’s life, we’re now responsible for maintaining it? Stepping in and making changes surely means it’s down to us to figure out the solutions (Notes Two). Isn’t “holding ourselves back from destruction” an important part of maintenance? Upholding the delicate balance of lifeforms, environments and conditions that promote life.

Maybe what I’m getting at is the interplay of nature: how everything’s interconnected in this ongoing state of growth and development; the roles that we all have to play in that; the power of some and vulnerability of others; the responsibility that comes with those positions of power. Doesn’t this “because we can” attitude that often seems to be guiding human progress inevitably carry along with it the burden of understanding?

Our cleverness perhaps naturally gives rise to important questions about our wisdom. We involved ourselves. We crossed a line at some point and began redirecting nature for our own ends. We’ve been taking what we wanted and pushing ourselves ahead, often at the cost of nature – making it dependent on us, disrupting natural development, causing it to suffer so we can grow, expand our numbers, fuel all our activities and so forth.

Of course, “we” are also alive and have a lifestyle that needs maintaining (Notes Three). Nature, though, seems to take only what it truly needs; we seem more inclined to overdo it, perhaps seeking to fill our desire for meaning through the consumption of all this material. Human nature’s funny in that we seem to be saying that both nature and our own kind must compete with “us” in this fight for survival. Where does such thinking lead?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Some thoughts about ‘life’
Note 1: The beauty in home economics
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 1: Detaching from the world around us
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 2: Any escape from cause & consequence?
Note 2: Passivity, or responsibility
Note 3: What’s not essential
Note 3: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 3: Having a sense for being alive
Note 3: Imagining another way?

Ways to share this:

What keeps us in check

What holds us back in life? I’m thinking in the sense of restraint – what stops us from simply doing as “we” please? Is it external constraints like law and ostracization? Do we need rewards for doing the right thing? Or could an inward sense of understanding come to harmoniously regulate our actions?

There’s so much theory around what motivates people – how to inspire or compel them in different ways. The predictability or reliability of our behaviour seems a valuable asset. Society must be easier to run if we’re all acting in consistent, integrated and mutually beneficial ways. Industry must prefer having a captive or loyal basis for its products and services.

Perhaps we’re best guided by fear? Threats of suffering, abandonment or isolation seem pretty effective in controlling people. Incentives also work well – anything to sweeten the deal and make us feel we’ve made a wise or personally-advantageous decision. Maybe those are simply heightened versions of natural consequences? That, ideally, we’d do what’s best and not do what’s damaging or problematic.

Causality presumably serves to limit us? The fact that, down the line, our actions’ effects inevitably add up to something helpful or harmful to us, others, or our community more generally (Notes One). Maybe our “constructed” threats and promises are merely artificial signals of that reality? Although, it does seem they’re often used to direct us toward more questionable outcomes.

Then there’s conformity – how we’re social creatures, strongly influenced by the standards of any group we aspire to be part of. Something that’s leveraged so purposefully through education, modern media and marketing. In its natural form, communities generally seem to have had strong sets of values and ideals for members to uphold. These days, it’s all seeming quite conscious and calculating.

Is it just that we “know” all this now? Knowing social acceptance to be powerful in shaping individuals, maybe it’s only natural we employ that tool to create what we’re wanting. Once you know something, it’s probably almost impossible to go back to using it subconsciously – or, having it used on us – without feeling an element of coercion.

There’s also the question of whether ideals, in and of themselves, have power to hold society together. Can values shape and reinforce social realities simply through having inspired us all to freely uphold them? I suppose that’s also an aim within education, media and culture more broadly: instilling principles and patterns of behaviour that’ll help maintain healthy communities (Notes Two).

But, even then, there’s some sort of balance to be struck between inner and outer regulation – do we “need” to regulate ourselves in order for “this” to work? Living alongside others conceivably depends, in various ways, on discipline, duty and self-sacrifice; attitudes of ego and competitive advantage perhaps working against us. Maybe society needs our understanding and devotion?

Looking at all that sustains us – this harmonious coexistence with others and with nature (Notes Three) – it’s interesting to consider to what extent we’re chipping away at what’s holding it all together.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Need to suffer in order to change?
Note 1: Fear or coercion as motivators
Note 1: Do we really need incentives?
Note 1: Any escape from cause & consequence
Note 2: Tell me why I should
Note 2: Making adjustments
Note 2: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 2: If society’s straining apart, what do we do?
Note 3: Technology & the lack of constraint
Note 3: Smart to play the system?
Note 3: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 3: Trust in technology?

Ways to share this:

Culture as a conversation across time

It’s intriguing to think how the ideas, characters and messages of culture travel across time in this perennial discussion of what it might mean to be human. It’s a conversation that seems capable of crossing almost any number of years – highlighting, perhaps, the timeless nature of the dilemmas and decisions we all encounter in life. Isn’t a part of culture this sense of helping people understand what it is to live well?

Maybe it’s impossible to pin down exactly what culture’s achieving or hopes to achieve for society. It’s interesting how, for so long, people have told these stories that represent their past and those values that have served them well through the years – this reflection of what’s considered effective, constructive and helpful within that community (Notes One). Also, what’s harmful or dangerous for individuals and the group.

Isn’t every community ultimately concerned with its own survival? With encouraging behaviour that’ll help ensure that outcome. With shaping the thinking and character of its members so they’ll understand the importance of their involvement and the significance of what’s at stake. Isn’t it vitally important we all understand our place in the world and our relationships within it?

And don’t we also need a vision – a sense of where this is headed and why we should cooperate for that end? There’s surely this future element to culture’s stories: preparing people for how best to respond to the challenges of life and potential threats to their community’s existence. For us to give up prized notions of individual freedom, don’t we need a compelling reason to do so? (Notes Two)

Culture, in its way, perhaps attempts to weave us all into society’s present by helping us know, understand and appreciate our past; carry all that’s essential forward; and act wisely for our future. Isn’t “all this” about cultivating the kind of thinking and action community depends upon?

It’s just interesting, then, how modern culture’s often deconstructing, falsifying, and casting despairing stories around us at every turn (Notes Three). Why would a society want to do that? Maybe it’s trying to alert people that their future is uncertain? That the kinds of thinking we’ve been living by have seriously destabilised our social, international and natural environments. That our past and future are both questionable.

Perhaps it’s also that people are now more easily able to realise their vision and churn out whatever proves profitable within the cultural marketplace (Notes Four). If depictions of dystopia and intergenerational conflict resonate with people maybe that’s all that’s needed for such storylines to proliferate. Does it matter if it really doesn’t help much in terms of social cohesion, mutual understanding and so forth?

In many ways, whatever hand was guiding the stories surrounding humanity seems to have given way to quite a different set of intentions. How we might best work with such visions of destruction, despair and distrust is surely quite a crucial question in terms of whether this ultimately serves to help us all move forward together.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 1: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 1: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: Right to look out for ourselves?
Note 2: Do we really need incentives?
Note 3: Dystopia as a powerful ideal
Note 3: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 3: Art as a way to subvert or inspire
Note 3: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 4: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 4: It resonates, but should it be amplified?
Note 4: Playing with fire?

Ways to share this:

Mastering life’s invisible realities

So much in life can be seen as invisible – thought, social meaning, feelings, consequences, technology. All these areas where things happen, away from the clear light of day, that truly matter in so many ways. Tangible things are much easier to pin down; this realm of invisibility is something we can perhaps only hope to somehow understand and shed light on.

How do we find out about what we cannot see? With feelings and social meaning, communication – questions, listening, empathy – hopefully helps us understand the inner lives of others, their motivations and struggles, so we stand in better relationship to one another. With nature, we’re relying on science to grasp the theories and knowledge that underpin our place on earth.

In both, it’s this activity of thought that’s helping us see what we can’t – our inner life of perception, interest and understanding seems to be what’s driving us to make sense of the world and connect ourselves with it (Notes One). Don’t we “need” that inner picture of what it all means and what matters in order to engage responsibly and creatively with the realities of being alive?

It’s fascinating, really, that we all carry within us our understanding of life. Through childhood, youth and, hopefully, adulthood we’re constantly developing, expanding and refining this mental representation of all that’s around us – an inner map to help us wisely navigate the external world and position ourselves well in relation to all we find there. Isn’t that the aim? Harmonious integration.

And all this clearly taps into the fundamental importance of education, information, and the like (Notes Two). Isn’t creating and maintaining the inner reality that forms our counterpart to the world around us a large part of what makes us human? How well are we guarding, populating and directing the space that is our mind?

These days, it’s certainly seeming a monumental challenge. Staying on top of all that’s changing in the modern world, filtering out the unnecessary, discerning the important from the unimportant, deciphering the meaning behind the tone of all that’s communicated to us every instant of every day is an incredible concept of what it might now mean to be human (Notes Three).

How well “can” we understand all that’s going on? Every area of activity’s now speeding ahead in all these divergent directions with seemingly little coordination of how well it can fit together. Doesn’t specialisation effectively now place the thinking behind our progress just beyond the reach of most people’s understanding? How we’re supposed to judge the wisdom of all this is an interesting question.

And, of course, technology’s activities are also invisible: we don’t truly see the systems our interactions feed into or how that data is used; we can’t often see the impacts of all we’re engaging with online; we’re not quite seeing the reality of how all this is changing the world around us (Notes Four). How exactly are we supposed to fathom, master and wisely direct all this power we’re now wielding?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Ideas that tie things together
Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: What are we thinking?
Note 2: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Working through mind & society
Note 3: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 3: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 3: Overwhelm and resignation
Note 3: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 4: Technology as a partial reality
Note 4: How important is real life?
Note 4: Social starting points for modern ways

Ways to share this:

Plausible deniability

Do we sometimes say things without quite saying them? Knowing our words might be misconstrued, but continuing anyway; safe in the knowledge we can claim it’s not what we said and our meaning’s been misinterpreted. This plausible deniability that lets people slip out behind the fence of their words.

It’s like humour in a way, to make comments on the slant then say they’re a joke. Maybe it’s simply communication? Especially given how hard conversation’s becoming these days (Notes One). There’s safety in not quite saying things. Plus, the release of having, to some extent, expressed ourselves. Also, perhaps, the power of delivering our real message under cover of darkness.

Is that also what this is? Saying things off the record, tucked away from what’s said on the surface. Communication’s fascinating in that people are pretty capable of conveying what they’re wanting to say. Not always with the words themselves, but somewhere between, near, underneath or around them. Language serving as this ever-evolving code for sharing our thoughts (Notes Two).

Ambiguity has such power – the smoke and mirrors of what’s said and meant. Those aware of the subtext receive messages that remain almost undetectable to others. Concerns can be swept away as overthinking, reading too much into it, or just being paranoid. Backtracking can quite easily be described as an honest mistake, and by then the damage is probably done.

There’s also a disconcerting confidence to lying. People seem quite capable of boldly stating things, indignant you might question them, standing so calmly by their false little assertion. By contrast, those accustomed to speaking truth may appear flustered, confused or hurt at their character being called into question. Especially if what’s at stake – principles; the value of human life – truly matters to them.

In a way, those two almost look the same: statements, reactions, calmness or chaos. It’s interesting to think that behind one stands truth while the other conceals deceit and questionable intentions. Why does anyone want to hide truth? Why confuse, mislead and distract others? There’s clearly value in stoking fires and planting seeds of doubt, knowing they’re likely to grow despite being challenged or disproven.

At times there’s perhaps something comparable in this writing – the deliberate incompleteness of not quite finishing a thought, letting things stream out beyond the confines of what I’m saying. It comes from a place of not wanting to tell anyone what to think but, instead, to explore these thoughts and see where they lead. Isn’t our thinking always up to us?

Whatever the context, there’s this sense in which it’s up to each of us to decide what we hear, how we see things, what it might mean, and where it all leads – how our views on life are being informed (Notes Three). Isn’t the obligation on us all to think for ourselves and be sure of what we’ll trust? Surely, then, it’s worth considering why people communicate as they do, the intentions behind it, and what’s truly in our best interests.

Notes and References:

Note 1: True words spoken in jest
Note 1: Does anger ever, truly, help?
Note 1: Is honesty actually the best policy?
Note 1: Listening, tolerance & communication
Note 2: What we say & what we mean
Note 2: Conversation as revelation
Note 2: Can others join you?
Note 3: The power of understanding
Note 3: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 3: Need to stand alone & think for ourselves
Note 3: Powerful responsibility of a media voice
Note 3: Which voice can we trust?

Ways to share this:

Treating people like sims?

Is it really the case that, behind closed doors, people treat our lives as if they’re not quite real? As if hypothetical or projected outcomes aren’t really lived through, felt and experienced by actual individuals.

Maybe it’s simply the nature of thought and how we apply it to our lives? Thought often “being” this detached, logical, impersonal way of seeing things: deconstructing, labelling, theorising, planning and executing. Is there something about plan-making that’s inherently inhuman, in that it relies on treating complex realities as abstract datapoints we shuffle around to gain profit or reduce loss? (Notes One)

Life “can” be analysed, grouped, observed and predicted. We can casually walk around the room as big as this world and place our labels on everything we see, confidently expressing our understanding of it all and explaining how things should be. Thought “has” that power and we’re taught to wield it from the moment we’re born.

So perhaps it’s “natural” we get to the point of governments and businesses coldly looking upon us as data, as patterns to be managed or exploited; letting research, evidence, modelling, projections and proposals inform policy-making. So much in life’s being directed by the kind of thinking that sees those involved as if they’re simply abstract elements of broader intentions.

But doesn’t everything very quickly become personal? Aren’t these offerings, services and interventions essentially dealing with the realities that make up our lives? It’s always going to be someone’s hopes, feelings, self-worth, and journey through life. All of that’s very real and can’t be discounted (Notes Two). There’s personal – therefore, social – cost to it all.

Just because we “can” look on life with the calculation of thought, does that mean we’re right to? It seems the world’s being set up as these vast, interlocking systems with so much effort being made to influence our behaviour within them. And, within it all, there must be people who know “what’s happening” – what’s being created, allowed and encouraged – but apparently don’t care for the human side to that picture.

Can we do that? Even in the name of business, profit or efficiency, can we disregard all the lived realities and attitudes around human worth we’re serving to reinforce? Can we choose the mindset of commerce instead of concern, seeing the eventual outcomes as “worth the sacrifice” for this future we’re aiming to create?

Is the individual human life not deemed worth much in that vision of progress? We may not see the humanity of it all, but it’s there. Everyone carrying within an incredible richness of unique gifts, insights and challenges; all deserving dignity, respect and freedom.

How aware do we let ourselves be that these will become intensely lived experiences for people? How often are we carried away behind the mask of planning, acting as if the realities playing out are mere simulations of lives unrelated to ours? Isn’t everybody part of this same system? Can any life be folded into another’s plans without that being problematic on some level?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Those who are leading us
Note 1: Ethics, money & social creativity
Note 1: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 1: Strange arrogance of thought
Note 1: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 2: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 2: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: Any escape from cause & consequence?
Note 2: This thing called love

Maybe, within all of this, all I’m really talking about is What it is to be human.

Ways to share this:

How ideas find their place in the world

How is it that ideas – these little beings from the realm of thought – ever make their way into the world and into our heads? Is it that we find them evidenced around us and, seeing them there, create them within the confines of our mind? Or that we’re told what to think then see life through the lens of received thoughts? Perhaps some blend between the two.

Does it matter? Surely a large part of being human is that we perceive the world with our minds, form thoughts about it, and let them shape how we’re living (Notes One). The way we’re able to discern patterns, find meaning, hold onto ideas and have them inform our choices seems pretty unique. That we communicate our ideas and coordinate ourselves around them seems the whole premise of society.

Understanding the world – forming a thorough and comprehensive sense of what’s contained here – has been the driving force behind much of human activity, particularly in the centuries leading into the present day. This idea of discovering, cataloguing, delving into and systematising all that can be known of “reality” having been the quest that’s pushed civilisation forward to the point we now find ourselves.

All we now know is incredible, really. The human mind has wrapped itself around the globe, digging down and peering up to uncover all there is to be found, examined, picked apart, labelled, and assigned its place within the library of human knowledge. Knowledge now essentially placed at everyone’s fingertips through the instrument of technology (Notes Two).

Everything’s there: the entire wealth of human insight. Discoveries many people dedicated their lives to, if not gave those lives for. Individuals grappled, persisted, persevered, and sometimes risked everything in pursuit of new or deeper understanding. There was perhaps this sense that to be human was to overcome the world with our mind, conquering all there is to be grasped and offering it up for the wider community.

How humans applied themselves in moving beyond their limitations to travel, uncover and understand is a fascinating picture of our collective history. Almost everything must now have its label? It all sits within a body of thought; in the place it’s been assigned. Our words, thoughts and ideas have brought so much to light and into relationship – thinking perhaps echoing reality with all its connections (Notes Three).

To be the humans on the receiving end of such an inheritance is a daunting task. We didn’t earn this. We’re just the latest in a long line of people born into the realities of their time, place and culture. We’ve simply been handed this vast set of ideas, beliefs, theories and the social realities that come along with them. “This” is what those before devoted themselves to: the fruits of their finest endeavours.

What are we to make of being some of the most well-informed humans ever to have existed? How well-prepared are we to handle the immense responsibility of all the power that knowledge imparts to us?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Ideas that tie things together
Note 2: All that’s going on around us
Note 2: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 3: Detaching from the world around us
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?

Ideas around where we now stand and why it’s not easy were also the subject of Life’s never been simpler…

Ways to share this:

Ideas of agreement & mastery

One way of looking at life is to see youth, particularly, as a time of “agreements” we’re then living our lives by. This process of “domestication” that ushers us into the particular way of thinking of our family, community and culture. It’s the perspective skilfully deconstructed and reworked by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book “The Four Agreements”.

Childhood surely does shape our relationship with the human and social realities surrounding us? It’s the time for finding our place; discovering ourselves; learning to stand alone and firmly grasp the world in thought and action. And by far the majority do all they can to help others come to terms with life and form useful ideas for approaching it.

Life perhaps “is” our understanding of the world? Underpinned by all those ideas we’ve accepted as true. Beliefs Ruiz refers to as “dreams”: “The dream of the planet is the collective dream of billions of smaller, personal dreams”.

It’s fascinating to imagine how we’re all directing others’ attention toward what we consider or were told was important. This process of learning and socialisation that civilisation arguably depends upon: bringing people into the world of meaning, purpose and understanding their society’s upholding as valuable (Notes One).

A process where, step by step, we lose ourselves to become as we’re supposed to be – repressing or rejecting parts of “self” to become part of our community (Notes Two). We perhaps all “learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted”. Part of being human may be to accept the ideas of a community.

But there’s clearly scope for living with attitudes, ideas and beliefs quite apart from those Ruiz recommends; beliefs that can be as damaging to the individual as to those living alongside them (Notes Three). If our thinking doesn’t reflect our own worth, that of society or the world at large, presumably our behaviour will also reflect that?

The suggestion here is to “forget everything you have learned in your whole life” and, in its place, adopt the four agreements of “Be impeccable with your word”, “Don’t take anything personally”, “Don’t make assumptions” and “Always do your best”. Essentially, to break old agreements that perhaps never truly served us, replacing them with these flexible, healthy ones.

As foundational principles for smoothing our path in life they seem pretty solid, versatile and balanced. A sense of taking responsibility for yourself and doing what’s needed to unpick, relearn and become the best we can be.

Ideas Ruiz carries further in “The Mastery of Love”, exploring the impact of basing relationships on fear and self-protection rather than acceptance and forgiveness; how awareness instead of blame might help heal wounds so we’re able to share ourselves freely with others; and ways our relationship with self informs all other ties we make in life.

With the wisdom or constraint of tradition rapidly fading, this refreshing presentation of Toltec thought offers us some truly human-centred principles for living a modern life.

Notes and References:

“The Four Agreements. A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom” by Don Miguel Ruiz, (Amber Allen, California), 1997.

“The Mastery of Love. A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship” by Don Miguel Ruiz, (Amber Allen, California), 1999.

Note 1: What you’re left with
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: What are we primed for?
Note 2: The way to be
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: What it is to be human
Note 3: The struggle with being alive
Note 3: Living as an open wound
Note 3: The dignity & power of a human life
Note 3: This thing called love

Offering something of a counterpoint to this, Is cultural sensitivity still a thing? looked at the challenge of individualism meeting with tradition.

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