Author: admin

Making adjustments

Having talked at times here about how thought lines up with realities (Notes One), I’m still finding it interesting to contemplate how exactly our ideas might find their way to changing how things are.

The topic of affecting change, of bringing improvement to our lives together, seems such a huge preoccupation of our times (Notes Two). And rightly so. Modern life’s bringing new awareness to all the ways we’ve impacted one another over the years; alongside which, new ways of living are simultaneously creating further impacts we’re still getting our heads around.

Understanding what’s happening and why, grasping both the intentions behind things and the realities being created, seeing the bigger picture then somehow making sense of it, all of this becomes incredibly hard once dialled up to a frenetic global pace. If you manage it, the question of how best to respond takes things to another level yet again (Notes Three).

And, with all that, it just seems to me that we live in a flawed reality that’s arisen from originally quite fine intentions. Perhaps any society tends to arise from its best understanding? Those central principles and values that are working themselves out within our common space of agreement, history, commitment, and coordinated activity.

Following that thread, where do we end up? Once ideas have become social forms, once they’ve been peopled by our lives, once that’s picked up speed and scope with the aid of technological advancement, where do we find ourselves? If the ideas were perfect, presumably they’d be able to withstand the challenges that came through those global advancements and the forces they’ve unleashed. But whose ideas are that perfect?

In that light, it seems life must almost become a place of constant adjustment as we bring the unknown to light and offer it release. I mean, life’s surely a process of misunderstandings or imperfections being brought to light? A path of growth or progress. A journey toward greater understanding of what it is to be human and how we might best accommodate that personally, socially or environmentally.

If we’re not open to changing our views as our understanding expands, presumably we’ll be forever fighting against reality? In terms of our attitudes toward others or with regard to impacts our actions are having systemically on humans or within nature, at times it seems we’re pretty slow to change our minds. As if we’re passing on rigid rules and expectations rather than a living understanding that can bend or grow over time.

Why is it we’re reluctant to re-evaluate inherited patterns of behaviour? It doesn’t seem we really have an evolving model of thought; one that can adjust along with the revelations of reality to correct its course in achieving or reworking those original principles of society. This sense in which we need to know what we’re doing, so that we can work with it in a living way and bring it into our understanding of others (Notes Four).

Perhaps greater understanding would bring greater flexibility?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Thoughts on art & on life
Note 1: What is real?
Note 1: David Bohm, thoughts on life
Note 2: How things change
Note 2: Dealing with imperfection
Note 3: Common knowledge
Note 3: All that’s going on around us
Note 3: Dystopia as a powerful ideal
Note 3: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 3: What holds it all together
Note 4: Conversation as revelation
Note 4: Seeing, knowing and loving

Looking at these questions in different ways, there’s Things change, over time and “Women who run with the wolves”.

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Interdependency

We might live in a time that’s prizing independence above all else, but in so many ways all our lives are interconnected. Socially as much as economically we’re all part of the same systems; all our choices and actions impacting others in both big and little ways. With all that serving to make up the realities of our lives, perhaps independence is a strange kind of illusion.

Of course, we’re essentially independent actors, free to make our own decisions. That’s seemingly the thinking of the West: bringing everything down to the individual, to their free choices within the systems surrounding them (see Notes One). Much of the recent change within society seems, in a way, a heightening of that atomisation and isolation through the applications of technology.

It’s a very specific philosophy of life, this individualisation. Historically, people were generally tied into more communal relationships: bonds of obligation, security, trust, cooperation, and support of various kinds. Our interdependence was evident, known, and perhaps appreciated for the value it brought to community (Notes Two).

And it’s interesting to think that those ties were once more tangible, more consciously lived and known; because now it seems everything comes down to money. Our relationships, security and power can generally be reduced to financial terms; with personal economic realities often the product of early life and the position we find ourselves in.

So, while the West has admirable aims of rendering everyone more equal and free through its social and economic systems, is it partly obscuring the fact all life is based on relationship? You can make people systemically more independent, those relationships more coldly transactional, but the web of our interconnectedness remains.

We’re still humans existing within natural, social, and international relationships. Overlaying that, systems of politics, trade and culture might give us shared interests and concerns; but beneath it lie these highly complex connections of action, meaning, intention, and accumulated consequences on every level (Notes Three).

While the nature and extent of those ties might be more complicated than anything humans have encountered before, they’re still the same kinds of realities: practical needs essential to life; social or emotional ties that give lives meaning; ideological perspectives that guide our choices. All that might be working itself out through virtual channels, but it’s just as ‘real’.

I’m not really sure anyone fully understands the systems we’re now living within: these free-flowing, fast-moving waves, trends and patterns of behaviour. Everything’s related, but moving at such a pace it’s impossible to pin down the causality of it all. We might turn to original notions of sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and social structure but there’s perhaps not such great correlation with what we’re seeing around us.

Our world of ideas, relationship and responsibility has transcended national boundaries in beautiful ways that cannot be wound back. And, within that, our independent choices surely matter – the relationships we forge, intentions we carry, and impacts we have – but maybe it’s worth becoming more aware of how exactly it’s all coming together?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The conversation of society
Note 1: Concerns over how we’re living
Note 2: Economy & Humanity
Note 2: Obligations and contributions
Note 2: What holds it all together
Note 3: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 3: All that’s going on around us

Ways to share this:

“How to win friends…”

Dipping into the classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, published by Dale Carnegie in 1936 alongside his hugely successful personal development courses, it’s fascinating to realise how much people value skill and insight within their relationships.

Much as life might be about money, security and power, it’s clearly also about social connection. That there was such an appetite for greater interpersonal awareness within the field of adult education is intriguing; as if this were perhaps overlooked in youth, taken for granted rather than actively passed on, or that life itself were demanding more from people.

But then, these things can seem deceptively easy: we’re born into physical existence, there are generally people around us, we learn to communicate somehow, and then we’re muddling our way through relationships with varying degrees of insight, awareness or skill. I’d imagine many people might reach the point of stepping back to realise they didn’t know as much about this as they’d thought or hoped.

Even before we were catapulted into the murky, poorly-defined world of modern technology, it’s conceivable our frameworks for communication might’ve been a little tired, flawed or unexamined. Knowing how to relate – reach beyond the boundary of our own existence, experience, understanding to confidently encounter others – is something to learn if life’s to run smoothly (see Notes One).

And, as far as books on communication skills go, this one stands up fairly well to the passing of time. The essentials of human nature perhaps don’t age? The forms things are taking clearly do, but the essence of what it means to relate might be timeless.

As humans hoping to benefit from communal ties, the need to ‘get along’ has arguably always been there. Social structures and conventions may’ve once held things fairly tightly; whereas these days we’re facing quite a free-for-all. Which is great. But I would’ve thought it necessitates a pretty high level of understanding and skill to navigate well? And, how we define ‘well’ might matter a lot.

Carnegie’s guidance drifts from fundamentals of ‘handling people’ and being likeable, through to winning others to your way of thinking or leading them toward change. While I’ve discussed my reservations around persuasion or coercion elsewhere, these are undeniably some core functions of communication that we perhaps need to make peace with (Notes Two).

“Give honest and sincere appreciation”. “Encourage others to talk about themselves”. “Show respect for the other person’s opinions”. To modern minds, these might seem formulas for subservient listening; but, if everyone did so, presumably that balances out? Equally, the weight Carnegie gave to notions of respect, honesty and sincerity may seem anachronistic or calculated; but maybe they’re hallmarks of genuine relationship.

If life gives us our ideas, and ideas make their ways through words into the lives of others, then learning to approach that so relationships and the sharing of ideas can be healing revelations rather than confronting attacks seems so incredibly important. Approaching each other with mutual interest, respect, and compassion might be quite essential.

Notes and References:

“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, (Simon & Schuster), 1936.

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Mirrors we offer one another
Note 1: Relating to one another
Note 2: Conversation as revelation
Note 2: Attempts to influence
Note 2: What we bring to life
Note 2: The way to be

Ways to share this:

Attempts to influence

Modern life seems, in a way, obsessed with influence – influencers, online statistics, leveraging interpersonal power for whatever cause we’re putting our name behind. Maybe it ties in with branding and identity? This train of thought whereby all our interactions become quantifiable so we must use them wisely; rather than simply frittering them away on social niceties.

In some ways, that’s great: bringing a degree of conscious awareness to the influence we have over others, the example we set and standards we’re upholding through all we say and do, is surely better than leading unexamined or careless lives. It’s undoubtedly true that we’re social creatures, influenced by others’ opinions, approval or disapproval of our choices.

But there’s also something about this aware intention that can unfortunately come across as strategic, false, calculated, condescending, or possibly somewhat aggressive. To deliberately use social interactions to push an agenda seems quite specific. If we’re telling other people what to do, presumably we need to tread carefully?

Communication, relationship, and change are all such delicate matters. With the pace of modern life and deceptively ‘easy’ interface technology’s offering, we might be tempted to pick those things up casually and confidently; but they’ve likely never been straightforward (see Notes One).

Of course, there are many urgent and deep-seated problems rising to the surface of modern society. And, despite its challenges, technology serves us well by bringing all that to our attention while potentially offering a powerful tool for redressing things. Learning how best to put those functions to use, so they help rather than hinder, isn’t easy though.

My reservation, I suppose, is around this inclination to tell others what to do (Notes Two). We may think the conclusions we’ve reached are ‘right’, but what does it mean when we leverage social relationships to our own ends? We may ‘be’ right; although we might also have latched onto but one part of a bigger picture. By putting up firm boundaries or expectations, do we risk alienating others and closing down conversation?

Many of these are actually genuine questions rather than rhetorical ones, as I’m honestly unsure about the nature of modern ideas around communication and change (Notes Three). I mean, what if, in all our best efforts at improving things, we’re actually driving deeper wedges between people and pulling up the drawbridges to respectful, inclusive discussion?

Might we not be better off making time for wider dialogue based on deeper understanding? Rather than pre-packaged opinions, priorities and solutions, might it be wiser to present views clearly enough that others see where we’re coming from and what matters in our eyes? If we’re sure of being completely right, could we not lay our logic out to be tested, explored and appreciated, instead of it being a non-negotiable battle line?

I just think it might be worthwhile investing more in attempting to respectfully bring people toward an informed, balanced, empathetic, independent, empowering understanding of life; rather than using other forces to guide or push people toward certain ideas.

Notes and References:

Note 1: “People Skills”
Note 1: Listening, tolerance & communication
Note 1: Conversation as revelation
Note 2: Modern activism in practice
Note 2: People wanting change
Note 2: Dealing with imperfection
Note 3: Fear or coercion as motivators
Note 3: Need to stand alone & think for ourselves
Note 3: Tell me why I should

Looking further into how aims play out, Dystopia as a powerful ideal explored the disparity between ideas and realities.

Ways to share this:

Can we manage all-inclusive honesty?

Of all the challenges facing modern society, I wonder if one of the biggest might be honesty. Often, it seems we’re inclined to conceal, to hide our motivations, or justify them somehow over and above the interests of others. Personally, socially, politically, economically, on every level it seems telling the truth isn’t easy or commonplace.

So, it’s interesting how, surrounding that, technology now seems to be demanding it of us. Well, perhaps not technology itself, but the uses we’re putting it to and functions it’s serving. The internet, providing both a permanent record and a multifaceted reflection of global interactions, seems to be holding people to new standards of accountability in a world where little tends to stay hidden (see Notes One).

Faced with that interconnected web of information, it’s hard to imagine how anything short of complete awareness and relentless transparency can quite stand up. Which is both daunting and exhilarating. It’s hard to speak when your ideas will likely be met with every possible alternative interpretation or perspective. It’s hard to navigate that space when you don’t know what’s going to be thrown at you or how best to respond; and when those responses might linger forever to haunt you.

Ideally, I suppose, it’s through talking that we bridge the gaps between us? Now we’re in this situation where we can come to hear and understand all these different perspectives, we can begin piecing together that bigger picture to understand how our shared past and present impacts different people and places. This sense of communicating, of sharing what we have in common.

But that’s never easy. Even between a handful of people you’ll likely find almost insurmountable differences. The global impacts of history aren’t going to be easily resolved; countries, and the disparate groupings within them, having taken very different paths, reaching different conclusions and feeling vastly different ways about our one, shared reality.

Within all that, where does honesty lie? Is there going to be a simple path, a dominant narrative that succeeds in squeezing out the others? Or is this going to be a more complicated dialogue where we acknowledge mistakes or consequences, put ourselves in the shoes of those who’ve been affected by conflicting priorities, and somehow reach a degree of compromise that might be considered respectfully ‘honest’?

With this new awareness encompassing us all, we perhaps can’t avoid difficult conversations; but how best to approach them is surely still working itself out (Notes Two). Imagining those realities we’re exposed to through the slightly inhuman medium of technology; stretching our sense of self enough to accommodate the divergent experiences of others; evaluating complicated situations wisely are all huge challenges.

Even more so, then, is how we bring young people into that environment (Notes Three). If we’re sweeping away the complex realities that are becoming increasingly apparent, don’t we risk youth losing trust in our logic and sense of responsibility? Broaching such conversations seems so important in a world where we perhaps can’t avoid the truth.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 1: History’s role in modern culture
Note 1: What if it all means something?
Note 2: Value in visible impacts
Note 2: Apparent difficulty in finding a voice
Note 2: Listening, tolerance & communication
Note 2: What’s neutral?
Note 3: Ideas around education & responsibility
Note 3: Mirrors we offer one another

Ways to share this:

If society’s straining apart, what do we do?

If we see society as those values and patterns of behaviour that sustain our shared way of life, then what does it mean that modern society seems to be straining apart? Is it that we don’t believe in the values themselves, or in their application? That we don’t trust the system’s acting in our best interest, so we pull back against it? Or maybe we don’t believe in society at all and prefer to act on our own?

And I’m not sure how you get in such a predicament: whether it’s a failing of the processes of educating society in youth or adulthood; whether it results from market forces pulling at social and cultural realities; or if individualism is simply leading to disinterest in collective agreement (see Notes One). Understanding ‘why’ might be useful, but are there too many variables to reach comprehensive, actionable conclusions?

In one light, society’s this interlocking set of systems that evolved around the outworking of certain values: principles or starting points that rose to the surface through the twentieth century and worked themselves into the structures of the West. And whether that’s held together through the incentive of reward, threat of punishment, or conscious intention of understanding might make all the difference (Notes Two).

Alternatively, we might view society as a contract we’re born into, a fundamental part of our identity and a set of commitments we must work ourselves around. Of course, being born into something you could argue we did little to deserve or ask for it: inherited advantages, obligations, struggles being, in a way, ‘unfair’ as they alter a playing field we might hope were equal.

How well society reflects our ideals is a powerful question. As children, we often seek fairness, justice, inclusivity, recognition, acceptance; these basic sentiments around our worth and the place we’re offered within our community. That idealism might be crushed out of people far before adulthood, but conceivably we might be better off if it weren’t: if values found their place.

Really though, perhaps we ‘need’ to understand systems we’re living within? It might be expedient to coerce people with promises or threats, but I’m unsure how stable things are when they’re not based on true understanding (Notes Three). I mean, you can motivate in many ways; but if we don’t appreciate what we’re doing, how it fits, and the value it’s bringing will we care to sustain it?

Practically speaking, it’s our actions that serve to maintain social realities. Our awareness, intention, and consistency create the lives we lead individually and collectively; modelling and upholding those things we know to be important for building healthy, sustainable lives that integrate well with others and with the natural environment. That seems ‘the picture’ of existing consciously of our surroundings.

Maybe we’d be better off if fostering such awareness were woven throughout society? If we had a comprehensive sense of meaning that allowed us to correct areas not fully embodying the values we wish to build our lives around.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What we know to pass on
Note 1: Responsibility in shaping this reality
Note 1: Value in being informed
Note 2: Testing times
Note 2: What holds it all together
Note 2: Working through mind & society
Note 3: Tell me why I should
Note 3: Fear or coercion as motivators
Note 3: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 3: Smart to play the system?

Striking a different note in how we might respond to the challenges we’re facing, there was We may as well laugh & Anger as a voice.

Ways to share this:

Working through mind & society

With life, there’s how things are then what we make of them – what we think and feel; the picture of the human being that’s emerging from social structures and relationships; how we adjust to those often-flawed realities; and what we offer by way of our responses.

Essentially, to my eyes, societies are these embodiments of certain ideas or patterns of thought. Arising from that, Western society is what it is: this quite specific understanding of life, the value of our lives, and the activities needed to sustain a human community. It’s the principles, values, priorities, and structures put in place that’ve been working themselves out over the years alongside our evolving humanity.

It’s just ideas, then the practical realities engendered by them through the worlds of politics, law, social systems, and the like. This project whereby the finest or most persuasive minds of their time have shaped, reshaped, and projected their views onto the collective endeavour of people co-existing for mutual benefit and support (see Notes One).

Over time, of course, that might’ve drifted, speeding up quite dramatically with the adoption of technology, veering this way or that through the powerful freedom of market forces; until, at times, it can seem a contorted echo of what were presumably quite fine ideals.

Which, again, is what it is: often in life we walk into situations and attempt to make the best of them, drawing on our understanding of what things mean and what matters most within all we find around us. Education hopefully prepares us to see rightly and act freely; the media hopefully keeps us abreast of necessary insights; life itself hopefully doesn’t distract us too greatly from what’s fundamental to the whole project (Notes Two).

And then we each emerge into these realities, touching upon them in different ways, and learning lessons about how we’re valued and the expectations others have for us. If society is embodied ideas, we’re effectively discovering those ideas through our encounters within it.

We learn how others see us, the judgements or assessments they might make based on their own values, understanding or priorities. We learn how society’s set up, the opportunities we’re offered, the values currently in evidence through economic or cultural realities. We learn how people are relating to one another, the level of honesty or manipulation at play, and what’s considered acceptable there.

In all these ways, we’re trying to find that place within society where we feel free, capable, appreciated, recognised for who we truly are, and able to be ourselves without fear of attack, rejection, or coercion (Notes Three). We all have something valuable to offer, and hopefully society is adaptable enough to make space for all those who fall within its parameters.

Hopefully life within society makes sense and honours the valuable presence and contribution of all its members. If not, I’d imagine people will struggle, both inwardly and outwardly, to make peace with and find places of belonging within a community that perhaps doesn’t value us rightly?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The conversation of society
Note 1: Human nature and community life
Note 2: What we know to pass on
Note 2: Writings on Education
Note 2: Value in being informed
Note 2: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 2: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 3: Complexity of life
Note 3: How we feel about society
Note 3: The philosopher stance

Related to this, both Mental health as a truth to be heard? and David Bohm, thoughts on life explored ideas around how well the mind meets with the realities surrounding it.

Ways to share this:

Reference points for how we’re living

Culture can be viewed as all the ways we try to make sense of life; all these responses we have to existence in terms of how we think about it, the kind of things we see as appropriate or admirable, the feelings we have and choices we’re making about how to be within the world.

And it’s interesting, because we can clearly lose ourselves in that world: we can get drawn in so deep that our lives become ‘about’ those who are representing all these things for us. We can become obsessed with observing, deconstructing, commenting on the realities of that realm; caught up in pursuing or imitating what we admire and wish we could become.

Which is what it is. It draws people together over this affinity for themes, expressions, qualities we love or feel resonate most deeply with our own existence and views. Culture, after all, can serve to unite us (see Notes One). And we could indeed make that our identity, taking those reference points and turning them into the constellation of who we are.

It’s a fascinating, reciprocal process of reflection and identification: culture taking aspects of our lives and handing them back to us in different forms. It’s almost society’s looking glass, as we see ourselves perhaps mirrored or distorted through these mediums (Notes Two). This layer of creativity as we play with the forms of our lives, the standards and expectations, meeting or subverting them to see what can be made of it all.

And in many ways that does offer identity. Through seeing how we fit within society’s cultural conversation we see how others might see us, ways life is depicted, options available and how they might play out. This arena for making sense of things, working through them hypothetically, and deciding where we stand in relation to what’s happening there.

The idea of this being a place where society plays itself out intrigues me. Because at some point that’s genuine and then it’s illusion; authenticity blends with pretence as people adopt roles, play parts, and present things from a certain angle. These spokespeople or role models for how we might live, images we might recreate, ways we might act or relate.

Over the years, then becoming this rolling conversation between generations: past moments uniting us as we share responses to these common experiences. This layered, self-referential flow of events we’re all somehow related to. From ancient civilisations through to modern pop culture, there’s phenomena we can all talk about.

But with that comes this sense in which we’re expected to keep pace with the global outpouring of cultural content, that being human means going along with all this and forming opinions around it (Notes Three). At some point, we might wish to limit our exposure to constant flows of commercial innovation in order to live more sane and manageable lives.

There’s obviously great value to cultural life, but knowing where life ends and illusion begins is an intriguing reality to grapple with.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Busking as a gift
Note 1: Cultural shifts & taking a backseat
Note 1: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 1: Missing something with modern culture?
Note 1: “The Measure of a Man”
Note 2: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 2: How many aren’t well represented?
Note 3: Value in being informed
Note 3: Will novelty ever wear off?
Note 3: Playing with fire?

Ways to share this:

The dignity & power of a human life

Do people deserve respect? These days we’re often actively encouraged to live our lives passing instantaneous judgement on others, evaluating their every move, but is that right? What does it mean when we lock people in with our criticism, rather than appreciating the fact we’re all on similar journeys in life – all working through our struggles to our own goals?

It’s really quite easy to tear people down. Everyone probably has an Achilles’ heel in some form: some flaw or point of weakness we might attack. Given knocking people down is apparently somehow satisfying, is it that relating more compassionately to another’s experiences seems a drain or burden? Or maybe this is a ‘tough love’ theory: that life’s hard and people should learn to weather such attacks from others?

I’m honestly not sure what the rationale is, and it’s probably clear from my writing here that I don’t see life that way (see Notes One). I mean, it’s so easy to throw words around, not thinking so much about where they land or how they might haunt people; but it seems to me we’re all to some extent working through our difficulties, limitations, suffering, or ignorance about life and how best to approach it. In a way, that ‘is’ life.

Maybe our paths and the choices we make do define us in some ways: shaping who we are as people; our interests, concerns and attitudes; our level of awareness; our identity, by way of image and relationships. And in all likelihood, there’s always going to be room for improvement: almost anything we do is probably imperfect, so we may well feel we’ve been mistaken in the past and could’ve done better.

We might all be imperfect, struggling on in our unique way, making mistakes as we go, but one of the great things about humans is that we can change: once we see things more clearly, we can turn them around. If we’d known better, we probably would’ve done differently. I honestly think we’re all just trying our best to the best of our understanding (barring extreme exceptions, obviously).

So, if people are stumbling, making mistakes, attempting things imperfectly, they’re probably learning. And really, what’s life if we don’t allow people to learn – to move beyond their initial limitations? If we’re demanding and policing ‘perfection’, are we locking people into ignorance for fear of interpersonal conflict?

It’s hard enough to risk something new, to unpack and rework the raw material of your life without that. Because, while I do believe there’s always freedom to change, it’s not easy to get to grips with yourself and decide what to do for the best: do you let the past define you, resigning yourself to that reality; or somehow find courage and insight to overcome what you find there?

Really, I just wonder if we couldn’t make slightly better work of being human – perhaps by extending our understanding of life to others through empowering gestures of empathy, rather than pulling one another down.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 1: Living as an open wound
Note 1: “Wisdom” by Andrew Zuckerman
Note 1: The idea of self reliance
Note 1: Value and worth in our relationships
Note 1: Counselling, listening & social identity
Note 1: Pick a side, any side

All of this very much follows hot on the heels of Starting over in life.

Ways to share this:

Starting over in life

Often, I wonder how many people are needing to start over; either having to or wishing they could, because things fell apart or didn’t turn out as we might’ve hoped. All those times people find themselves needing the faith, courage and self-belief to somehow start again and perhaps chart different paths from ones they’d been walking to that point.

Life, in various ways, is inherently uncertain and fragile; demanding adaptability and resilience to navigate its paths, chart or correct our course, and pick ourselves up in those times things don’t go to plan (see Notes One). But, what might that even mean? To dismantle our lives, discard that which no longer serves us, give up on broken dreams, and begin again?

How can we pull apart those things that make us who we are, re-evaluate them, decide to leave some aspects aside, or perhaps develop new qualities we’ve never possessed? From what ‘centre of our being’ can we make such higher-level decisions about our existence? And, if we’re actively choosing to leave parts of ourselves behind, on what ground do we find confidence for doing so?

Because, in many ways, we live in a world that looks back to determine our worth, identity, capability, character, etc. We turn to the past, the picture it paints, to discover ourselves through the evidence we find there. If, in doing that, we see much we’d rather change, where do we find the courage or certainty? Can we conclude, despite it all, that we have more to offer? To believe in ourselves.

It’s so easy to look back, see evidence of failure, and decide to give up. Whether it’s relationships, dreams, projects, social ties, mistaken paths or other struggles, it may be we reach the point of reviewing our lives and see the need to give up or start over in some or all ways (Notes Two).

Yet our world often wants to hold people hostage to their past. Because, of course, our paths tell a story; but are we interpreting it rightly or perpetuating this limited understanding of human development and difficulties people can experience inwardly or outwardly? How open are we to letting people change? To believing in them, beyond the impression their reality might be giving us?

In very real ways, we cannot change the past. In equally real ways, we can keep it in hand and be forever bringing it into the present where it might serve to stop us diving into what the future might hold. Whether those processes are personal or collective, we can either nail people to the wall or gracefully allow them room to develop something new (Notes Three).

It’s interesting, the process of being human: we expect so much, in idealistic realms of thought, but reality’s another matter. Making our way through life – its practical, social, psychological intricacies – doesn’t seem as straightforward as we might make out. Letting ourselves change, letting others change, letting something new come about, seem exciting but challenging paths to walk.

Notes and References:

Note 1: We’re all vulnerable
Note 1: Living as an open wound
Note 2: What is acceptable?
Note 2: The need for discernment
Note 2: Is anything obvious to someone who doesn’t know?
Note 3: Need to suffer in order to change?
Note 3: Conversation as revelation

Ways to share this: