Author: admin

The value we’re giving to things

How much value are we giving to the things we have in life? Sometimes, it really seems that belongings have come to define us – how others see us and we see ourselves. As if life were simply this accumulation of choices that we’ve made about the kind of person we are, the way we wish to be seen, and what it all says about us.

We very much seem to be told, these days, that surrounding ourselves with things that suit our personality and pulling them together to express our own unique style “is” what it is to be human (Notes One). And, that “reading” others using that code is the way to understand where they stand and how much you have in common. Things, effectively, stepping in to tell the world who we all are as people.

It’s the kind of thinking that must serve business pretty well, while casting us all as perpetual consumers in pursuit of the next development. If “this” is where identity, acceptance and belonging happen, the idea of not playing the game perhaps seems risky; as if you might disappear or be judged poorly by not joining in. If this marketplace of options is how we’re to understand one another, it seems quite a powerful thing.

But don’t all these things also have only passing value? The fact we chose them perhaps mattering more than the notion of keeping them. Rather than possessions being few and far between, carefully maintained, essentially functional items to help with life’s necessities, they’re now seeming disposable almost to the point of being discarded as soon as they’re selected.

When there’s so much choice, so many cheap and accessible options, perhaps the idea of having “more” overtakes the idea of anything having much worth (Notes Two). As if we’re desensitised to the relative luxury of having what we need and losing sight of what belongings actually add to our lives. When things are scarce, do we better appreciate their value? Less being more in the sense of focussing us on what truly matters.

On the other side, though, what’s the cost of it all? Given how little now seems designed to last, the amount of resources being used up and waste being generated by this way of operating must be fairly considerable. Then, socially, there’s all the time we spend chasing things and believing they complete us – the psychological burden of that, plus the kind of conversations we end up having around what’s actually important. (Notes Three)

It just seems fascinating that we might have more than humans have ever had yet seem quite careless about it. That we might be ploughing through limited resources – enjoying them briefly then clearing the space for more, cluttering up the world with discarded choices – in this quest to define ourselves and keep up with an ever-changing game of personal or social meaning.

Sometimes it seems such a strange way to be looking at things and spending the incredible opportunity life affords us.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: “Paradox of Choice”
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 2: Goods & the wisdom in scarcity
Note 3: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 3: Making ends meet
Note 3: Some thoughts about “life”

Ways to share this:

Having confidence in complex systems

How are we supposed to trust in the kinds of complex systems that need us to do so? Like driving, or society itself. How are we to place our lives in the hands of these collective realities and operate on the basis that it’s safe?

It really seems that such systems can only be run on trust, on the idea that everyone appreciates the responsibility they have and the belief that others are placing in them (Notes One). Almost as if trust is taken as a given – a prerequisite for taking part in anything of this nature. Doesn’t society need us to act confidently? To believe in it and uphold our end of this invisible bargain.

Which, in a way, seems strange: this idea that we would trust complete strangers to understand the significance of what we’re engaged in, the risks we’re running, and faith we’re demonstrating in the net of safety such participation effectively casts around us all. Aren’t we placing a great deal of trust in one another? Assuming that everyone’s acting from the same level of awareness, skill and care.

Because, if we’re not, don’t things become rather dangerous? Driving heavy machinery at high speeds seems a momentous responsibility, given how much other lives are at risk if we’re not approaching things with the appropriate amount of seriousness. Expecting anyone to participate in shared systems must depend upon the solemn duty of us all fully realising the importance of our roles and our actions.

Isn’t it amazing that we’re all taking part in things that assume this basic transactional unit of “trust” in every other person? That each of us must understand and appreciate the value of what we’re involved in – how essential it is for community and the very idea of people being able to live alongside one another without constant checks and renegotiations.

Don’t we need to know that everyone around us sees common activities in similar ways? That seems a large part of how education, the media and culture serve to sustain society with collective awareness: this sense of us all being on the same page, taking part in this important conversation, and responding to it along similar lines (Notes Two).

