Author: admin

Giving others space to be

If life’s some sort of dance of the spaces and rights existing between us, how aware are we of those mutual obligations? Isn’t our sharing of land, opportunities and resources all some sort of delicate balance? This sense in which “life” is almost always some form of give and take as we interact with one another throughout the course of all our lives. Yet, how often are we honouring the perhaps unspoken rules governing it all? (Notes One)

It just seems that humans have “always” existed in some version of that dance – societies having been ordered in various ways, around various principles, following various rules or priorities in terms of how this thing should “work”. As if “the dance” just changes as communities decide to arrange themselves in different ways, around different values or visions of what they hope to achieve by way of the discipline involved.

In that, isn’t there always a delicate line between self and others? This boundary where discipline or commitment comes into play and we don’t take a step that we “could” because we understand why we shouldn’t: that, in doing so, we’d be stepping into the space reserved for others. Don’t we come upon such lines all the time in life? All those times we have to preserve others’ rights by limiting our own.

Maybe it’s a physical line, where taking more than our share or not taking care over shared resources creates problems for others. Maybe it’s an intellectual line, where we need to respect others’ freedom to think or believe as they choose. Maybe it’s interpersonal, in how we afford one another the space to live, to be, to express themselves and not meet with another’s judgement. (Notes Two)

It just seems such a fundamental part of society: the frameworks we have around each other and how we’ll coexist. If we’re not thinking of others, won’t that accumulate to almost unfathomable sources of stress within daily life? If, at every turn, we’re coming upon situations where it’s clear we’re not all abiding by the same sense of how “this” needs to work, won’t we start to feel frustrated or disengaged from it all?

Whether disengagement stems from modern life, technology, overwhelm, migration, or any combination of other sources, isn’t it problematic just the same? If we’re not on the same page in terms of “how we’re relating to others” won’t our communities be strained in countless cumulative ways? All these niggling scratches where evidence suggests people are thinking differently, of themselves or not of you. (Notes Three)

We might spin this in terms of intolerance, social awareness, aggression, empathy or any manner of other phrases, but isn’t the core principle the same? This sense in which we sorely need to define and respect the spaces around ourselves and others – human beings – if we’re to see life in such a way that allows us all to enjoy it as best we’re able while contributing all we have to offer one another within community.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 1: Integrity and integration
Note 1: Situations which ask us to trust
Note 2: These ideas we have of one another
Note 2: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 2: What we create by our presence
Note 3: Lacking the human side of community?
Note 3: Might we lose our social muscles?
Note 3: Can “how we relate” really change?

For some early thoughts from a few years’ back, Having boundaries discussed the value of the lines between us.

Ways to share this:

Valuable insights actors can offer

Musing lately over the roles culture plays in our lives (Notes One), it still seems intriguing that we live in a world where fame has such power: this spotlight modern culture places on certain people, and the ways in which individuals are using the focus of that attention. Almost as if celebrity is the world’s new, popularly-elected monarchy of spokespeople and role models for how we should live.

In a way, it also seems that celebrities stand at this vortex of all our projections and concerns: the issues and preoccupations of society becoming the characters they then play. Culture, conceivably, being the place society reflects on itself, aren’t these the people working through our dramas in all these symbolic ways so we’re then better placed to choose our own path?

As if “culture” is exploring issues on our behalf. Those working within it having mastered the expressions of human being in order to speak clearly and compellingly to their audience. Actors, particularly, being those best able to let others take over their being and use that skill to convey emotions, intentions, thoughts, doubts or conflicts in ways we’ll relate to, believe in and allow into our souls.

Almost as if these are people who’ve mastered the art of “being human” and can put it on for effect. Those who know how to deliberately convey inner states in ways we, the audience, will recognise and understand. Those who can bring stories to life and “become” the representation we have in mind for any given character or idea. Reviving archetypal stories in new ways so we can work with them. (Notes Two)

In that light, those taking on these roles on society’s behalf must be strangely well-informed about being human. Both in the sense of having greater than average clarity around their emotions, gestures and inner states, and in the sense that they’re being asked to delve into all the core struggles, themes and aspirations of modern humanity.

Isn’t that their role? To stand between the outer world of our systemic, idealistic, practical problems and the inner world of how we, as humans, might deal with the challenges that presents. If culture’s where we reflect on our lives, actors seem to be those “able” to convey what it is to be human: representative, somehow, of humanity’s struggles and hopefully inspirational in terms of how we might handle them (Notes Three).

Actors presumably then “are” strangely well-placed to offer valuable insight into “what it is to be human”. Particularly if they’re acutely aware of the way they’re serving society and the kinds of experiences they’re helping bring to life: delving into the concepts at play, the humanity finding a way between them, and the crux of any decisions being made “must” give actors a strangely heightened sense for our struggles.

Not to say that necessarily translates into addressing us on any other matter of their choosing (Notes Four), but it does seem they stand at a fascinating and insightful point within modern society.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Who we’re listening to
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 1: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Do the “lies” blind us to truth?
Note 2: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 3: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 3: Culture as what we relate to
Note 3: Living as a form of art
Note 4: Which voice can we trust?
Note 4: Inspiring people and ideas
Note 4: All we concern ourselves with & encourage

Ways to share this:

With our words, do we cast spells?

When we speak, how far away do our words stand from reality? Are they a faithful reflection of “how it is” or do they cast everything in the light of how we feel, how we’re interpreting things, or what we think matters? As if our words might wrap our more objective observations within cloaks of despair, hope, criticism, distrust or freedom. Placing spin on reality as we reframe it with all the complex contents of our minds.

Isn’t it a powerful force? The commentary with which we accompany life. The thoughts we’re allowing ourselves to voice, expectations we have, and assumptions we mightn’t question seem to carry such weight as they travel out into the world. All these ideas which we, as humans, have thought and decided to send forth as an example or affirmation for others. (Notes One)

Once out there, don’t they stand to impact, influence or injure almost anyone around us? Becoming this humanly-voiced statement of how others see things – or, you. The ways we frame things in our minds becoming the way we present our thoughts to others as we offer up our conclusions around the value of everything that’s crossing our path.

Knowing how others see things seems significant. This sense in which, through communication, we’re letting others know what we think: revealing our perspectives, our values, our criticisms through all the subtle nuance of our words. Doesn’t it give others an idea of what matters to us? A fairly clear picture of how we, as a human, are looking at life and directing our concern or attention within it (Notes Two).

In that, aren’t we always “adding” something to reality? Not just stating a fact, but loading it up with the implication of all it means for us. As if, in everything we say, our words speak the relative significance of the world in our eyes: the seriousness with which we approach any topic, emotion accompanying our language and its delivery, and deliberation or haste with which we’re treating our subjects all carrying discernible meaning.

Almost as if we’re each these transmitters of “value” as we reflect reality through the “lens” of the human being – coating everything with the meaning we’ve assigned it and relaying that to anyone within earshot. And that doesn’t seem neutral (Notes Three). It must serve to confirm what we feel is acceptable, appropriate or admirable. It must impact others’ judgements of people, situations or themselves.

Maybe words are cloaking reality with our view of it? Some, perhaps, bearing the burden of words spoken by anyone not truly understanding where they’re coming from; haunted by any misconceptions with which others might’ve labelled them. Situations in nature or society perhaps being weighed down by all the many ways we’re not valuing things rightly or acting well.

As much as our words might uplift and bring good things to life, can’t they also become oppressive prisons? Flawed reflections of reality that trap us until we can somehow break free of their power.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 1: These ideas we have of one another
Note 1: Powerful responsibility of a media voice
Note 2: Attention as a resource
Note 2: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 2: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 3: All that we add to neutrality
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 3: Conversation as revelation

 

Ways to share this:

Everything’s interconnected

In life, isn’t everything layered upon everything else? One thing leading to or related to countless others in ways we might never imagine. Life having woven itself in and around and through all these regular or occasional sequences of events. Threads drifting, often behind the scenes, from one situation to another that, on the surface, seems almost entirely unconnected.

It seems as true of nature or thought as it is of our lives: things all interrelate. Making changes in one area, we may be surprised by consequences elsewhere – not having seen exactly how it all comes together or where effects would be felt. As if, in almost every area of life, we’re potentially tinkering with things we don’t fully comprehend. (Notes One)

Aren’t we overlaying experiences each day? Some things being confirmed by repeatedly consistent results; others challenged or proved wrong as reality acts differently. Each affirmation or denial either reinforcing or weakening our understanding of what’s around us. The connections our minds make – the lessons we draw from life – being perhaps strengthened with confidence or shaken by doubt.

Almost as if we’re working to piece together a comprehensive picture of reality up there: hoping, eventually, for our ideas to match the world around us in perfect, purposeful harmony. That we might, one day, develop a thorough enough sense of things to confidently intervene in life and cause only enhancement; rather than accidentally creating all manner of problems we’ll then need to redress. (Notes Two)

From the learnings of youth through to the years of adulthood, aren’t we hopefully refining our knowledge? Building on what came before to create a reasonable, responsible sense of where we stand and what everything “means”. Constantly revising, adapting or expanding our earlier ideas to accommodate the growing awareness our experiences have offered. (Notes Three)

Things that had once seemed easy suddenly becoming complex as we dig beneath the surface and realise there’s so much more to it. As if we’re forever revisiting the same subjects and reviewing them with the eyes and minds that intervening time has developed in us. Life, perhaps, being this ongoing project of deepening, broadening, extending the scope of our understanding to “match” reality and weed out our misconceptions.

Isn’t there a time to learn each thing and a way of presenting complex realities in simple enough terms for any stage of development? First steps on which further knowledge can more easily and securely be built. This sense in which our understanding of “life” can be constructed layer upon layer to faithfully reflect reality and give each person a crystal-clear sense of where we stand within it and what all our responsibilities are.

It seems important to develop: a realistic yet flexible understanding of life. Not just in the sense of getting ahead or playing our cards right, but grasping, with the full scope of our humanity, exactly how we’re related to our surroundings and the deep significance of every little thing we might choose to do in our lives.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 1: Personal archaeology
Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 2: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 2: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: Where education stands within society
Note 3: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: What it is to be human
Note 3: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 3: Detaching ourselves from the past

Ways to share this:

Is there any end to the power of thought?

Sometimes it seems, if all thought’s doing is running alongside our view of reality, we might spend forever simply churning through all its possible iterations. As if, having explored our own perspective, we might then explore those of any other, identifying every divergence and source of difference before going onto the next… Presumably, that might never end? These constantly shifting reflections of reality in thought.

Can’t almost anything be made “reasonable” by someone having strung it together in terms of causality and logic? Any individual perspective being something we might set against another and argue over. Conceivably, “meaning” and “relative significance” can be viewed any number of ways or stacked up in different orders to reach different conclusions. Anything, perhaps, seems reasonable if you accept its worldview (Notes One).

As if there’s not an objective reality or agreed way of looking at it – a common set of meanings – so we’re no longer speaking the same language or having the same conversation about it. As if we might spend all our time disputing personal assessments or interpretations, talking at crossed purposes and never quite touching on the truth of any given situation.

Doesn’t lack of agreement propel us away from conversation? This sense in which, not agreeing on simple terms, we can’t move beyond them to discuss the complexity of how things come together. And, whether it’s modernity’s pace of change or the ways technology propels us all forward in rapidly-evolving worlds of our own choosing, aren’t we increasingly far apart in how we see things?

If we’re each tending to experience our version of reality as the only one – having that belief constantly reinforced as we forge ahead in our own direction – how are we to speak to others? Surely, we’ll all be out on the extremes, fired up by our own concerns, struggling to understand how anyone else might see things differently.

It’s hard to talk when we’re all on such different pages. As if each person’s now living in their own mind, their thoughts fuelled and amplified by unknown sources. As if the words we share increasingly fly in from left field; leaving you wondering where the person’s coming from and how exactly they got there. Not having the time – or, inclination – to unravel the details, we perhaps drift apart further.

What, then, is the value of thought? Of reflecting reality in our minds, coating it in words, and seeking common ground over how we need to be seeing things (Notes Two). Isn’t there value in being on the same page? Somehow fleshing out our perspectives into a purposeful sense of what’s happening, what it means, and how best to respond.

If “to be human” is to rightly grasp complex realities in thought and make the best of them, where are we to find time to achieve that? Without a common sense of life’s meaning and the roles we’re playing to bringing that about, might “thought” not just isolate us all in angry realities of our own making?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Power in what we believe
Note 1: The sense of having a worldview
Note 1: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 1: Systems, their power, whose hands?
Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Belief in what we cannot see
Note 2: The thought surrounding us
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 2: Connecting truthfully with life

Ways to share this:

These ideas we have of one another

When it comes to other people, which version of who they are gets to live? Don’t we all have quite different ways of being human? Different attributes, priorities or interests in terms of what matters most and what life is “for us”. We’re all so unique, so unprecedented in the experiences that’ve formed us and conclusions they’ve led us towards (Notes One). Yet, don’t we tend to judge one another on quite simple terms?

For some, it seems “life” is relationship: all we can create, tend or support in the ties we forge with others. As if “that’s” where life happens and one of the most important areas to focus our efforts. For others, action in the world seems more pressing: the roles we play and changes we help bring about in our surroundings. Others, perhaps, live more in life’s meaning and understanding the nature of existence.

Aren’t there many ways to be human? We might focus on what’s inside or outside: the qualities of our personality or the nature of our external appearance. We might be more concerned by the systemic, the conceptual, the ethical, the economic or the personal. We might be burdened by personal experiences and perspectives or freely give ourselves over to the lives and interests of others.

How, then, are we to relate to anyone else? Are we to evaluate their lives against our own ideas of it? Comparing “who they are” to “who we are”, noting all the differences, and feeling we can’t get along. Almost as if different ways of being human might make us incompatible – intolerant of the idea that anyone might live in the world differently. Anybody not reflecting “our” choices, we perhaps reject or attempt to change. (Notes Two)

Alternatively, do we suspend the self and allow this other version of “human” to come to life in our mind? Taking the time to listen; to hear how they see things; to appreciate all the endless differences in how we might live. Rather than compete and compare, might we not simply allow? Let go of our own ideas or assumptions to imagine life through the lens of another brain, another heart, another being.

What would it mean to do that? To suspend judgement and allow others to be, not our version of them, but theirs. Wouldn’t that light of non-judgemental interest and acceptance be nice? Especially if it were mutual. If, instead of competing for the chance to talk or be heard, we gave each other the space to be who or how “they” are. Even if that’s flawed, imperfect, struggling or stuck. (Notes Three)

Sometimes it just seems “a shame” that we don’t have the time to get to know all these different ways of being. That life’s so pressured we, perhaps naturally, drift towards those “like us” and set up self-reflexive camp “there”. What are we missing out on when we see others mainly through our eyes and never theirs? Why is it we’re tending to insist on ourselves?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 1: The way to be
Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Tempting justifications of self
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: Humans, judgement & shutting down
Note 2: Absolute or relative value
Note 2: Treading carefully in the lives of others
Note 2: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 3: Conversation as revelation
Note 3: This thing called love
Note 3: Can there be beauty in communication?
Note 3: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 3: Going towards the unknown

Ways to share this:

All we’re expected to understand

Within our lives, aren’t we expected to understand quite a lot? For example, all the ways those lives intersect: our choices and actions rippling out from us into the collective systems and realities effectively governing everyone’s lives. If everything we’re doing forms part of this world we’re all sharing, creating consequences all round us, what difference does it make if we understand that or not?

It seems amazing how much and how quickly our lives have changed from relatively small-scale communities to large and inscrutable ones. Didn’t it used to be that people “would” understand their world? Systems and groupings having been small and transparent enough that those living within them would, naturally, “know” how things worked, who was involved and where impacts were felt. (Notes One)

Now, it seems so much is hidden from sight. Don’t we really have to “look” to wrap our head around how this modern world’s actually working? To see who owns what, how they’re operating, whose lives are affected, and the forces being unsettled or unleashed within the delicate fabric of each individual society or life.

Sometimes it seems impossible to understand; especially given all we have to deal with (Notes Two). Almost as if life’s become too complicated – on both systemic and practical levels – for people to find the time, mental bandwidth or courage to dig into the realities rapidly taking shape around them. Isn’t it easier and, perhaps, more pressing to simply get on with our lives and make the best of them?

Is it “enough” to go along with things, though? To resign ourselves to living lives we don’t quite understand; creating consequences we never imagined; playing parts in situations beyond our awareness. Can we really hope to claim we’re not responsible for all our lives are setting in motion? As if “they” are responsible by having presented us with the options. (Notes Three)

Within the marketplaces of modern life, however, aren’t “we” the ones bearing the burden of choice? Isn’t it for us to understand, see how it all comes together, and ensure our choices are the best they could be? This sense in which we have to keep pace with what’s going on – constantly stretching out our grasp of reality and where life’s heading – if we’re to hope to make the kinds of choices we’re prepared to stand by.

How are we to do that? How, in every possible area, are we to understand enough to make fully-informed, responsible decisions? If it’s not possible, are we to defer to others? Shifting responsibility for our choices onto the heads of experts, advisers or public opinion, as we go along with what we’re told or what everyone else seems to be doing.

Is that enough? Not to understand, but to be guided. If we’re not able to find the time or information needed to gain enough clarity to decide for ourselves which paths in life we want to put the weight of our participation behind, where’s all this likely to lead?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 1: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 1: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 2: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: Overwhelm and resignation
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: “Paradox of Choice”
Note 3: Systems, their power, whose hands?
Note 3: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: What we create by our presence

In all of this, aren’t we generally always facing up to The incredible responsibility of freedom?

Ways to share this:

Lacking the human side of community?

When we think of “community”, what do we have in mind? Is it the affirmation of feeling we belong; the structure it gives to our lives; the logistical support it offers; the sense of meaning or purpose it imparts; or something more? As humans, it seems we “must” live in community – and, that it benefits us in countless ways we mightn’t truly imagine – but do we really understand all it “means” within our lives? (Notes One)

These days, it often feels we’re pulling apart traditional communities and reconfiguring them in virtual ways. As if the ties between us, once tangible, are shifting into this other place where they exist mainly in our minds, while, in reality, we’re more atomised than ever. Choosing our own affinities – those who confirm us – and disconnecting from those around us, aren’t we almost now living in versions of reality that suit “us”?

Does it matter if we disconnect from one another that way? Living alongside complete strangers – whose lives, nevertheless, are joined to ours and impact each other in various ways – while our hearts, minds and allegiances are elsewhere. As if we don’t really care what surrounds us; provided it’s “managed” in ways we don’t find troubling. What does it mean for society if we’re not concerning ourselves with its humanity?

It seems quite an abstract way to live: as if people aren’t “real” so much as obstacles, types or representatives within the greater reality of “our existence”. As if we’re each living in our own worlds; seeing things from our perspective; casting everyone else in light of how well they serve our interests or further our aims. Isn’t it a strange sort of community? Heavy on “the self” and light on “others”.

Living that way, aren’t we also trusting that “others” are taking care of things? That “the system” or those at its helm are ensuring all members of our communities are well-treated and living the best lives they might imagine for themselves. While, face to face, we treat people as if they’re nothing to us – not knowing who they are or understanding where they stand in our world. It seems an unusual way to live (Notes Two).

I mean, as humans, don’t we reflect everything in thought? Reading our environment and representing it with ideas as to its meaning, significance or worth (both relative to us and in the more absolute sense). As if we stand within reality and make sense of it: knowing what each aspect means, where it fits, and why it matters. Responding, then, with an informed sense of each thing’s importance. (Notes Three)

Does this abstract version of community risk making us less human, then? As if, not grasping the reality of our lives, we’re perhaps not treating everything with the respect it deserves (Notes Four). If, despite our capacity for thought, we’re not extending ourselves to understand and appreciate all that stands before us and how it relates to ourselves, what does that mean about how we’re living?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 1: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 1: Shopping around for a society
Note 1: What inspires collective endeavours
Note 2: Might we lose our social muscles?
Note 2: Integrity and integration
Note 2: Community as an answer
Note 3: Reading into social realities?
Note 3: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 4: All we want to do passes through community
Note 4: Picking up after one another
Note 4: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 4: Detaching from the world around us
Note 4: What if solutions aren’t solutions?

Ways to share this:

Detaching ourselves from the past

As humans, personally as much as collectively, isn’t “growth” generally some form of movement out of limitation into a place of greater awareness? This archetypal path from ignorance to enlightenment as we discover all those things we didn’t yet understand or know how to master. Almost as if we’re growing “into” our environment, learning more about it, then hopefully living well within it.

Ideally, I’d imagine we’d “meet” everything we need to know in youth: all the principles that would enable us to rightly interpret, evaluate and respond to everything we’d meet in life. That we emerge into the world with comprehensive grasps on reality, our worth, and the value of all we do. Realistically, responsibly integrated into life with a balanced sense of where we stand. (Notes One)

What if that doesn’t happen, though? Or, if the world’s changing and coming together so fast that any “preparation” one group of people offers is incomplete: the knowledge “we” might hope to impart not necessarily working well alongside the priorities or experiences of all the “others” we’re now almost inevitably going to come across in life. Hasn’t the time of a single voice, interpretation or “truth” come to an end? (Notes Two)

When we meet things we don’t know or understand, though, what are we to do? As competent, capable adults, do we plough confidently through our ignorance or tread carefully and continue that stance of “learning”? At some point, it seems the need for admiration demands we conceal any uncertainty for fear of losing ground. But, where does that lead?

Looking back, we might see many things we’d do differently – judging with the eyes which experience and growth have given us. Isn’t it good we change? That we realise things that weren’t clear to us, we’d not met before or had never managed successfully. This sense in which “life” tends to expose shortcomings and challenge us to overcome them. (Notes Three)

Almost as if life “is” that path of expanding awareness as our capacities lead us into situations that ask us to lift our minds to new levels. As if, rather than performance, life’s more our engagement with the task of being human within this environment we’re creating. Perhaps it’s “better” we reach more tentatively into areas of the unknown? (Notes Four)

It seems, though, that we want our “path” to be perfect: unerring arcs of humans conquering the world, displaying our brilliance and being proved right. Yet, won’t we almost always be defending ideas we no longer hold? Twisting narratives to look good and conceal any misjudgements what might well have littered our path.

If our knowledge – regrettably – is limited, isn’t our task to grow beyond that to the point of judging ourselves? Life, perhaps, being this path of assimilating the lessons of any mistakes to broaden our understanding enough to help prepare others. The “right” ideas might be all around us, but don’t we still have to reach the point of recognising them and, somehow, correcting our own?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Integrity and integration
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: Seeing where others are coming from
Note 2: Making things up as we go along
Note 2: On whose terms?
Note 3: The struggle with being alive
Note 3: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Ideals & the pursuit of them
Note 3: Where’s the reset button & can we press it?
Note 3: Desire to retreat, need to engage
Note 4: Tempting justifications of self
Note 4: Appreciating other ways of being
Note 4: Going towards the unknown

Ways to share this:

What should be leading us?

Of all the qualities that “live” within human society, which “should” be leading us towards our future? Should it be profit or growth – progress at almost any cost – or are there other things that could stand against such imperatives? Should it be the stronger or the weaker who are our greatest concern? Can we call ourselves “successful” as humans if we’re destroying our security or allowing our own to fall behind?

Is there just “one way” that should dominate? A sort of “survival of the fittest” mindset where one particular view of what it is to be human – what our choices, priorities or values should be – inevitably comes to drive all others from the field. As if, logically, one set of ideas must defeat all others and emerge victorious as the only way to live. Sometimes it seems to be what we’re aiming for; limiting as any such vision might be.

Almost as if all we’re really doing here is arguing over what that “way” should be: picking at all the areas “this” isn’t working, isn’t bringing our finest values to life or creating a future many of us want to be living with. That, facing such a huge disparity between our ideals and realities, we struggle to understand where others are coming from or where the right paths are toward creating better solutions down the line. (Notes One)

As if “life” is always about seeking this balance between the “top down” idealism of concepts and the “bottom up” realities of the lives we lead and ways they affect us. Isn’t there often a vast dissonance between the two? Between the values we might hold dear and the evidence presented by the world around us – all the ways we’re treating our surroundings and all that’s saying about our true priorities, concerns or beliefs.

Doesn’t it matter how our lives make us feel? This question of how well our systems work “from the inside” (Notes Two). If society’s not working from the human perspective – the perspective of all people living within it – what are we to make of that? If structures or assumptions are making anyone feel their lives aren’t worth living, how well can such a social system truly be said to be functioning?

Don’t both sides – the ideals and realities, top and bottom – form part of the one reality? Those living “within” these systems perhaps even being better placed to speak of their understanding than those at some distant, shielded “helm” where realities barely touch them. Isn’t there pragmatic wisdom to living life, knowing it, and seeing exactly how problems arise? (Notes Three)

Maybe, then, the best leadership comes from us all? Those aware of the long, convoluted philosophical conversations that led us here. Those living with the realities that conversation produced. Those imparting understanding of it through education, culture or the media. And, more generally, those upholding it all in countless big and little ways as citizens. Doesn’t society rest on the dialogue of everyone playing our parts?

Notes and References:

Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 1: Seeing where others are coming from
Note 1: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 2: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 2: Values & what’s in evidence
Note 2: Truth, behind art and tradition
Note 2: What it is to be human
Note 2: “The way things should be” as an add-on
Note 3: Those who are leading us
Note 3: Treating people like sims?
Note 3: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 3: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Value and meaning in our lives

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