Month: November 2020

Can our thinking match realities?

From all the separate pockets of fact, insight and expertise, is it still possible for us to draw together a truthful and meaningful understanding of all life is? Can the intense knowledge of each field pool into one balanced sense of “reality”? And, if it can, are the paths we should take in any given direction going to be clear? Can we be sure of all the consequences any one choice or policy might set in motion?

If the task before us “is” to understand all we’re engaged in and act wisely in the light of that knowledge, the challenge we face seems far from easy. Doesn’t modern life engulf us with immediate insight into the affairs of the whole world? Everything insistently placed before us, demanding attention, asking we accept its premise or its suggestions.

This constantly shifting tide of information where every story’s told from every perspective, inviting various conclusions. As if every possible shade of thought or opinion is all being shared at once – reality taking on every conceivable idea we might have about it. All those threads being woven into subtly or dramatically different narratives, suggesting causality or intention that may or may not be there. (Notes One)

How are we to keep up with it all? Weeding out all that’s erroneous, ill-intended or simply distracting to piece together a clear sense of what’s going on, why it matters and how to respond. Is our capacity to assimilate limitless, or will information overload inevitably lead to simplification, generalisation and stress?

Even if we manage to absorb enough of all that’s surrounding us, can we then reach the position of certainty needed to judge? Standing, somehow, on the back of experience, information and education to discern fact from fiction, filter out the unnecessary, and confidently form decisions able to withstand scrutiny. It seems what’s needed, as consumers and citizens: clarity and conviction. (Notes Two)

Often it just doesn’t seem feasible. That complex realities are rarely spoken in simple terms, while so much else is stepping in to deflect our attention and clutter our minds. That all the voices talking at once might drown out any truth they contain; desensitising us to hearing or caring about much of what’s assailing us each day. Within it all, might our grasp of reality not start to crumble? (Notes Three)

Is it still possible to understand enough, prioritise between competing values, detect the agendas at play, cut through undue influence, defuse any preconceptions, and somehow formulate informed, rational, compassionate, constructive responses? The volume of information we’re asked to process – and, the emotion often accompanying it – can easily seem overwhelming to the point of being impossible.

What are we to make of convoluted, opaque realities? All these separate activities interacting, behind the scenes, within increasingly global systems as our histories, beliefs and hopes pool into this one world that’s affecting us all. How can we manage to stand alone, confident in our understanding of all that we’re choosing to take part in?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 1: Reading between the lines
Note 1: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 1: Going along with what we see
Note 2: How are we supposed to choose?
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: What’s the right mindset for news?
Note 2: Tuning out the static
Note 3: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 3: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 3: Does technology oversimplify things?
Note 3: “Brave New World Revisited”

Ways to share this:

How fast can it all unravel?

If we’ve not fully understood things – what they mean, why they matter, how to carry them forward – how quickly can they fall away? Is it a year, a decade, a lifetime, a generation or two? Even if we’re partly understanding, partly conveying, it seems likely things would drift after only a fairly short time: significance becoming lost, effects varying to the point where we’re living in a distorted echo of what once was.

Isn’t life, in its way, the passing on of meaning? That events, artefacts, practices, customs are handed down alongside a sense of what they mean so subsequent generations can know where they stand, how to live, and why it all helps. This picture of knowledge being conveyed through the beliefs, conventions, values, attitudes and thoughts with which life is accompanied. (Notes One)

Doesn’t it all underpin any “way of life”? The thinking beneath every little thing we do and how it all comes together within the life we all share – each action touching on others, one way or another, to convey a common sense of meaning or value to those we’re living alongside. Isn’t it a lot about relationship? How we should act out of consideration for others based on some overarching philosophy of “life”.