Knowing that we’re right to trust in complex systems seems fundamental to them being a success; doubting seems like it could be almost as dangerous as the thought of them not being trustworthy. Distrusting, don’t we start acting defensively or aggressively? Protecting ourselves from the risks we know are there if these collective agreements fall apart (Notes Three).

There’s not really a point to these musings, just a slight amazement at the idea of engaging with systems based upon trust. It’s such a tenuous thing and, usually, something we’re wise to hand out cautiously and review regularly to ensure we’re not putting ourselves at risk.

That many of the systems surrounding us, on which communal existence depends, assume we can place it in everyone around us seems beautiful – in a strangely risky way.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Trust within modern society
Note 1: Contracts, social or commercial
Note 1: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: Powerful responsibility of a media voice
Note 2: Culture as information
Note 3: Picking up after one another
Note 3: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 3: People, rules & social cohesion

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Navigation, steering & direction

Thinking about the idea that “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”, paraphrased from Lewis Carroll, is it that culture helps us find our way in life? This idea that by exploring representations, depictions or distorted versions of reality we might understand better how to live, what our options are, and where they might lead.

Not, necessarily, to say that culture’s an example we should follow or something to be held up as a form of reality, but that it might be able to help us find our feet in the real world more safely than by simply wandering off track (Notes One). A sort of imaginary place where we can consider our paths, reflect on all the different ways of being human, and decide how best to navigate our own life.

That said, is this how we’re approaching it? As something to reflect upon, weigh up and consider rather than just incorporate wholesale into our way of being. Often, culture seems more like something to laugh about, criticise, deconstruct, feel superior to, or thankful not to be part of. An entertaining, consequence-free, light relief from life itself – somewhere we’re safe to let our guard down and not take things too seriously.

Maybe I’m misreading it, maybe it’s also a place to let our heart wander and find places of belonging we might make part of our soul. Thinking of the many stories that might light our path, inspire us on, and let us feel we’re not alone in our perceptions (Notes Two). A map we’re creating for our own, inner landscape that will help us find our own, unique way through life.

Almost as if these characters, places, events and worlds become a second home – a retreat or sanctuary from life where we might gather our strength, consider our resources, and imagine the kind of person we might hope to be in the world. A place we might come to understand the problems or opportunities we’re facing and consider how to respond for the best. Somewhere we feel our struggles make sense.

It’s just interesting how symbolic we are, how much we read into these stories and relate them to our selves and our surroundings. That this whole imaginary, codified reworking of “reality” into representations of it might somehow be meaningful, inspiring and useful in terms of living our lives in the real world. As if we need the vision, the arc, the themes, the focus, the motivation in order to make sense of it all.

And maybe we do, maybe we truly need some deeper sense of life holding meaning? This idea that there is a map, a direction, a path to take and destination to reach – that it does matter what we do, as much for ourselves as for the world around us (Notes Three). Essentially, perhaps, the beautiful notion that everyone’s journey is important and we all have valuable challenges to meet and contributions to make along the way.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as information
Note 1: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Society that doesn’t deal with the soul
Note 2: Literature that’s treating the soul
Note 2: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: How much do intentions matter?
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast

Other examples of authors trying to help us find our way was also the focus of Spiritually committed literature.

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What does community mean?

When we talk of community, is it of something we want to be part of or something we’re already in? Sometimes, the term seems to be used in a slightly dreamy way about an idealistic place of belonging, rather than referring to whatever grouping of people our lives are already interwoven with. Is it, then, that we’re looking for an idyllic state of personal acceptance? Tired of the troublesome realities of what’s actually around us.

It seems likely we “are” in community – the social structure, geographic location, cultural traditions and expectations we were born in or chose to move into. Most people are probably surrounded, however remotely, by a community that’s working together towards common ends. Each person’s life feeding into and drawing out from that common pool of activity.

Community’s presumably also the place where we’re learning much of what we know about “life”: what things are and which one’s matter; what is acceptable or valuable; which paths to take and ideas to have in mind. Isn’t this where we pick up all the lessons that, together, form our view of life and where we stand within it? Where we establish our sense of identity, meaning and purpose (Notes One).

Maybe, then, this different usage of the word is more a sign that modern community isn’t serving all our needs? Living this way, it perhaps wouldn’t be surprising for us to feel disconnected, unappreciated, invisible. After all, aren’t many of the connections between us now quite hidden and impersonal? It seems we may not be aware of the roles we play within it all and others may not be able to see who we are.

Isn’t community generally a notion of feeling “seen”? Knowing that we belong, that our presence is valued, our unique personality and gifts treasured by those around us. In the past, communities perhaps offered that: each person being known, their contributions noticed and openly acknowledged. Now, it’s almost like we’re strangers to one another with no sense of how our lives are connected.

In that world, it sometimes seems individuals could drift into oblivion and no one would even know who they’d lost. It must be strange, as humans, to live that way? Not knowing who the people around you are or why they should matter to you (Notes Two). Especially if community’s the place we’re supposed to make sense of life and form meaningful relationships within it.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that people would turn to smaller sub-communities for the belonging and acceptance that makes all our lives meaningful. Don’t we all need to be ourselves and be seen as such by our peers? To know that our life, our existence, and who we are is important to the world around us?

What, then, does it mean for community overall if we’re abandoning it as a source of collective belonging? For our broader social space to be devoid of mutual recognition, interest or appreciation seems questionable when you think that “society” is built around us.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Having boundaries
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: Invisible ties
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 2: Knowing who to trust
Note 2: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 2: Does anything exist in isolation?

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Pace of change & getting nowhere fast

With modern technology, it really seems that we’re not at all sure where we’re headed. Yet, still, we’re handing everything over and going with the flow of wherever this may lead. Is that trust, or do we feel there’s very little choice in the matter? That, this being the direction others have set for us, the best we can hope is to keep up and make the most of things.

Of course, it’s perhaps the first time in human history that we’ve been able to develop tools with the capacity to surpass us. The challenge of “how to handle that” must, then, be fairly unique. Never having been in this position before, there may be no truly reliable advice for how we might go about it. Still, though, it’s as if the whole weight of human inheritance rests on our shoulders and asks what our plan is.

Isn’t that where we stand? If history’s this chain through time of things handed down from one generation to the next, aren’t we holding all that in our hands? If “holding our place” in that chain requires us to know, understand, and carry forward all that’s valuable within our way of life, aren’t those capacities arguably some of the most important we might possess?

If civilisation is our world of ideas, isn’t that something we’re handing over to this way of being? If society’s our understanding of the relationships and activities that serve to uphold our lives together, are we handing that over as well? It seems such an incredible moment in our history, and an incredible act of faith on our part (Notes One).

Sometimes it also seems this is truly changing what it is to be human; the pace and complexity of our lives now standing quite apart from anything that’s gone before (Notes Two). Haven’t people, generally, been engaged in quite a slow pace of life? Change perhaps taking a lifetime, while the daily lives within it proceeded step by step in much the same way. “Time” perhaps helping create great focus, strength, understanding and resolve.

By comparison, doesn’t “life with technology” tend to encourage quite a superficial, glitchy, distracted engagement with reality? Forever flitting from one thing to the next; perhaps never fully developing a deep and comprehensive sense of it all. Doesn’t it lead us to expect immediate results and act impulsively in the moment? Replacing the steady commitment of the past with quite a volatile alternative.

Not to say we can’t rise above those tendencies, but technology itself does seem to be strengthening them. Do we let ourselves get swept up with that or, somehow, decide to swim against the tide in another direction? How are we even to see “where we are heading” or “where we might go instead”? Is this fast-moving flow of reflexive, interwoven trends something we can hope to navigate more intentionally?

How much say we have over where we’re heading seems important, though, as it’s hard to argue these things don’t matter.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Things change, over time
Note 1: Where would we stand if this were lost?
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Trust in technology?
Note 1: Cutting corners
Note 2: All that’s going on around us
Note 2: The potential of technology
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: Patience with the pace of change
Note 2: The difference humanity makes

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Passing on what’s important

How much of what we’re all passing on in life is truly important? Not just to us and those immediately around us, but also for our community and the world more widely. Wouldn’t we hope that almost everything we were being told were meaningful, important, and worth structuring our lives around? If not, what kinds of bricks are we building our lives with?

Isn’t our view of life and sense of what’s important within it going to be shaped by everything we’re told? By all the direct and indirect examples offered to us by family, community, culture, education, news, and so forth. Don’t we take it all in? Accepting it, on some level, as an acceptable way to be living, relating, talking, thinking, acting, feeling, and behaving in life.

It seems reasonable to assume that’s how we’re getting our ideas on things (Notes One). But, how much of what’s around us is being offered up in the knowledge that “that” is what’s happening here? In all probability, many of these things must fall under being entertaining, enjoying ourselves or just the light-hearted passing of time. Maybe it’s assumed we’ll “know” not to take things seriously or make them part of everyday life?

How are we to know which things to take to heart, though? If we’re being presented with a completely mixed selection of serious and ridiculous ideas about life, how can we know which we’re dealing with? Not being clear on that, there must be a chance we’d take silly suggestions seriously while brushing significant ones aside. Wouldn’t that be quite difficult for the world around us, in a number of ways?

Passing anything on, there presumably needs to be quite a high level of awareness around what we’re saying, what it really means, why it matters, and how those we’re conveying it to will need to integrate it into their own, personal understanding of life. The “recipient” presumably also needs, somehow, to know which things to take seriously – isn’t accepting what’s handed to you a pretty essential step in the chain? (Notes Two)

In that, it seems there’s quite a large communicative element to living within society: all these ways we’re establishing, acting upon, upholding, and conveying meaning through all the moments of life. This idea that “the way we live” paints a picture of how we see things and how much we’re valuing them all (Notes Three). We might not truly “mean” everything we sometimes seem to be saying, but it’s perhaps all still out there.

Doesn’t it all matter quite a lot for the lives we’ll be living? If the ideas we have in mind prepare us for life and how to live it – furnishing us with the insight and skill needed to navigate wisely from beginning to end – this whole task of successfully passing on what matters seems so important. As does developing the discernment needed to clearly see what’s being offered and know whether to make it part of your own view of life.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What we know to pass on
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Education as a breaking away?
Note 2: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 2: Meaning within it all
Note 3: Is honesty actually the best policy?
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 3: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 3: Joining the dots

Ways to share this:

Humans, tangled in these systems

In terms of how we live, isn’t it that we’re very much born into things? Much of what effectively shapes the course of our existence being, in many ways, determined by the social realities already existing around us. Almost as if we exist within this manmade reality of structures, policies and ideas affecting every area of our lives; our only freedom, perhaps, being how we respond.

Isn’t it true that society stands between us and the world? Mediating that relationship, telling us what to think and how to be, sheltering us from some things but burdening us with others. At this point, we presumably don’t know any different? How long’s it been since humans in the West have lived in direct relationship with nature? Increasingly, it seems like we’re living at ever-further distances from it. (Notes One)

Conceiving of “society” as a set of systems we’re born into, what’s that like? To arrive on the scene with all these naturally-endowed advantages or disadvantages almost completely beyond our control. To have our sense of self-worth, social acceptance or power determined, to quite a large extent, by how that world’s been saying to judge people like us. Doesn’t “all that” become the lived experiences of our lives?

It just seems interesting to imagine all the ways our lives are shaped by this being our reality – every moment, perhaps, being influenced by our appearance, the circumstances of our birth, or all the ways that’s been compounded over the years (Notes Two). Living within this human world of judgements, assumptions, and assigned estimations of worth seems a not insignificant reality we all have to contend with.

How much are we judging each other on those terms? Where do we get our ideas of what are acceptable or meaningful ways to judge people? Is “that” part of the system we live in too? The set of values by which we’re allowed – or, encouraged – to see and respond to those around us. The code that’s been bred into us around what’s valuable or otherwise within our community.

It’s fascinating to think that whatever the human “is” might be being poured into these situations the humans before them created, dreamt up or set in motion. The ideas once in their minds becoming the realities of our lives. The minds now filling them becoming the ones who, in turn, will uphold, improve or let fall away whatever systems they might have inherited. (Notes Three)

And, within it all, there are presumably many voices trying to tell us what “living this way” means for them, from a human perspective. Listening, we perhaps come to appreciate how well our “values” are working out in the real world. Seeing these systems through the eyes of those affected by them, our response may well be that something needs to give.

Isn’t it effectively down to us to change things? How else is anything to improve if the people living within modern systems don’t insist on their values being better brought to life.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Detaching from the world around us
Note 1: Treating people like sims?
Note 1: Having a sense for being alive
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: The struggle with being alive
Note 2: Absolute or relative value
Note 3: What it is to be human
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: Questions around choice

Ways to share this:

Who we’re listening to

Thinking about how there’s often a backlash when celebrities speak into other areas of life, is it that we feel a boundary’s been crossed? It seems that’s what people are expressing: that they don’t feel these people have “the right” to tell us what to do in other areas than the one for which they’re famous. Which seems quite a nuanced sense of propriety, collective boundaries and entitlement.

As if “fame” is a form of popular vote whereby specific individuals rise to the point of having immense power, influence and wealth. The public, generally enjoying their ability to bring characters to life or convey emotion through song, “votes” through their attention, interest and money to elevate certain people to these positions of prestige within society. A place where they might enjoy all the luxuries afforded to them.

And, of course, we admire them. They have all the things we’re told to aspire to: looks, money, popularity, style, beautiful homes, wonderful lifestyles, all life’s glitz and glamour. After all, isn’t culture the place we’re “told” to admire all these attributes? The code of its narratives generally being that beautiful, wealthy people are better people.

Having risen to prominence in that world, it’s perhaps only to be expected it would engulf them. The cultural world seems like a strange, alternate reality full of people immensely talented at putting on an act and taking us along with it. And that must be valuable to society, given how society’s apparently always “have” a culture – this place where we reflect, explore, imagine, fear, and hope.

That world being quite far removed from “reality”, though, is it that we feel people can’t necessarily just cross over and speak into the realities of our lives? That, their lives being so set apart, it’s not perhaps “fair” for them to tell us how we should see things? How likely are we to share the same concerns, experiences and expectations within everyday life? (Notes One)

It also seems, at times, that we’d “rather” they only address us in the capacity for which they’re famous. As if our “vote” was only cast within that field and, straying from it, people trespass into areas we’ve not granted them. As if we’re happy to listen to what they have to say in a cultural capacity, but speaking on social, economic, personal, moral, or political issues steps over some invisible line.

Are there any such “lines” in modern life, though? Isn’t everything a little blurred now, with various attempts to influence us being made behind the scenes of any given moment. And, how much are “we” respecting any lines going the other way into the lives of celebrities? Aren’t “they” also members of society with many concerns they care deeply for? It must be only natural they’d speak using their own voice too.

It’s just interesting how much people seem to care on both sides; and, how many questions it seems to raise around the power celebrity might wield within complicated social realities.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Which voice can we trust?
Note 1: People, roles, reading that rightly
Note 1: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 1: Ideals & the pursuit of them
Note 1: Going towards the unknown

Ways to share this:

Joining the dots

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes and References:

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

Ways to share this:

Values, and what’s in evidence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes and References:

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

Ways to share this: