January 2020 – EbbSpark

Joining the dots

Thinking about why ideas matter – why we argue, wanting others to see our point of view and make it their own – is it that we all seek for our personal perspective to be accepted and acknowledged as a common truth? Maybe that’s simply communication? Needing our thoughts to be voiced, heard, and understood within that shared space (Notes One).

What, then, are our thoughts? Maybe each person’s simply joining the dots with their minds: taking the facts, experiences, events or elements of “life” then creating narratives of causality around those points to, hopefully, establish a coherent sense of meaning. Everything coming together as our own, personal “picture” of what it’s all about and how best to live.

Of course, we all have distinct areas of experience, interest or expertise: those things we know better, care about more, or feel most need to be changed. Often, though, it seems we all might be trying to superimpose “our picture” over that of others. Each encounter being a chance to “correct” the significance someone else might’ve assigned to the elements of their worldview.

Is that why conversations can come across as personal attacks? If our ideas arise from our experiences – the meaning we’ve been able to piece together and make our own – aren’t the conclusions we’ve reached part and parcel of who we are and how we’ve navigated life up to this point? “Correcting” another’s viewpoint is perhaps always going to be confronting. How can anyone speak into that reality?

Not to say people can’t be wrong or there isn’t truth to be found (Notes Two), but how can we go about uncovering it? Nestled as it might be within the intricacies of our lives, how do we respect another’s experiences while also challenging their conclusions? Is it possible to separate the two and say it isn’t personal?

Who’s to say someone’s experiences and ideas are “wrong”? If this is what people carry within them – the moments they’ve lived, lessons they’ve learnt, meanings they’ve spun to manage – maybe we all just experience the many different sides of life. Coming to see things through other eyes, our own perspective might be greatly enriched. If all these viewpoints stand within our world, shouldn’t they matter?

We might get impatient – caught up in the clarity of our own insight, wanting others to accept it so life can proceed on that basis – but can mutual understanding be rushed? What does it “mean” to brush another’s ideas – the meaning that emerged for them out of the felt realities of their lives – away and ask them to go with ours? Should we rush ahead at “our” pace, or pause to ensure everything’s truly working well?

Does the truth of each experience need to be heard? Within society, does each human reality matter? Can other’s lives be folded into other ideas of what’s a valid path of “progress”? Given the complex, often hidden, nature of modern systems, maybe it’s really important that we listen to those affected by it all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 1: Going towards the unknown
Note 2: Do we need meaning?
Note 2: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 2: Imperfection as perfection?
Note 2: What it is to be human

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Values, and what’s in evidence

In all that surrounds us, what’s seeming most important? Isn’t our world, in many ways, painting a picture of what we’re generally considering important? Our actions within it showing which elements we are treasuring most? Life, then, could be a place where our values are always quite clear for everyone to see.

It’s interesting to think we live within such a world. Society around us, in all these big and little ways, forever showing and reminding us what matters within our community. Not only through the legacies we’ve received from the past – the infrastructure, architecture, history, social forms, and traditions – but also through how well we’re treating it all now. Don’t our attitudes towards things speak volumes?

Doesn’t everything we do communicate our values? All our words, the ways we interact with others, and how we’re acting within shared spaces or structures all effectively speaking of what matters to us, what we see as essential, and what our priorities are. The ideas we hold of life rippling out of us through all the choices we’re making in everyday life.

And, it seems we tend to know what we’re “supposed” to say – which values we’ve been told to uphold by those around us. Things like equality, fairness, honesty, kindness, courage, self-control, generosity. Knowing something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s happening, though. That whole “do as I say, not as I do” inconsistency. While we may know what’s “right”, that’s not to say we aren’t often looking for ways around it.

Perhaps that’s just human nature? Society being an imposed construct, we perhaps needed to be taught how best to live within it: the kinds of attitudes, beliefs and ideals that would help strengthen – and, not weaken – the valuable collective endeavour (Notes One). It certainly seems our natural self-interest would need containing for social life to function harmoniously.

Looking around though, isn’t a lot of what’s going on more greatly influenced by “market” values? The thinking and attitudes of that space often seeming to spill out and filter into our lives more generally – all those judgements, desires, and feelings about personal worth. It’s interesting to think that our values, once perhaps coming from the rarefied world of philosophy, poetry or thought, might now come out of industry.

Whether it’s a problem might be the important question. While the kinds of social values listed above seem quite altruistic – encouraging people to act for the benefit of others – aren’t our economic attitudes generally more self-serving? It seems an area of life where we’re told to look out for ourselves and ensure we stand apart from others. Markets, almost by definition, being places of competition, exclusivity and advantage.

Musing over what picture our lives are painting, it’s interesting to consider we might be moving in directions that enhance our antisocial tendencies with very little left to offset the “drift”. What will it mean for society if our choices are being made more out of limited personal interest than concern for what it means for everyone else?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Society as an imposition?
Note 1: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 1: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 1: What’s not essential
Note 1: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 1: Picking up after one another
Note 1: Too much responsibility?

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All in such a rush

With modern life, is it that we now have endless amounts to do in the same, finite amount of time? There seem no limits to all we could pursue as, potentially, we could be talking to every single person or showing interest in whatever it is they’ve decided to put out into the world. With all technology’s offering, there effectively seem to be no boundaries between us and all we could concern ourselves with.

In the past, there was presumably hardly any opportunity to do that? People might’ve been interested in a great many things, but those interests were probably curtailed by limited access to sources of information or means of communication. Perhaps those interests just dwelt in their hearts as impossible dreams and questions about life? This unrequited longing to know more, meet more people, and stretch beyond those limits.

It’s strange to think how much our lives have changed over the last century, in particular (Notes One). All the ways small scale, meaningful communities have branched out into this new, rather different set of realities. It sometimes seems the past’s a blissful place, simply for the fact most people didn’t bear this burden of choice – not being free to do more, you’d probably commit to working with what’s actually around you.

These days, by comparison, the horizon of our opportunities is so much wider. It must be hard to choose, to commit to any one thing, if doing so curtails the chance of choosing countless others. Almost paralysing, perhaps? If every step you take is echoed by thousands of others you therefore couldn’t, it’s almost as if we’re haunted by the very notion of choosing anything from the options we’re surrounded with.

How are we to focus if, every moment, there is so much we could be doing? So many conversations we could be having; choices we could be considering; situations we could be learning about; areas of knowledge we could be deepening or broadening out. The internet must be this completely limitless place being filled, moment by moment, with countless valuable perspectives and pieces of information.

Little wonder we’re so interested in multi-tasking, increasing efficiency, and ruthlessly cutting things out to make space for whatever our chosen focus is. Attention seems a naturally limited capacity, so “modern life” conceivably demands that we choose some things and ignore others – we simply cannot do it all or we’ll be spreading ourselves too thin.

That said, doesn’t all of it matter? We’re not, perhaps, saying, that whatever we don’t have time for isn’t important; just that we’re not prioritising it over and above whatever else has captured our interest. We’re simply recalibrating our concerns based around all these new things the world’s inserting into the basic format of “daily life”.

Couldn’t a lot of things easily get left out, though? All these pressing issues and entertaining voices drowning out other, quieter, more unassuming ideas, people or activities that, truly, might not deserve to be cut out of the modern conversation.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Things change, over time
Note 1: Detaching from the world around us
Note 1: Making things up as we go along
Note 1: What’s not essential
Note 1: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 1: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 1: Life’s never been simpler…

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What is it with tone?

Something that often tends to bother me greatly is “tone”. Ultimately, I suppose it’s this sense of what words are coated with? All that surrounds them with extra weight or emotion. Doesn’t “all that” effectively change the meaning of our words themselves? Or, at least, place them within a broader context that can significantly impact what’s actually being said.

It’s something I’ve written about before (Note One), musing over this idea of words carrying only a small percentage of all that’s communicated between us. Body language, tone of voice and other social cues generally adding a great deal to the substance of our words. It’s fascinating, in many ways, because aren’t we all quite isolated within our own bodies, with only words to connect us?

Through language, don’t we reach out to establish common ground? This act of sharing our experiences, perspectives or feelings and, hopefully, having them received and acknowledge by others (Notes Two). Aren’t words the most efficient way of bridging our aloneness to feel connected, understood, accepted? Seeing ourselves within a greater sense of meaning and belonging.

That “words” might carry such a tiny portion of our meaning just seems so interesting. All this other “stuff” – how we’re holding ourselves; the sentiments expressed by our voice or delivery; the social gesture our statements are making; ways those around are responding, their concern or disinterest encouraging or making us feel more isolated from human companionship – potentially turning them into something quite different.

It seems like one of those areas where it’s tempting to think things are “easy”. That you can just string your words together and your intended meaning will happily follow them out and travel, unaltered, through the ears and into the mind of your recipient. But, in reality, it seems that journey is fraught with opportunity for your message to be misconstrued or get completely lost.

Which, thinking about it, is probably completely obvious. Much of life can be seen as filled with our failings or difficulties in communicating our true meaning to others – all the times things have been misunderstood or mistaken over the years. Don’t we generally hope to find common ground, yet struggle to get others to see life the same way?

Perhaps by “tone”, then, I’m meaning “all that’s not words”? All this other “human” stuff that wraps around them, their delivery and reception, adding whole new levels of significance. We might be completely unaware of all we’re sending along with our words, let alone what others might pick up on that makes “hearing” so difficult, but it’s still a reality whenever we communicate.

Given how it touches into all other areas of life, tone’s probably not an insignificant thing to be concerned about (Notes Three). That said, isn’t it often brushed aside as a particularly “female” preoccupation or over-sensitivity? Being attuned to life’s social or emotional nuance may not be valued as much as it could be (Notes Four), but more effective communication seems like something that could benefit us all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Tone in public dialogue
Note 2: Conversation as revelation
Note 2: The power of understanding
Note 2: “People Skills”
Note 3: The difference humanity makes
Note 3: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 3: Can others join you?
Note 3: What are we primed for?
Note 3: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 4: The beauty in home economics
Note 4: “Minding the Earth, Mending the World”
Note 4: “Women who run with the wolves”

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Culture as information

To what extent is culture simply information? A set of ideas about how to live, or a reflection of how we are living. Options for how to go about being human that come to life and play themselves out before us; so, hopefully, we can learn from what we see and decide for ourselves the path we’ll, individually, walk through the realities surrounding us.

It seems one way of conceiving of all that’s going on in this realm: a sort of mirror held up to life that shows us what the ideal is and how things are currently looking (Notes One). Perhaps, in the past, people focussed more on the “ideal”? Holding to the notion that there “is” a right way of living and culture’s the place we’re reminded of it. This idea of culture as an authority, an example, a standard, a rebuke.

Now, though, it seems we’ve rejected that perspective. Culture’s seeming more an exploration of “how things are”, with themes emerging about the state of society and choices people are making standing as a strange sort of example for how to live (Notes Two). As if, having discredited any form of authority, we’re now free to choose between all these other things that are offered.

It’s an interesting shift, as the first scenario is clearly quite controlling while the second gives us all an incredible amount of licence. It’s probably not that clean cut, though, there presumably still are sections of society attempting to control, influence or direct what we consider to be our options. Maybe it’s just a little more subtle and understated now.

At one extreme, don’t we find religion? Those stories that serve to shape entire worldviews by placing us all within wider, often cosmic, hidden realities where our choices all count for something. Higher-level beliefs that effectively inform every aspect of how people are living: the practices, values and priorities their lives will likely be structured around. This idea of there being deeper reason behind it all.

Doesn’t what we believe and focus on affect how we live? Shaping how we see people, the kinds of judgements we make, and which options we’ll consider acceptable. Furnishing us with the fundamental ideas, assumptions and attitudes we’re building our lives on each day, as we run all our choices through the filter of how we see things.

In that way, doesn’t culture effectively “inform” our lives? The ideas we entertain or have in mind coming together to form this sense we have of what life “is” and how to approach it – what matters, what doesn’t; which attitudes serve or hold you back; the things your community will judge or admire you over. All these stories generally telling us how we might live and where it might lead.

Where else do we get our ideas from? They presumably have to “come” from somewhere (Notes Three). And, if they’re subtly shaping how we’re responding to the world, this must be quite a powerful force within our lives.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 2: Any such thing as normal?
Note 2: Involvement in modern culture
Note 3: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 3: Going towards the unknown

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Freedom, responsibility & choice

In this world full of choices, where exactly do we stand? Are we the ones making choices, having choices made for us, or simply feeling the impacts of choices happening around us? The Western world, in particular, seems to be where a lot of choice is being offered – every single aspect of our lives apparently involving a whole raft of options for us to choose between. What are we making of it all?

Conceivably, it’s a pretty large burden: having to make so many decisions each day can’t be easy on the brain. Deciding between seemingly never-ending variations of quite similar things is perhaps a strange way to be using our minds; and it seems a little questionable where it might lead (Notes One). The chopping and changing between which options we prefer – plus, all the new ones arriving each day – could take up a lot of time.

Then there’s the way all these choices add up. There are presumably huge piles of discarded options somewhere on this planet: all the things we thought we wanted but didn’t; all that others thought we might want, but we didn’t; all we have to get rid of to make space for all the new things we now want. In every way, the fact we face so many choices must multiply up the consequences of all this.

We might, then, be enjoying the freedom of all this choice, but how responsible are we actually being here? If each thing we choose is but one option among many, do we then need multiple versions of each item to satisfy ourselves? Once we’ve made any decision, it almost seems inevitable we’d be thinking of all the options we didn’t choose – wishing we could have them as well.

Modern life seems strange in that we clearly love novelty – there seems an endless demand for more, newer or simply different options by which we might define ourselves or mark the passage of time. The human psyche apparently has an effortless appreciation for variation, beauty and innovation. Which is great, in many ways, but where will it end? (Notes Two)

While this applies quite clearly to the realm of “goods”, how much is it also relevant elsewhere? Flitting between one thing and the next, it sometimes seems we’re losing the capacity to focus on any one thing. Or, to comprehend the consequences of it all. Each thing passes in front of us, catching our eye and drawing up a response, and then it’s simply onto another. As soon as anything’s chosen it risks becoming redundant.

Given we live in a world of finite space, resources and time, how are we choosing to spend it all? How much that might really matter are we potentially losing sight of while distracted by the beauty of choice or burden of managing it? How many situations are we contributing to through all these choices? Creating ripples that become serious problems elsewhere. How responsible are we being with all this freedom we’re offered?

Notes and References:

Note 1: “Paradox of Choice”
Note 1: “Brave New World Revisited”
Note 1: The insatiable desire for more
Note 1: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 2: Detaching from the world around us
Note 2: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 2: What we create by patterns of behaviour
Note 2: Making ends meet

Thinking about all these things was also the focus of Too much responsibility?

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How much do intentions matter?

In the scheme of things, how much do our intentions actually matter? Given how often, somewhere between the birth of our idea and the place it reaches its target, things seem to go awry, does it matter what we meant if the results are quite different?

We could have the finest intentions yet still cause devastating consequences. People might give very little thought to things, but somehow create good outcomes. It’s interesting to consider how often these things might not carry through – getting lost somewhere along their way into the real world. It’s almost like there’s two realities: the ones in our heads and the one happening all around us.

Perhaps it’s similar to communication not being successful if our meaning’s not conveyed? We have these ideas, feelings and plans in our heads – all these thoughts about our understanding of life, our relationships within it, and how we’d like things to be – and somehow need to send them out there for others to hear, so they know where we’re coming from. How often does that work out perfectly? (Notes One)

Between the words we choose, way we’re communicating and countless other factors, the likelihood of our message getting across as we hope may be quite low. It just seems things get lost on the way. As if our words and intentions all get thrown out into the void of communal reality and tend to float there, getting misinterpreted or never quite becoming what we thought.

Maybe it’s simply that any act of communication – words or deeds – is fraught with strange, uncontrollable obstacles? There’s the clarity with which we understand our own ideas and motivations; the skill we’ve got in wrapping those thoughts with words and sharing them in ways others are able to receive; then the fact others may, from their own frame of reference, interpret our meaning or delivery quite differently.

Isn’t “reality” something we have to create shared agreement over? Everyone perhaps needing to interpret things the same way, if we’re to have just one conversation about it all. As things stand, it seems we’re often cherishing our own perspectives and fighting against those others are offering. If we’re always seeing things through our own eyes, assigning our own meaning, can we ever hear what others say?

It just seems that a lot of these things take work on both sides – this whole give and take of sharing reality. Working on clarifying our own understanding of life and motivation within it seems valuable. Developing our communication skills so others stand a better chance of hearing what we say seems a worthwhile use of time. Patiently finding new ways to convey what matters, even if others don’t see it, is probably important.

Because people’s intentions surely do matter? Our understanding, awareness, concern, and the kind of values we’re basing our lives on must count for a lot in the bigger scheme of things. Those qualities might be imperfectly delivered, expressed or executed, but surely it matters that they’re there?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Going towards the unknown
Note 1: Letting people change
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 1: Whether we make a difference

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EbbSpark & the value in thought

Writing for this site, I’ve tended to ask myself at these regular intervals where this is headed – checking in that things haven’t gone off track or wandered down some dark alley too removed from reality to be of use. Because, genuinely, I write as much for myself as any audience, as my way of trying to make sense of life and find the threads or pathways within it.

Perhaps it’s this notion of having a worldview? All the ideas, thoughts and beliefs we have in mind about the nature of reality and our place within it. This sense in which we all carry a world in our heads; one that may or may not relate that truthfully or helpfully to the one that’s actually around us.

It must “matter”, the ideas we have in mind. Doesn’t our pre-emptive sense of understanding, in a way, determine both what we’ll see and how we’ll interpret it? Our reactions or responses essentially flowing out of the way we’ve already learnt to see things. Responses that, in turn, presumably shape reality through the attitudes we cast back out there.

Isn’t it true that our presence in the world changes it? That everything arriving on our doorstep leaves, in some way, transformed through how we’ve interacted with it – every person, object or idea we come across having been treated with respectful interest or casual disregard, depending on how much we value all the experiences of life.

Do we realise that all we do matters? That every interaction speaks volumes about the values we hold dear, principles we’re bringing to life, and extent to which we care for everything in the world that’s not us. In a way, our lives can be seen as a reflection of our ideas: all we’ve learnt or been told, everything we’ve come to see as valuable, informing how we choose to be.

As thinking beings, isn’t thought the source of our independence? Our capacity to reason, remember, and form decisions effectively creating the foundation for our being in the world: we can know where we stand and, based on that, decide how we’ll live. Isn’t there incredible freedom and responsibility to being in charge of ourselves this way?

If the thoughts we have in mind – all the facts, figures, theories, sensitivities, assumptions – inform our choices for how to act, then don’t they matter a great deal? Approaching the world of thought with a sense that it might be a significant creative force in all our lives might be a strange way of looking at life, but, if it’s truly how things work, maybe it’s wise not to ignore it.

Which, coming back to my reflections on this writing project, reaches this point of wondering what exactly we’re doing here: how we’re using our powers for thought; how much we understand of life; and how well it’s working out in terms of the patterns emerging within modern society. If we believe it all matters, might that not make a considerable difference?

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