Month: March 2020

Being trusted to use our discernment…

As humans, particularly those living in the West, isn’t a lot of faith being placed in our capacity for judgement? In every area of life, it seems we have so many choices to make, so many temptations placed on our path, so many distractions to hold us back from fully focussing on any given thing. Yet, still, it’s our choices that are setting so many things in motion.

If we’re being given this much freedom to decide for ourselves what our lives are going to be – which things we’ll buy, initiatives we’ll support, places we’ll go and activities we’ll encourage – it’s intriguing to think how we’re supposed to prepare ourselves for that level of responsibility. How are we to be sure each person’s truly capable of making the “best” decisions for themselves and the system at large? (Notes One)

It hardly seems an insignificant thing, given that each life is conceivably composed of the countless decisions making up our days. How are we to maintain our awareness of every single option and how it fits into all the systems evolving around us at such startling speed? How are the precepts and instructions of anyone’s childhood to “meet” the shifting realities of modern living?

The tasks of education, the media and culture presumably take on a slightly different light if we conceive of them as preparing, supporting and maintaining each individual’s active understanding of both their society and its place in an ever-changing world (Notes Two). If each person is to emerge with a thorough yet flexible understanding of “reality” capable of informing every decision they’ll make, those tasks seem quite weighty.

To be able to judge, don’t we need to understand? Not only our own position, but also the broader context in which we stand. Not only what each option means for us, but also what it means more widely within our social reality. If every decision we make feeds into the bigger picture of all that’s surrounding us, our understanding of that world seemingly needs to be quite vast if we’re to conceive of every possible ramification.

Yet, Western society seemingly trusts us all to develop and exercise our discernment. Where will that “project” go if we’re not deserving of such trust? If we act obliviously or carelessly of the consequences of our actions. If we think only of “us”, at the cost of the broader context we’re all undeniably a part of. Where’s society headed if we’re mainly using our freedom to please ourselves in the short-term? (Notes Three)

If society were filled with people who truly understood it, from every perspective, and cared deeply about what life was like through those eyes, everything could presumably be trusted to go relatively smoothly. If everyone knew the significance of their every role and contribution, the necessity for regulation could conceivably disappear.

All the while we don’t quite understand thoroughly enough or judge in the light of such compassionate understanding, the sense of where society’s standing sometimes seems quite precarious.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 1: The need for discernment
Note 1: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 1: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: What keeps us in check
Note 3: The self within society
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: The value we’re giving to things

Turning this around the other way, to look at who we’re asked to trust within modern society, was one focus of Concerns over how we’re living.

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The thought surrounding us

Isn’t it true that, in many ways, we’re constantly surrounded by thought? Our own thoughts of what things are, what they mean, and how it all ties together, then all these other thoughts people have had or are having around us. This idea that “everything” is either the product of thought or its subject, as humans weave their minds over and about everything that falls in our path.

Maybe it’s “obvious” that, as thinking beings, we would be casting those minds around our environment, but it’s still strange to think that every moment of every day we’re being assailed by ideas, statements and interpretations. This never-ending tide of meaning that flows over us with all we see and hear throughout the day (Notes One).

As if everything’s a sort of embodied thought: something someone once dreamed up, created, distributed to help serve our needs. Life then becoming this landscape of all those things that were here before us – nature, environment, history – plus all those we’ve added since. Realities we’ve come to take up, make our own, build our lives around and upon.

Then, of course, all of the more explicit “thought” that’s thrown our way each day through conversations, encounters, news, social media, and the like (Notes Two). All these voices expressing their thoughts, forming their conclusions, casting their judgements or recommendations in our direction. Each of us drawing on our own frame of reference to speak into other lives and tell those people what to think – what it all means.

Beyond the arguable confusion of now having so many of humanity’s artefacts finding their way into our lives, aren’t we also now living within the strangely critical atmosphere of other people’s perspectives? This ceaseless commentary of everyone judging and labelling everything we’re being shown. As if life itself now has this overlay of articulated human thought we’re all perhaps contributing towards or listening to.

It hardly seems surprising that modern life would be mentally draining in ways previously unknown: living within this proliferation of things and opinions is daunting even in theory. Being surrounded by objects from all times and places – some carrying great meaning, some cheaply produced for the chance of a profit – is a lot to filter through and make sense of. As are all the many, many voices speaking at us each day.

If we take it that it all “means something” – coming out of somebody’s idea of life or some trend within society – trying to piece together the bigger picture of all that’s going on in the world, what people are buying into, and where it’s all leading can seem so overwhelming (Notes Three). And we can’t really say it doesn’t matter, as if enough people believe and act on these things the future becomes a different place.

Being human – capable of thought – within a modern world so full of questionable ideas can’t be easy: each of us, perhaps, tangled in trains of thinking that sorely need us to smooth out and correct them somehow.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Visual language and spaces
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Do we need meaning?
Note 1: Attacks on our humanity
Note 1: How much do intentions matter?
Note 2: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Humans, judgement & shutting down
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Joining the dots
Note 3: Power and potential
Note 3: Complication of being human
Note 3: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 3: All in such a rush

In a similar vein to all this, Problems & the thought that created them mused over understanding, creating and resolving our problems.

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Mutual awareness and accommodation?

Society, in a number of ways, seems like a dance: the spaces around us, the interactions, the give and take, the moments we meet and then move apart. All these ways our lives intersect and something’s exchanged between us, be it goods or greetings or whatever else we have to offer one another in life. Community, in its own way, being this dance of individuals working together for the overall effect it produces.

If we conceive of society as a gathering of people for a common purpose, it must be that we all have our parts to play as well as points where we benefit from all others are doing. The coordination of it all seems quite staggering, really; especially in the West, where so much essentially rests on personal freedoms and market forces (Notes One).

Doesn’t it all depend on a degree of awareness? That we understand the value of what we’re engaged in and the responsibilities we have within it all. That we grasp these invisible lines and interactions between us, knowing how to operate so the whole “thing” runs smoothly, harmoniously, even beautifully. If we don’t see that picture – or, believe in it – what will that mean?

Taking it down to the everyday, even how we move together in space seems significant. Especially now, with the added requirements of social distancing for the preservation of our communities, but also more generally: how aware are we of others within the spaces we share? If daily life’s a dance of sorts – everyone skirting round one another to access communal resources – how smoothly does the whole thing go?

Some seem very skilled at it: seeing others coming, reading intentions, anticipating the pinch points of proximity, and accommodating one another with almost effortless grace, respect and recognition. At other times, there’s this sense that “others” are seen as obstacles to be ignored, walked through, or treated as if they shouldn’t be there. As with many things, swinging between the extremes doesn’t seem that uncommon.

It may be a small thing, but isn’t it indicative of our social awareness more generally? If the “concept” of society is one of individuals living together in mutual respect and freedom, how we make room for one another seems the bedrock of that understanding – this basic gesture of granting one another the space we need to live without feeling our presence is a cumbersome irritant to others.

Isn’t society underpinned by this idea of how we’ll live alongside each other? All its conventions or regulations guiding us to interact in ways that embody this philosophy of mutual recognition – expectations of how we will act within our shared physical, social or virtual spaces (Notes Two).

Almost as if society’s an outworking of the premise of individual equality and freedom: the lines between us, in various ways, being where those principles come into play and “demand” we accommodate one another. Maybe the success of this “dance” is the picture of our appreciation of what it’s aiming to achieve?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 1: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 1: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 1: The self within society
Note 2: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: Picking up after one another
Note 2: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 2: The power of convention

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The stories that we hear

In many ways, don’t the stories we hear shape us? Becoming the characters, events, words, places and moods that populate our inner landscapes of meaning. Drawing us together with those who share our narratives, perhaps having crafted their lives or sense of self around whichever elements resonated most with their own storylines or struggles. (Notes One)

Almost as if these imaginary worlds spun around our heads draw us in to let us become part of them, then blend back into “reality” through our identification with and discussion of them. Becoming part of “our” world through our affinity with and embodiment of them, perhaps? We follow their lead, adopting certain appearances, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions or behaviours based upon the example they’ve offered us.

It’s one of these strange questions: what do we “get” from culture, from the stories it tells us? Is this escapism, as the storyteller weaves the elements of reality into some reassuring, neatly resolved form we can travel along with to a worthwhile destination? Is this a form of education, as we experience versions of life from others perspectives, real or imaginary, by seeing through different eyes? (Notes Two)

If it’s drawing from reality as much as feeding back into it, is this a process of society reflecting upon itself and exploring its options? That we would all contemplate these versions of reality and decide for ourselves which paths we’ll take in response. A sort of digestive process running alongside our collective existence; mulling over the details of our lives to separate the essential from all the rest.

Whether we’re talking about cultural life itself or the more everyday commentary of the media, isn’t it all telling us about our world? Showing us what’s admirable or deplorable; hoping that we’re able to tell the difference. This more or less symbolic overlay that takes the elements of “life” and recasts them in a different light to offer us greater clarity over how to read, evaluate and respond to all we see around us.

And it seems like the ideas we have in mind must make a difference (Notes Three). Don’t we interpret everything we meet in the light of whatever overarching sense of meaning we’ve established so far? The stories of childhood, education, history, culture and everyday life effectively forging some sort of personal picture of what life is, what it means, what matters, how we should approach it, and so forth.

What, then, are those pictures? Between all the voices telling us countless stories over the years, what picture’s that going to have created in each individual’s mind? And, how well are they blending back into reality through the choices we’re making in response? Where earlier societies had fairly consistent, firmly held, closely monitored stories and practices holding them together, we now have such incredible freedom (Notes Four).

If the stories we hear and conclusions we draw from them are serving to inform who and how we are in life, what are we to make of that opportunity?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Living your life through a song
Note 2: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 2: Culture as reflection
Note 3: The sense of having a worldview
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: Visual language and spaces
Note 3: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 4: Making things up as we go along
Note 4: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time

Ways to share this:

Reading between the lines

Between all we hear and read each day, is there a space where both the truth of events and our best response to them become clear? As if, by finding our way through all the agendas, opinions and sensational curiosity baiting, there’s a place “the truth” of any given situation rests. Then, a response within us that can somehow match it and serve to bring essential values to life.

Because, often, it seems all the information being thrown at us is simply confusion: countless differing perspectives, interpretations or priorities clamouring to have us accept “their” version of events then live our lives accordingly (Notes One). Shaping the ideas people have in mind and act upon seems a lucrative business, for whatever reason.

With so many voices attempting to find their ways into our heads and influence the thoughts we’ll entertain there, isn’t it increasingly difficult to actually be sure of “truth”? Everything being so dialled up, so extreme, so emotive must risk desensitising us to the realities of life (Notes Two). As if the new base level for taking something seriously is this tense, screaming voice of impending doom. Can’t truth be spoken calmly?

In part, it’s perhaps because we’re now aware of so much and how many of our systems are interconnected: bringing “everything” to awareness, we can arguably create the changes necessary to eradicate all the many, many problems the world and its people are burdened with. This sense of everything both mattering and being connected, in some way, with suffering either now, in the past or in the future.

The world becoming conscious of itself and attempting to bring everything that matters to the table “must” be a recipe for overwhelm. Not only is life now more complex and demanding than even the fairly recent past, but we’re being asked to become aware of all the personal, global situations that have and do go into making our lives what they now are.

In that, how are we to tune out all the superfluous voices and tune into all those that convey the truth? How are we to gain a clear sense of how things stand and what all of our lives are playing into? Is it possible to get to that “place” where, in our minds, we can see the truth of our situation with all its multifaceted difficulties? Can the human mind still bend itself around “how we live” without crumpling under the pressure?

And, if we can, is there a clear path for how we might resolve things? How we might stand in the world with regard to every single thing that matters within it. How we might communicate these concerns without life descending into one argument after another. How we might handle this awareness of things outside our capacity for control without feeling completely powerless. (Notes Three)

If information is there to help us understand reality and choose wisely within it, how are we to assimilate all this and not be debilitated by it?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What is the public conversation?
Note 1: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Which voice can we trust?
Note 2: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 2: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 2: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 3: The value & cost of our words
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Too much responsibility?

Ways to share this:

Nature & the fulfilment of potential

As humans, aren’t we generally trying to hold things back or let them go? As if nature, creativity or life itself are these forces we either set loose or restrain for some reason – usually, a reason that suits “us” (Notes One).

Thinking of nature, almost all our foods must fit that description. Some plants we harvest early as we’re more interested in their leaves or stems than their ability to form roots. Others we grow for their fruits, needing them to go through almost all their life stages if they’re to provide us with the nourishment we’re after.

Aren’t we forever intervening to support or discourage different processes in nature so that we get what we want? Stepping in to stop plants from “wasting” their life force on outcomes we’re not interested in while encouraging the growth of whatever it is that meets our requirements.

Is it that, as humans, we effectively suppress the planet to suit our own needs? Letting things flourish when that suits us or stamping them out if we see no useful purpose. Similarly, with animal life it seems we’re often artificially involving ourselves in their life or breeding cycles to ensure a supply of whatever “product” we’ve deemed valuable or necessary for “our” existence.

Almost as if “to be human” is to evaluate the world around us in terms of the resources it offers, ways they match our needs, and ideas we have for getting more or less of what “we” want. The life forces of an entire planet enlisted for the purpose of our consumption. The living potential of each creature harnessed or suppressed to achieve our own ends.

It’s incredible to think of the position we hold within nature: the being capable of recognising its needs, understanding its environment, and finding ways of matching up the two through industrious activity. As if we’re holding the rest of nature back from fulfilling its potential in order that we might fulfil ours.

Don’t we generally seek the fulfilment of human potential? That we should be able to do all we’re capable of through the provision of opportunity, information, resources. We want ourselves to flourish, be all we can be, have nothing hold “us” back. All the while holding back almost everything around us – even other people – so that we might get ahead.

The place we occupy in the world, naturally or socially, seems so fascinating to contemplate (Notes Two). What is our philosophy of human life and its meaning? How much worth do we place on ourselves, others, and the roles we all play within these systems we’re each a fundamental part of?

If modern society’s the culmination of all that’s gone before, how aware are we of what’s made things as they currently stand? All the developments, breakthroughs, discussions that brought us here. All the energy, commitment, resolve, sacrifice by the countless beings whose forces were directed into furthering humanity’s path. What are we making of the opportunity for life this planet affords us?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 1: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 1: Humanity & creative instincts
Note 1: Living as a form of art
Note 2: Power and potential
Note 2: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Do we know what stands before us?

Ways to share this:

Information might be there, but can we find it?

Given how much “information” we’re now surrounded with in life, it seems that “finding our way within it” might be the real challenge we’re all facing (Notes One). This idea of somehow being able to uncover the fairest, truest representation of our complex realities; the best frame for understanding and wisely responding to this world and all those living within it.

Because much of what’s around us seems like it might be a version of “false” or “unhelpful” – not quite reflecting things honestly or encouraging us to live as humanly as we might hope. Conceivably, all these separate perceptions, experiences or observations of “reality” could be drawn together into any number of worldviews, conclusions and mindsets. But, where do they lead?

Maybe we’re simply living alongside countless fractured, atomised perspectives on life. A million separate thoughts we might pick up and arrange however we see fit. Whether or not those views are compatible, true, or wise foundations for crafting life around might be an important question. Don’t the ideas we have in mind matter? Becoming our justification for all we’re choosing to do in life.

What are we supposed to “make” of all we’re told? All the commercial messages; attempts to influence; ways of interpreting the events or people around us. If we’re living in this incessant shower of ideas hoping to take up place in our minds and inform our actions, what are they? All these assumptions, judgements, suggestions, conclusions, seeds of doubt or of hope. Little thoughts we let in and make our own. (Notes Two)

They must all add up, coming together into a potentially quite strange and contradictory picture of what life’s about. Of all the thoughts we could think, how are we choosing the ones we’re building our life around? How are we evaluating all that passes before our eyes or seeps into our minds through other means? How many find their way in without us really noticing?

Sometimes it’s like we’re surrounded by constantly refreshing mountains of information being churned out and insisted upon. This vast, often frightening, volume of ideas aggressively trying to carve out a space for themselves within our precious, limited mental landscape. As if “to be human” is now a case of filtering through it all to cast aside all that doesn’t serve the reality we have in mind.

Do we listen to all, none or some of it? Should we listen to the loudest, most skilful, or most worrying voices? Those who confirm or who challenge our ideas? What if “all this” is effectively drowning out voices we’d be wise to listen to? And, should we be adding our own voice to the mix or might we be better off holding back somewhat from this ever-flowing conversation that’s now engulfing us all? (Notes Three)

We might argue that “information’s there” for everyone to see, but if the truth’s nestled among a billion more questionable pieces of information how exactly are we supposed to be sure of having found it?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The sense of having a worldview
Note 1: Culture as information
Note 1: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 2: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Joining the dots
Note 3: All in such a rush
Note 3: Whether we make a difference

Ways to share this:

The self within society

What is it to be a “self” within “society”? All these highly personal, intensely lived points where humanity becomes aware of itself within the social structures that envelop, define and inform its existence. The collective nature of our individual lives is fascinating – if overwhelming – to consider: each one of us connected in all the significant, impactful activities that make up our lives together.

Within it all, aren’t we generally seeking meaning, purpose, and the recognition of our worth within our community? This sense in which the mind seemingly always looks for the relationship between things, people, events, environments, and society itself (Notes One). As if “to be human” is to apply our capacity for thought and find meaning within the world around us.

As beings who think – perhaps, can’t help but think – isn’t it “natural” we would seek to make sense of all that’s surrounding us? This idea that being human “is” to stand within reality and reflect it in thought (Notes Two). Almost as if “that” is what we bring to the table: intelligence, analysis, forethought and, hopefully, concern. Each of us personally experiencing and drawing conclusions about life and how to live it.

We might look on society as comprised of units we call humans – these strange, predictable or surprising creatures – that arguably have to be constrained, educated or directed in ways that “work” for the systems sustaining their every need (Notes Three). As if communal life is a conceptual exercise of “knowing the human” then extrapolating to create ways of uniting us all through belief and action.

Given how this relationship between self and society goes both ways, the question of whether we’re held together or willingly hold ourselves together seems interesting. Do we need threats, constraints or incentives to act cohesively? This picture of humans as being guided mainly by self-interest; needing strong enough reasons to go against that. As opposed to us being guided by understanding, vision, or hope.

Modern society, in many ways, seems to take the first approach: surrounding us with carrots and sticks that shepherd us down the paths that’ve been deemed wisest overall. As if we’re “supposed” to judge based only on personal concerns and how much we’ll benefit from any given option. Alternatively, couldn’t we choose what seems right based on our thorough understanding of complex realities? (Notes Four)

Who’s the say what’s the best way of arranging individual humans into collective systems? There are presumably many ways of doing so, as evidenced by past and present societies. Within it all, the West perhaps stands out for the beautiful sentiment of attempting to establish social realities based around universal principles of human worth – those philosophical starting points underpinning where things now stand.

Ultimately, it seems society “must” establish itself around its understanding of individuals – their needs and inclinations – in order to create structures likely to be able to contain us all in meaningful, purposeful, sustainable ways. How well it’s all working out, though, seems to be giving cause for concern.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 1: The struggle with being alive
Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: What are we thinking?
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 4: Do we really need incentives?
Note 4: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 4: Whether we make a difference

Ways to share this:

Visual language and spaces

In life, generally, aren’t we surrounded by constant visual landscapes? All that’s around presenting us with this ongoing play of colours, forms, structures, and the meanings assigned to them. That’s not any kind of revelation – it’s simply the reality of being alive and able to perceive the world around us – but it’s interesting to imagine how our landscapes differ from all that went before.

Looking back to, say, ancient Greece and Rome or an island existence, humans must’ve been surrounded by fairly simple, consistent landscapes. By modern standards, they were presumably quite calm and slow-moving compared with the pace of change and level of stimulation we’re now used to. Everything moving at its own speed, people interacting with it all in ways quite different from our own.

Almost as if “life” is a strange choreography of people moving in space and time to interact with the forms and functions of the society surrounding them – a dance of needs, capacities, tasks, environments, architecture, the trappings of culture, and human existence itself (Notes One). In which case, it’s perhaps not so different from today, only dialled up to a new pace with things taking on new forms.

But what about the meaning we get from it all? How meaningful is much of what surrounds us now? Of course, everything’s meaningful – it all means something, comes from somewhere, designed by someone, aiming to achieve certain ends. If we were to “read” it, everything within our environment would still “say” something about the world we’re living in and how we’re choosing to fill it as human beings.

Now, so much is commercial – our visual landscapes filled with advertising of various kinds. Then, the attempts being made to influence our ideas, decisions, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions. All this effort at filling our minds with new meanings or conclusions to fit one agenda or another. Our attention or acquiescence clearly being a valuable commodity, for whatever reason, within modern life.

What’s it like to be surrounded by visual cues attempting to change your mind, often on subconscious levels? It must be draining and make our minds confusing, unexpected places filled with ideas that aren’t really our own. As if our environment is now, in a way, an assault upon us as people make use of it for various ends. A space filled with subtext, agenda, and hidden messages (Notes Two).

Also, full of personal attempts at letting others know who they’re dealing with – all the ways we craft our own style to communicate who we are to others. All of these individual, cultural statements as we draw references together into whatever image we’re hoping to convey (Notes Three). In terms of homes, cars, belongings, clothing or general demeanour, isn’t our landscape now filled with the deliberate expression of meaning?

There’s no “point” to these musings, though. They’re simply pondering over how much life might’ve changed in this regard and what that might mean for us as the humans trying to live our lives within it all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 2: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Making things up as we go along

Ways to share this:

Will things change if we don’t make them?

Do things just continue on, unless we somehow decide to change them? Everything staying the same until the moment we do differently and alter the flow of events. As if we each have the agency to create change or keep things as they are. Everyone deciding which things they’ll carry forward, which they’ll change, and why.

One path must then be that of passivity, apathy or trust in any wisdom you’ve received: continuing on with whatever you’ve been told in the hope those before us knew what was best. Accepting “the way things are” or “how things are done” as traditions we mustn’t break. Dutifully repeating words and actions in the faith that they’re the right way to go.

Alternatively, there’s the slightly more active stance of questioning, trying to understand, seeking better solutions, “improving” how things are done, and thereby becoming responsible for whatever your intervention sets in motion (Notes One). If we feel things aren’t quite working and mightn’t be leading in the best directions, don’t we have to look with fresh eyes and make our own judgements?

Of course, then there’s always the risk of error, criticism and blame. Doing nothing but what we were told, there’s always the option of saying it wasn’t our fault. But, is that enough? If we exist in the flow of time as intelligent creatures capable of understanding the world and our roles within it, is it enough that we defer to others instead of using our own minds?

It’s perhaps not easy to say. Maybe the things the past and those within it set in motion were wise and we’d be right to follow in their footsteps. How are we to judge the rightness of any course of action? Especially in this fast-moving, interconnected modern world. How can we see how all our choices come together? To judge, we presumably need to understand realities and the significance of our place within them (Notes Two).

We might keep doing the same things, trusting it’ll lead to good outcomes – and maybe it will. But sometimes circumstances change, actions take on new meaning, and doing nothing different might mean something new: going with the flow of an altered environment (Notes Three). Don’t circumstances always change? Within our lives or the world around us, habitual choices can easily become the wrong thing.

What, then, should our involvement be? Are we to be agents of change or its passengers? We might want to be handed “the right answer” – some catch-all solution that’ll work in every situation (Notes Four) – but are there truly such prescriptions to be found? What if nothing’s going to be solved “once and for all” but everything of value needs the constant reinforcement of us reimagining what it means for any given scenario?

Maybe “life” is more a picture of ongoing engagement? The need to always read and respond wisely if we’re to ensure any changes we’re going along with or serving to create are really what we mean to be doing.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Passivity, or responsibility
Note 1: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: The need for discernment
Note 2: Right to question and decide
Note 2: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 2: Questions around choice
Note 3: One thing leads to another
Note 3: Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?
Note 3: Making adjustments
Note 4: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 4: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 4: Whether we make a difference

Ways to share this: