Category: Culture

If we all thought and behaved in the ways modelled for us by culture, what would life be like? All that we took in becoming forces capable of transforming society, for better or worse. Every suggestion an example or condonement of how to be: how to view things, judge and act towards them. Is that what culture is? The palette of options from which to construct ourselves and build our community.

As if we might adopt any one of these examples and make that how we’ll live: the attitudes, gestures, language, assumptions we’ll weave into daily life to inform our relationships and set the tone for who we are. Shaping how we might see people, the thoughts we’ll have about them and interactions that’ll soon become part of everyone else’s lives.

Yet aren’t we surrounded by increasingly questionable suggestions? Strangely unsustainable and unwise ideas for how to live, either socially or environmentally. Ways of being that, if adopted, could cause fairly significant amounts of strain on society and all the lives tangled in its web; relationships between genders or generations perhaps veering off into uncharted territory.

Or is this a conversation we’re better off participating in rather than imitating? A slightly one-sided perspective that relies on us bringing something more to the table. Like a mirror held up to society, reflecting on us and asking that we consider what it’s offering before deciding how we will be in response. Almost this collective mental process where we can contemplate ourselves as individuals living within the whole.

As if culture might be the place we go to make sense of life: its activities providing the insight and oversight we need but that reality rarely supplies. This vital conversation running alongside society, drawing out the threads and pulling together the bigger picture with all of its details and significance. A place of representations, possibilities and scenarios playing out safely set apart from the risks of everyday reality.

In the confines of our minds can’t we consider things we’d never choose to do? Options we might wisely file away as unethical, inappropriate or dangerous. The takeaway perhaps being that much of what we’re seeing paraded before us may be best viewed as cautionary tales of entertaining yet otherwise unhelpful notions of how we might be.

This sense in which culture can spark a conversation, a further digestive process around what’s offered, wherein we might conclude its examples are terrible ways of being that fly in the face of so much of what social life demands of us. That we don’t have to agree with or accept these suggestions unquestioningly so much as call up our own thoughts in response to it all – our own decisions around how we will live.

Ideally, then, would we all respond the same to what’s put before us? All judging culture’s representations the same way – in light of the same understanding of what’s healthy or constructive for individuals and community – before letting things filter back through us into society.

Notes and References:

What are we building here?
The battlegrounds of our minds
Nothing short of everything
Treading carefully in the lives of others
Going along with what we see
Navigation, steering & direction
All that we add to neutrality

Looking at all the stories, perspectives and interpretations we’re taking in each day, how much is what might broadly be described as culture actually helping us fully understand reality and respond constructively within it? Is this a process that’s guiding us toward creating a better future or one that might be sweeping us along with its version of things into situations we might rather avoid? (Notes One)

If this whole conversation running alongside reality is to somehow serve in making things better – grasping the true nature of problems; seeing how to resolve or eradicate them – isn’t it important we understand what’s needed from us in response to it all? Are we to passively consume all that’s laid out there, letting it fill our souls with any ideas it sees fit, or might we be better off holding things at arm’s length?

How much are we viewing as examples for how we should act, rather than an exploration on more symbolic levels? Questionable patterns of behaviour perhaps trickling into society through the quiet emulation of modelled ways of being. Might it not be that instead of soothing, healing or guiding us culture sometimes acts to exacerbate our struggles? Lodging strange ideas in our psyche that play out through all our lives.

In many ways, this side of life seems to have drifted from something tightly controlled and regulated to being completely governed by our own interests. But, given the choice, do we know to choose between poison and medicine? Might we not burrow away into our concerns, effectively make identities out of them? Things that could’ve been processed and released becoming, instead, a way of life. (Notes Two)

Sometimes it seems we might even retreat from society into these other worlds: seeing ourselves, relating to others, understanding reality mainly in the light of whatever narratives connected the most. What would it mean to set up camp in some imaginative alternative to life, interpreting everything through that lens and responding as if it were real? The ideas of culture making their ways out into reality.

Instead of this conversation with all its stories serving to nourish and sustain society with meaningful reflections of itself, might we not get caught in prisons of our own making? Our own existence – our wounds, affinities and choices – all amplified to the point where we’re so far from one another, so extreme in the identity we’ve created, that the relationships of reality become hard to bear. (Notes Three)

We may be surrounded by all the options money and technology deem profitable, but if this process deals as much with society’s values as it does the makeup of our inner lives and relationships, are we wise to hand things over to those forces? The choices for how we live perhaps being dictated by concerns quite other than the question of whether they’re healthy.

If the ideas we have in mind become the frame through which we see and respond to life, what’s likely to come of all this?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 1: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 1: Learning from the past, looking to the future
Note 1: Literature that’s treating the soul
Note 2: It resonates, but should it be amplified
Note 2: Living your life through a song
Note 2: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 2: Conversation as revelation
Note 3: All that we carry around with us
Note 3: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 3: Might we lose our social muscles?
Note 3: Going along with what we see

It may be nothing new, but isn’t it amazing how we have words for every conceivable concept, mood, situation, gesture or action? Shades of meaning to capture all the nuance of human behaviour, experience or perception. The concerns of each group expressed through the vocabulary they’ve developed to convey how they see life and feel about what they find there.

As if “all human experience” is matched by language to encapsulate it – our lives surrounded by the words we select from to create the thoughts and speech accompanying it. Choices we make becoming the narratives we’re living with, the meaning we’ve assigned and must work through. Aren’t we “always” bringing meaning to life through how we choose to label, interpret and respond? (Notes One)

Yet the idea of applying the right words – precise estimations of honesty, weight or respect – to whatever situation we’re in doesn’t seem easy. Aren’t we often “misusing” language for effect? Adding drama to serve our psyche, needs or agenda in ways that almost seem to bend reality to what we’d like to make of it. As if, with our words, we either reflect or distort the world. (Notes Two)

Given we have terms ideally suited to any situation, it’s interesting we might choose not to use them. All the ways we might be imprecise, less than honest, or fall back on generalities. As if, despite having this rich repertoire of options to convey life’s complexity, we’re not able or willing to apply them.

Of course, language being about common understanding, it makes sense we’d use terms those around are familiar with: communication hardly works when messages aren’t received. But, if we’re trying to have “one conversation” about all the realities we’re involved in and concerned about, aren’t we limiting ourselves if we snip out much of what language offers? (Notes Three)

Sometimes it just seems we’re not making the most of opportunities to communicate – that, instead, life’s full of language used for other purposes. Isn’t it tiring to be surrounded by meaningless content? Constantly using our faculties of hearing and cognition to filter through the unnecessary in case there’s anything valuable within. All this performance or argument that frequently takes the place of dialogue.

As humans, experiencing life and coating it with words, how often do we really get to say what we think and have others take the time to hear what we truly mean? That kind of detailed, subtle conversation where the inner life of one becomes the shared reality of another as “life” gets cast in the light of individuals and whatever’s burning brightest in their soul. (Notes Four)

If language helps transform reality into something we can talk about, isn’t it perhaps one of our most valuable tools? This ability to reach beyond the confines of the self to pool our humanity within one big ongoing conversation. To hear what life is like for all those experiencing it, grasp the meaning of all we’re engaged in, and form decisions on that basis.

Notes and References:

Note 1: With our words, do we cast spells?
Note 1: The battlegrounds of our minds
Note 1: All that we carry around with us
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Reading between the lines
Note 2: How much do intentions matter?
Note 3: Things we give voice to
Note 3: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 3: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 4: Can there be beauty in communication?
Note 4: Voices within cultural life
Note 4: Words & relating as paths to change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes and References:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes and References:

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

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

With all the voices talking at us each day, where exactly are they coming from? Which of these are voices from within our own society, as opposed to those speaking out of other societies with all of their own unique, complex, interwoven realities? Which are political, economic or social voices and which are using the symbolic language of culture itself? And, if all this is now “one” conversation, what’s that going to mean?

At times it seems we’re all listening to and immersed in one another’s cultural conversations: all those varied voices weaving their way through all of our lives, distant and unrelated as they may be. As if “all this” enfolds us in a new, overlaying conversation we’re letting affect us in ways we mightn’t even imagine. (Notes One)

If “all that we listen to” is what’s serving to inform us about our lives, the lives of others, and life in general on this planet, what’s likely to come of this strange interblended communication? Where one country’s political battles spill over into quite different discussions the world over. Words and images being exchanged without the luxury of clear lines or insight as to what the topic being addressed might really be.

Isn’t conversation already complicated? Finding all the fine lines between what’s said, meant, concealed, known or denied. Understanding what’s really happening beneath the veneer of words, within the inner chambers of each person’s mind. How are we to know what any individual meant to communicate? What they hoped to gain from planting seeds of doubt. Also, what others might be taking away from this. (Notes Two)

How are we to navigate a world of everyone’s concerns voiced at once? Where comments related to the specific conditions that’ve evolved within one country become words spoken on the global stage. Where we appear to be having “one” conversation but the realities we’re each referring to might be subtly or significantly different.

Almost as if we’re all potentially talking at crossed purposes: some fighting political battles; some advancing social causes; some seeking economic advantage; some looking for examples of how to live; some preferring symbolic representations of our various human struggles. All these interests coming together in one fractured, confusing conversation.

What are we to take away from that? Aside, perhaps, from frustration that all those concerns might be drowned out by a completely ineffective way of dealing with them. Could it not be that, in reality, none of those conversations are actually happening? That nothing’s truly being addressed while all these things we rightly care about are being deflected by others’ equally valid concerns. A sort of conversational stalemate. (Notes Three)

If each person or country’s conversation is a projection of their interests and concerns, what does it mean if that’s billowing into a place where little gets received as it’s intended? If there’s little true listening or mutual recognition of whatever issues, wounds or struggles have emerged from that entity’s past. Instead of being resolved, wouldn’t things just linger?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as information
Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Tuning out the static
Note 2: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 2: Do “the lies” blind us to truth?
Note 2: Going towards the unknown
Note 3: Anger, and where we direct it
Note 3: Can there be beauty in communication?
Note 3: Seeing where others are coming from

Of all that’s thrown at us all day, how much do we truly need to tune into? How much of “this” is the vitally essential information that’s serving to keep humanity informed of itself – in the best position to make wise decisions regarding its future? How much is something else entirely? Something we never asked for that serves little purpose beyond cluttering up airwaves, testing our patience or weakening our resolve.

Isn’t it feasible that the bulk of what’s assailing us each day is almost completely irrelevant? Just what various parties have deemed potentially profitable enough to offer up, on the off-chance people might be persuaded to buy into it – chancing their arm to see if there’s demand they could stoke up and fulfil. Isn’t that what the marketplace “means”? That anyone can offer us absolutely anything they dream up. (Notes One)

Leading to us now being surrounded by all of these options we’re supposed to consider. Our role, apparently, being to choose between whatever’s on offer: listen, weigh up, consider, evaluate, then commit to any number of products, services or ideas that might take our fancy or convince us of their worth. All our decisions then becoming the realities of our world, the consequences we’re setting in motion.

What does it mean, then, if we’re surrounded by increasingly questionable things? Options that might significantly destabilise whatever delicate balance still exists within our natural, social or international environments. Patterns of behaviour that potentially serve as risky examples to others – making it seem as if “all this” is a healthy, viable way of existing alongside one another on a finite planet. (Notes Two)

If we’re living within a world of unwise options, what are we to make of that? Do we relent and go along with whatever seems popular at any given moment? Letting the power of collective approval guide us; in the hope of fitting in or not being left behind. As social creatures, it seems a fairly potent incentive. Where does it lead, though? There’s no guarantee such paths are headed in good directions. (Notes Three)

Meanwhile, isn’t there considerable cost to the stress of living our lives in a cloud of constant inducements? All these temptations and distractions expressly designed to make us doubt ourselves and seek something to fill all these newly-created gaps. Our environment, apparently, taking any opportunity to make us feel insecure and desperately in need of something else – be it love, approval or peace of mind. (Notes Four)

Isn’t constant chatter draining? This cognitive burden of filtering out “the unnecessary” or listening through it in case something important hides within. It must wear anyone’s patience pretty thin to be expending huge amounts of mental energy each day just trying to listen out for what matters. Weeding out a million problematic items for every essential one we manage to catch. Worrying, perhaps, that we missed it.

And, what if “this” undermines our capacity to take the right things seriously or judge wisely in their regard?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Attention as a resource
Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Points of sale as powerful moments
Note 2: The value we’re giving to things
Note 2: At what cost, for humans & for nature?
Note 2: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 2: The insatiable desire for more
Note 3: “Brave New World Revisited”
Note 3: How much is in the hands of the market
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: All we concern ourselves with & encourage
Note 4: Visual language and spaces
Note 4: Who gets to define us
Note 4: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 4: Desensitised to all we’re told?

How are we supposed to relate to life, to others, to ourselves? As intelligent creatures, it seems fascinating that we stand within complex realities and decide what to make of them. Also, that the choices we make are subtly yet significantly impacting the world we’re living in while becoming the example we’re offering others. As if, as humans, we stand within reality and shape it (Notes One).

In light of that, what stance are we taking? How much are we accepting the world around us, its demands and obligations, and fitting ourselves to whatever it’s asking of us? How much are we thinking for ourselves what each thing means, how it all comes together, and whether we believe the arc of whatever spin’s being woven round the raw facts of reality? How we’re using our minds and judging our surroundings must matter.

There are various ways we might break down the complexity of being human into workable “models” that could help us live better (Notes Two), but one quite clear and versatile one seems to be Gretchen Rubin’s “Four Tendencies”. In its essence, this focusses on the relationships we have with reality, with ourselves and with others – looking at which kinds of obligations, outer or inner, we’re inclined to meet and let guide us.

It’s the idea that some will “uphold” whatever expectations are placed on them; some “rebel” against them; some “oblige” the expectations of others; and some “question” all outer expectations to see if they merit becoming inner ones. As a model for how humans stand in their world and the sorts of thought that convince us to act, it seems fairly comprehensive and purposeful.

Isn’t it about belief? About how much we trust our own judgement or that of others. How much we need to draw into question or whether we’re willing to go along with what’s around us. Almost a depiction of how we stand in relation to community: whether we believe in the steps which brought us here and trust those currently charting further steps on our behalf.

Maybe that’s “always” where we stand? Within structures – increasingly, of our own making – we seek to carry forward, strengthen, reimagine or cast aside. Don’t the things we agree to “become” life itself? The choices we make, ideas we accept and attitudes we express becoming the consequences we create and influence we’re having on others. (Notes Three)

In that, it’s perhaps interesting and important that we think about what we’re doing and how well we’re working alongside each other toward realising our highest ideals. If we’re pushing against one another, communicating in ways that don’t achieve what we hope or inspire others to similar outcomes, what are we doing? Presumably we’d mainly be causing stress and conflict between anyone who sees life slightly differently.

Finding ways to understand life and how best to work within it seems so fundamental. Hopefully we’re able to trust the wisdom of what’s around us, and ourselves for our ability to navigate it.

Notes and References:

Gretchen Rubin on the Four Tendencies: https://gretchenrubin.com/books/the-four-tendencies/about-the-book/ & her early thoughts on our world’s current situation: https://gretchenrubin.com/2020/03/coping-with-covid-19-four-tendencies.

Note 1: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Integrity and integration
Note 2: Ideas of agreement & mastery
Note 2: “Living Beautifully” by Pema Chödrön
Note 2: “Women who run with the wolves”
Note 2: “How to win friends…”
Note 2: “The Measure of a Man”
Note 2: Codes of behaviour
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: Situations which ask us to trust

Thinking of the influence we seek to have over other people was also one focus of Treading carefully in the lives of others.

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

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