But what if we haven’t quite grasped the principles, the starting points, beneath what we’re doing? The reasons, rights or values behind it that – in an ideal world – would shine through all we do, immediately communicating to all those around us our clear appreciation of life’s meaning and the worth we’re assigning each part of the whole. A comprehensive grasp of life glinting out from each word, choice or gesture. (Notes Two)

If, for whatever reason, we’ve not taken hold of the real meaning behind any given thing, how can we carry it out or pass it on correctly? Life perhaps then becoming a confusing sense of people talking at crossed purposes: the ideas we have in mind not quite marrying up with the way we’re acting or consequences we’re setting in motion. This surreal picture of people not quite knowing what they’re doing.

Doing the right thing and not knowing why is one thing; doing things wrong and thinking they’re right seems risky. If whatever we’re doing isn’t accompanied by a clear understanding of “why” and “what we hope to achieve” where do we stand, as humans? As if we’re out on a tightrope, walking blindly, without the safety net of reason to catch us. (Notes Three)

On the personal level, it seems disconcerting and potentially erratic. Socially, it must be troublesome given how often our lives intersect and stress, frustration or anger can accumulate. Looking on “life” as some delicate balance of personal freedom and collective wellbeing, missing the logic behind things seems a strange test of social cohesion: placing “self” before “others”, what happens to community? (Notes Four)

That said, if things aren’t quite right maybe it’s better they unravel? Provided we know enough to piece them back together.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Passing on what’s important
Note 1: Everything culture used to be
Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 2: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: What we create by our presence
Note 3: How quickly things can change
Note 3: All we’re expected to understand
Note 3: Is there any end to the power of thought?
Note 3: Does technology oversimplify things?
Note 4: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 4: Do we live in different worlds?
Note 4: Integrity and integration

Somewhere out alongside this, there’s the question of Where’s the reset button & can we press it?

Ways to share this:

Going along with what we see

In our minds, how clear are the lines between reality and illusion? Taking it that culture, broadly speaking, is a form of symbolism standing in for reality and somehow helping us navigate it, how blurred are those points where it touches on the realities of our lives but doesn’t quite stand honestly within them? If we’re not clearly delineating between what’s real and not, how much does this process really help us?

Sometimes it just seems we’re surrounded by such compelling, emotive versions of reality that we might actually be blinded to perceiving life realistically (Notes One). Aren’t we presented with overviews and insights “real life” never offers? The kind of comprehensive arc of causality and intimate details of character that life, in all its complexity, conceals. As if “this” is a better, clearer take on our lives.

What does it do to the mind when it sees all these vivid depictions of things that seem close to “real” but aren’t? Might it not seep in to subtly upset the delicate balance that is our understanding of life? Planting seeds of doubt, distrust or undeserved faith. Desensitising us, perhaps, to the very real realities, problems and traumas people are actually experiencing in their lives. (Notes Two)

Might we not become cold or callous? Dismissing death or injustice as just another drama in the arc of existence. Forgetting the need to accompany life’s realities with emotions that reflect the true suffering those around us are living through. Or, perhaps, lighting fires under our indignation at inequalities brushed aside. All these ways our grasp on reality might be shunted slightly out of alignment.

If, as humans, our minds are where we make sense of life and shape our responses to it, what does it mean if those minds are filled with distorted reflections? This strange prism of disproportionate, amplified, strangely configured facts or events that “seem” like the world we’re in but somehow aren’t. How will we then “read” the realities around us? How will we feel about what we see? (Notes Three)

Of course, much of it’s probably done with the best of intentions by people hoping to challenge our perceptions, raise awareness of important issues, and lead us to think about the forces at work in our lives. This timeless role “culture” has of helping society understand itself and chart wise paths into its future. (Notes Four)

Within it all, though, what does it do to us as human beings? How well does it support a rational interpretation of reality and help us track alongside it with balanced, compassionate emotions? What’s it like to live life surrounded by visions of society’s demise and these menacing threats lurking through the world around us – all the real or imagined darkness contained within things? (Notes Five)

Might we not start to accept such versions of reality as real? Responding in the light of such thinking and, therefore, bringing different things to life through the paths we’re choosing to walk. Where might that lead?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 1: Do the “lies” blind us to truth?
Note 1: Art as a way to subvert or inspire
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: What’s the right mindset for news?
Note 2: Overwhelm and resignation
Note 3: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 3: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 3: It resonates, but should it be amplified
Note 4: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 4: Everything culture used to be
Note 4: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 5: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 5: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 5: Dystopia as a powerful ideal

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Times of revelation

How much, in life, is simply revealed by the course of time? Situations or truths that are there, resting somewhere beneath the surface, until such a time as they’re uncovered and exposed to the light of day.

Isn’t it generally true of health and age? That imbalances, weaknesses or problematic lifestyle factors are often there, resting until they begin to outweigh the forces of life or youth that kept them at bay. Problems waiting to happen as areas of ignorance lie unattended beneath the veneer of well-being. As if we might get away with things for so long but they’ll generally catch up with us in time.

Equally with understanding – we might skirt through life unaware of many things, happily ignorant of dynamics or insights we’d be better off knowing, but doesn’t that usually come unstuck? Cumulative errors wearing down our confidence or piling up problems we’ll eventually have to deal with. As if, in the end, we’ll come to see what we didn’t know before.

Things might be concealed – imbalance, ignorance, incomplete understanding – but aren’t they still there? Waiting until circumstances force them to the surface, where they can no longer be ignored. As if life is this path of unearthing truth from semblance; some version of the journey from ignorance to enlightenment as reality reveals what’s contained within. (Notes One)

Similarly, with society, aren’t there times when underlying beliefs or assumptions are revealed? When attitudes towards women or other groups come to light and must be addressed, for example. Isn’t it important we unearth the thinking beneath how we live and challenge it where that’s needed? If principles of equality, respect or fairness aren’t yet woven into society there must still be work to be done.

Isn’t it all, in a way, life focussing our attention on areas of imperfection? On situations where our understanding isn’t quite creating what needs to be created for the sake of society as much as individuals. Shining light on all the fracture lines we’ve been living with – divisions or flaws that might always have been there, storing up problems or resentments society’s now struggling to contain or justify. (Notes Two)

As if time, eventually, reveals any ignorance and demands we grow in wisdom to understand why something’s a problem and how to both fix it and ensure it’s no longer created, fostered or tolerated. It might be deeply confronting to uncover such imperfections and realise the parts we played in them, but isn’t that ultimately better than carrying on unaware? If problems exist, don’t they need to be resolved? (Notes Three)

Ideally, we’d all understand exactly how best to live: how to structure our lives, integrate ourselves within society, and act well for the overall benefit of those lives ours are connected with (Notes Four). In the absence of such clear and responsible insight, though, perhaps ours is more the path of having “all we don’t yet know” revealed to us? Having illusions pierced so we can glimpse whatever darkness persists underneath.

Notes and References:

Note 1: All that we carry around with us
Note 1: Everything’s interconnected
Note 1: Detaching ourselves from the past
Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 2: Desire to retreat, need to engage
Note 2: Giving others space to be
Note 2: What should be leading us?
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Values, compromise & how things are
Note 3: World, heading for a breakdown?
Note 4: Integrity and integration
Note 4: Understanding & staying informed
Note 4: Green as an idea

Ways to share this:

Is this complicated or relatively simple?

Where do we stand between complexity and simplicity? Life, in many ways, seems undeniably complex, but, when broken down, aren’t the individual transactions or choices relatively simple? As if “all this” is a complex sequence of simple steps drawn together in ways that ultimately work wisely, harmoniously, sustainably – at least with regard to nature. But isn’t it also true of our lives? Simple choices, stacked up.

This sense in which everything can be broken down into basic steps which can then be strung back together in a variety of impressively complicated ways. Learning, perhaps, being the act of breaking things down to the building blocks from which knowledge can be recreated and creatively applied within all the true complexity of life, nature, society and the world we live in (Notes One).

Beneath it all, then, is there some form of wisdom? A simple set of principles from which we might successfully navigate all of life’s seemingly unconnected choices. Maybe that’s what technology’s looking for: the code from which life can be reconfigured. But, even in our lives, are there fairly universal values we might rely upon? Some fundamental understanding of how life works that can serve us well in all areas. (Notes Two)

As if there’s thought in nature, in society, and in us – thought we might unravel, understand, appreciate and work with (Notes Three). Each step simply connecting in with many others, emerging as the life we lead and consequences we set in motion. As if, as humans, we might come to understand life and operate creatively within it – knowing what each thing means and the importance of how it’s all coming together.

Isn’t there, then, this sense of “who knows what”? The level of insight different people within society might have of the realities we’re all living in. Children being the ones needing it broken down into meaningful, relatable, accessible steps they might take into the world – education, hopefully, establishing within them a solid yet flexible foundation for life. Some, perhaps, knowing far more than we’re told.

It seems interesting and important to ask such questions; to figure out what ideas people have in mind and where they might lead. Can’t complicated things generally be spoken in simple terms? A few steps and almost anyone could grasp the principles at play, value of what’s at stake, and logic being used to determine the outcome.

As thinking beings, isn’t it important we understand what we’re part of? What our choices and participation “mean” for the world and all those within it. The kind of future we’re serving to create. How clear is any of that? How transparent are the options we’re presented with and systems they’re playing into? Why does so much seem concealed rather than laid bare? (Notes Four)

Modern life might be becoming too complicated for many to fully understand, but isn’t it important we do? Given our lives impact what’s around us in countless ways, what does it mean if we don’t know what we’re doing?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Everything’s interconnected
Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 1: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: Systems, their power, whose hands?
Note 2: What should be leading us?
Note 2: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 2: Do we need meaning?
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 3: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 3: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 3: Ideas that tie things together
Note 4: Treating people like sims?
Note 4: Does technology oversimplify things?
Note 4: How are we supposed to choose?

Ways to share this:

Do markets create strange social forces?

Much as society might revolve around the idea of markets, what does that actually mean for us as the humans living within them? While it might, as a way of life, purport to meet all our needs, isn’t this also chipping away at our self-worth and long-term security on this planet? Arranging the whole of our lives around this notion sometimes seems a strange way to be going about things.

Doesn’t it tend, as a way of thinking, to ripple out through every area of our lives? Everything becoming something to package up, sell or put behind a paywall. Nothing seemingly impervious to this power money has to convert everything to its way of thinking. Everything “can”, perhaps, be conceived of that way, but does that mean it should? (Notes One)

As if there’s no other way of thinking, no other means of looking at reality and operating within it – no other values capable of standing against the promise of profit or growth. As if we’re simply “right” to see life that way; casting it all in the light of supply, demand, producers, consumers, products, services, and captive audiences. The whole of life somehow becoming a market offering.

Of course, we have needs, as do all things that live (Notes Two), but is this the best way to be meeting them? Sometimes it seems we’re not even “trying” to meet them; simply to create interlocking sets of mutually contradictory demands. Isn’t this system better off if we have as many needs as possible? If our problems can be exacerbated to the point where those needs can never be filled.

Isn’t it almost a picture of society undermining “us” for the sake of profit? Our psychological needs for meaning, purpose, status, self-esteem, belonging, acceptance, love becoming this bottomless source of potential demand – if only we can be convinced we’re not quite enough without something more. As if, in a system reliant on demand, the easiest solution is to tap into human psyche. (Notes Three)

From there, don’t we start living in a world that’s forever trying to mess with our minds? Planting seeds of doubt, threads of new meaning, and drawing us into narratives we never knew we needed on our path to self-fulfilment and a purposeful existence. If we can only be persuaded to accept these ideas as true, build our lives around them and convey them to others.

But what does it mean if we become accustomed to living this way? Forever chasing the next thing on this never-ending path of perpetual consumerism as our search for meaning becomes a quest for more – as if we’re ever going to “arrive” and find our true worth that way (Notes Four). “Life” might throw up recurrent needs to be met, but where “is” that elusive line between essentials and illusions?

What does it mean if the genuine needs of a human lifetime have taken on this strange form within society? This conversation we’ve often little choice but to be drawn into.

Notes and References:

Note 1: If life’s a sum, are our choices calculations?
Note 1: “The way things should be” as an add-on
Note 1: How much is in the hands of the market
Note 2: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 2: Appreciating other ways of being
Note 2: Green as an idea
Note 3: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 3: Markets, and what they might mean
Note 3: The value we’re giving to things
Note 4: Does it all come down to money?
Note 4: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 4: Absolute or relative value

Ways to share this:

How would we like to live?

If we had the choice, how would we really “like” to live? Would it really be a case of, somehow, escaping society to live lives of luxury completely devoid of meaningful connections with our kind? This “winning the lottery” notion of rising above our peers to enjoy all life’s pleasures with none of the engagement. Attractive as that may sound, how fulfilling would such a life actually be?

Sometimes it seems we’ve just spun a life for ourselves that almost everyone’s striving to be free of – as if we’ve made everything such a struggle, needing to elbow others out the way in the hope of ensuring there’s enough for us (Notes One). A life where we’re mainly seeking peace from the conversations and interactions we’re obliged to have; where “the dream” is to detach and not need to deal with one another.

Isn’t the apex of it all the hope of being in the position to retreat and have others do your bidding? Everyone agreeing with you for fear of your displeasure and the power you might wield or withdraw. Money, of course, being the main means of control. As if we’re all fighting for control, for the capacity to be free of having to negotiate with this system and all those within it. Freedom to be ourselves.

What does it mean, though, if society’s filled with people hoping to be free of it? Like the crabs trying to claw their way out of the bucket. Why is social life something we might seek to escape? As if we created systems that motivate us by fear of our inadequacy or vulnerability; a place we need to perpetually watch out for the next challenge or trend to stay abreast of if we’re not to fall behind.

As if “society” is designed to work against us, capitalising on our humanity to drive us forward for its own ends. Each person striving to tread water within its rising, swirling tides. As if “that” spurs us on to give all we have to get ahead, make the most of things, and ultimately “survive” within it all. “Life” as this battle, this current we’re born into and must swim against to prove our worth (Notes Two).

Do we need fear in order to strive? Does it really bring out the best in people? Might there not be another vision that could motivate us more compassionately? Some constructive sense of how we might come together, offer all we have, and feel appreciated for our valuable contributions toward harmonious coexistence within a finite space. (Notes Three)

Just because we “are” motivated by insecurities, does that make it wise to structure society around them? Placing us all in this fight for the power to elbow “others” out of our way. It seems so limiting, this notion of scarcity and lack that drives us to compete. Fear may be our greatest motivator, useful for pushing “society” furthest ahead, but could we not, instead, work out of love for life?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 1: If life’s a sum, are our choices calculations?
Note 1: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 1: Created a system we seek to escape?
Note 1: What should be leading us?
Note 2: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 2: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 2: Who gets to define us
Note 2: Valuing people more
Note 2: Does it all come down to money?
Note 3: Appealing to human nature or the human spirit
Note 3: Intrinsic values on the paths for change?
Note 3: This thing called love
Note 3: What inspires collective endeavours
Note 3: The self within society

Ways to share this:

World, heading for a breakdown?

Even before everything else, was it true that the modern world was heading for some form of breakdown? That things were getting so out of balance they were almost destined to fall apart. So many different, important problems jutting up against each other – incompatible, contradictory “solutions” overlapping to cause additional difficulties – that something had to give.

Sometimes it seems we’re all just trying to muddle through. Picking up whatever threads were handed to us, whatever assets or ideas happened to fall in our hands, and seeking to make the best of them. Each person, perhaps, labouring under a slightly different sense of what it all means and where paths will lead. Everyone, perhaps, convinced that theirs is the best way forward.

As if it all might be a sequence of workarounds – distorted, contorted, well-meaning attempts to create or impose order on the chaos. So many people pulling in so many directions, all insisting that they have the answer and understand the nature of the problem. It seems unlikely to be that simple: who truly understands everything that’s going on from every conceivable perspective? (Notes One)

At this point, isn’t it all a jumbled collection of various peoples’ intentions? All these theories, interpretations or beliefs about life, how to organise it and what’s most important that run into one another, leading either to conflict or to compromise. This scattered ground of half-baked or potentially ill-conceived notions trying to make their presence felt then convince others to take them on board.

Where’s the cohesion? Between all the varied ways people might choose to live in this world, what’s emerging here beyond confusion, aggression or despair? How much are everyday people needing to juggle to make ends meet, and how much that’s thrown at us each day is truly necessary or even helpful? Sometimes it just seems we’re engulfed in constant tides of opinion, anger and attempts to control, persuade or direct. (Notes Two)

What are we to make of it all? Especially when “modern life” actively – perhaps, intentionally – seems to undermine trust in ourselves or others, creating perfect conditions for uncertainty and anxiety. What if, in pursuit of profit, we’ve damaged essential human foundations? Not only in nature, but also the psychological foundation of our mind, self-esteem and healthy relationship to reality.

Within it all, aren’t we still humans seeking to make sense of life and chart reasonable paths forward for ourselves and those who follow? How are we to hold our nerve and not get overwhelmed by all that’s trying to overwhelm us? And, if “how we’ve been going about things” doesn’t quite make sense or stand a chance of coming together as a coherent whole, what does it mean for us if we strive to adapt to it? (Notes Three)

Taking it that, as humans, we “need” to stand within reality, have things make sense and feel the worth of our existence reflected in how the world meets us, what are we to make of how this world currently operates?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 1: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 1: Knowing the value of what you have
Note 1: Desire to retreat, need to engage
Note 1: Do we live in different worlds?
Note 2: Anger, and where we direct it
Note 2: Tuning out the static
Note 2: How much is in the hands of the market
Note 2: What’s the right mindset for news?
Note 2: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 3: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 3: Systems, their power, whose hands?
Note 3: Green as an idea
Note 3: Everything culture used to be
Note 3: Situations which ask us to trust

Along similar lines, things going wrong and how we might fix them was part of Where’s the reset button & can we press it?

Ways to share this:

Green as an idea

Looking at how we live in the world, what’s the best way of seeing things? Given how we each stand within our environment, how are we to look at this one shared reality and plot collective courses within it? It seems an intriguing thought, given how we’re essentially thinking beings trying to make sense of this world we find ourselves within. What are we to make of life’s opportunities?

It seems undeniable, much as we might rail against it, that we depend on our environment – our lives interwoven with all that surrounds us in so many delicate, powerful ways. Rather than being entirely independent, we need nature for the resources and climate that make life possible. This idea of humans existing “within” nature may be as childlike as it is fundamental: it’s where we stand. (Notes One)

As if life itself might be this chance at living and understanding life. That we’re here to understand all that allows us to live and all the ways those lives feed back into that world – this perpetual dance of forces and interactions serving to bring other things into existence. It’s amazing to think of all that’s gone into this: all the years and lives, hopes and dreams, progress and destruction. (Notes Two)

These days, though, we sometimes seem strangely detached from those realities (Notes Three). As if we’re retreating into this world removed from real life, not feeling consequences or accepting other perspectives. Reality, perhaps, left standing there filled with our neglect or disinterest as we increasingly see things from our side and take whatever it is “we” want from the world.

How closely are we living within our communities, be they natural or social? How much do our ideas on “life” track compassionately alongside all the other lives besides ours? Sometimes it seems such a one-sided relationship, as if we don’t truly care about the inner lives of those we affect. As if it’s now each to his own as we fight it out to grab whatever resources we can.

Alternatively, could we not weave ourselves somewhat differently into the world? Find more creative, harmonious ways to coexist with nature and other people? This idea that there might be another way, that greed and power may not be the only foundational principles on which to build our reality. That we could choose to stand differently in relation to one another and to nature.

Which, in roundabout ways, gets back to the idea of being “green” – this notion of humanity finding other paths toward living sustainably and constructively, rather than competitively or destructively, within our environment. Why are we so different? This exclusive sense with which we carve up the world and all the people in it, viewing each other as rivals. (Notes Four)

As thinking beings, is that the only way we can live within an environment? Breaking it down. Sharing it out. Seeking more. Why do balance, creativity and cooperation seem so difficult for us when, all around, they’re so natural?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 1: Our roles in relation to nature
Note 2: Appreciating other ways of being
Note 2: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 3: Detaching from the world around us
Note 3: Having a sense for being alive
Note 3: Do we live in different worlds?
Note 4: The optimism in nature
Note 4: Imagining another way?
Note 4: Living as a form of art
Note 4: The creativity of living

In terms of where we stand and the paths we take from here, there’s also Appealing to human nature or the human spirit.

Ways to share this:

The battlegrounds of our minds

As humans, how do we stand in the world? Isn’t the essence of “us”, at least a significant part of it, that we reflect the world in thought? That, of all the creatures, we see things with our minds, put those observations into words and share those thoughts with others. Being human being, perhaps, this idea of converting experience into thought and seeing what we make of it all.

Don’t we almost “live” in our minds? Identifying with those processes of observation, reflection and the naming of things. Living our lives through whatever narrative we spin or inherit from the world around us, so many of our choices in life effectively being formed by whatever ideas we have in mind and paths they lead us to tread. Don’t almost all of our actions stem from the world of our thoughts? (Notes One)

The meaning we assign to things seems, in a way, the meaning we bring to life through our response: our assumptions or evaluations becoming “real” through the fact we voice them, act upon them or let them inform our unspoken beliefs. Isn’t “the mind” where we form such views? Where we’re weighing things up and deciding. Where the steps we’ll take in life are determined.

If we’re all acting on our thoughts, they must matter. Each seemingly insignificant idea inevitably rippling out from us to become potentially quite significant realities for the world. Doesn’t every choice matter? Every action becoming a reality in someone’s life or a cumulative pattern shifting things in certain directions through the subtle reinforcement of our involvement. (Notes Two)

Perhaps, then, it’s only natural we experience such conflict in the world of ideas? If “what we think” has the power to change the realities around us, our minds seem the focal point for many important battles. Of all that’s going on in life, the idea of getting people to see – and, care about – the consequences of their choices, beliefs or actions may be the only real option we have for creating a better future.

What’s it like, though, living in that mental space? Not only the fairly insistent and overwhelming contents of our own minds as we attempt to chart our course within an imperfect world, but also this strangely aggressive collective conversation we’re all now immersed in. Almost like this pooled thought process of “everyone” trying to describe their concerns and iron out all the differences.

Sometimes it seems we’re all just fighting to have our thoughts heard; struggling to make space for anyone else’s (Notes Three). Everyone caring deeply about whatever “life” placed at their feet, we rightly want others to see those problems and help fix them. With our selves so tied up with our lives and our thoughts about them, it seems likely all of this quickly becomes personal – each person’s sense of self or worth on the line.

Standing within flawed human realities and attempting to agree what to do about it seems, in many ways, far from easy.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The philosopher stance
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: How quickly things can change
Note 1: Power in what we believe
Note 2: The incredible responsibility of freedom
Note 2: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 2: Whether we make a difference
Note 2: What we create by our presence
Note 2: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 3: Is there any end to the power of thought?
Note 3: Desire to retreat, need to engage
Note 3: Do we live in different worlds?

Thinking more of the attempt to communicate, there’s What is the public conversation?

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