Category: Culture

In life, generally, aren’t we surrounded by constant visual landscapes? All that’s around presenting us with this ongoing play of colours, forms, structures, and the meanings assigned to them. That’s not any kind of revelation – it’s simply the reality of being alive and able to perceive the world around us – but it’s interesting to imagine how our landscapes differ from all that went before.

Looking back to, say, ancient Greece and Rome or an island existence, humans must’ve been surrounded by fairly simple, consistent landscapes. By modern standards, they were presumably quite calm and slow-moving compared with the pace of change and level of stimulation we’re now used to. Everything moving at its own speed, people interacting with it all in ways quite different from our own.

Almost as if “life” is a strange choreography of people moving in space and time to interact with the forms and functions of the society surrounding them – a dance of needs, capacities, tasks, environments, architecture, the trappings of culture, and human existence itself (Notes One). In which case, it’s perhaps not so different from today, only dialled up to a new pace with things taking on new forms.

But what about the meaning we get from it all? How meaningful is much of what surrounds us now? Of course, everything’s meaningful – it all means something, comes from somewhere, designed by someone, aiming to achieve certain ends. If we were to “read” it, everything within our environment would still “say” something about the world we’re living in and how we’re choosing to fill it as human beings.

Now, so much is commercial – our visual landscapes filled with advertising of various kinds. Then, the attempts being made to influence our ideas, decisions, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions. All this effort at filling our minds with new meanings or conclusions to fit one agenda or another. Our attention or acquiescence clearly being a valuable commodity, for whatever reason, within modern life.

What’s it like to be surrounded by visual cues attempting to change your mind, often on subconscious levels? It must be draining and make our minds confusing, unexpected places filled with ideas that aren’t really our own. As if our environment is now, in a way, an assault upon us as people make use of it for various ends. A space filled with subtext, agenda, and hidden messages (Notes Two).

Also, full of personal attempts at letting others know who they’re dealing with – all the ways we craft our own style to communicate who we are to others. All of these individual, cultural statements as we draw references together into whatever image we’re hoping to convey (Notes Three). In terms of homes, cars, belongings, clothing or general demeanour, isn’t our landscape now filled with the deliberate expression of meaning?

There’s no “point” to these musings, though. They’re simply pondering over how much life might’ve changed in this regard and what that might mean for us as the humans trying to live our lives within it all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 2: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Making things up as we go along

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.

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

To what extent is culture simply information? A set of ideas about how to live, or a reflection of how we are living. Options for how to go about being human that come to life and play themselves out before us; so, hopefully, we can learn from what we see and decide for ourselves the path we’ll, individually, walk through the realities surrounding us.

It seems one way of conceiving of all that’s going on in this realm: a sort of mirror held up to life that shows us what the ideal is and how things are currently looking (Notes One). Perhaps, in the past, people focussed more on the “ideal”? Holding to the notion that there “is” a right way of living and culture’s the place we’re reminded of it. This idea of culture as an authority, an example, a standard, a rebuke.

Now, though, it seems we’ve rejected that perspective. Culture’s seeming more an exploration of “how things are”, with themes emerging about the state of society and choices people are making standing as a strange sort of example for how to live (Notes Two). As if, having discredited any form of authority, we’re now free to choose between all these other things that are offered.

It’s an interesting shift, as the first scenario is clearly quite controlling while the second gives us all an incredible amount of licence. It’s probably not that clean cut, though, there presumably still are sections of society attempting to control, influence or direct what we consider to be our options. Maybe it’s just a little more subtle and understated now.

At one extreme, don’t we find religion? Those stories that serve to shape entire worldviews by placing us all within wider, often cosmic, hidden realities where our choices all count for something. Higher-level beliefs that effectively inform every aspect of how people are living: the practices, values and priorities their lives will likely be structured around. This idea of there being deeper reason behind it all.

Doesn’t what we believe and focus on affect how we live? Shaping how we see people, the kinds of judgements we make, and which options we’ll consider acceptable. Furnishing us with the fundamental ideas, assumptions and attitudes we’re building our lives on each day, as we run all our choices through the filter of how we see things.

In that way, doesn’t culture effectively “inform” our lives? The ideas we entertain or have in mind coming together to form this sense we have of what life “is” and how to approach it – what matters, what doesn’t; which attitudes serve or hold you back; the things your community will judge or admire you over. All these stories generally telling us how we might live and where it might lead.

Where else do we get our ideas from? They presumably have to “come” from somewhere (Notes Three). And, if they’re subtly shaping how we’re responding to the world, this must be quite a powerful force within our lives.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 2: Any such thing as normal?
Note 2: Involvement in modern culture
Note 3: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 3: Going towards the unknown

Of all the books in life, perhaps one of the most beautiful I’ve ever read or will read is “Eternal Echoes” by the late John O’Donohue – “Exploring our hunger to belong” and, in doing so, capturing the poetic essence of all it means to be human.

Isn’t it true that “Everyone longs for intimacy and dreams of a nest of belonging in which one is embraced, seen and loved”? Also, that “Each one of us journeys alone into this world – and each one of us carries a unique world within our hearts”? This sense that “Each of us brings something alive in the world that is unique” seems such a beautiful, fundamental truth to keep in mind and somehow build our lives around.

Because, as O’Donohue explored, “Cut off from others, we atrophy and turn in on ourselves… A sense of belonging, however, suggests warmth, understanding and embrace… Our hunger to belong is the longing to bridge the gulf that exists between isolation and intimacy.” I often wonder how many of our personal and collective problems in life are essentially communicative – this struggle to be heard (Notes One).

How can we bring remote, scattered or isolated people into an understanding of “life” that encompasses us all? Now that our systems and travel habits are unquestioningly global – much of what we’re doing impacting so many others across the world – how can we grasp those realities and keep everyone who’s affected by it firmly in mind? It seems what’s required, if we’re to see humanity as one circle of belonging (Notes Two).

As O’Donohue says, in relation to modern life, “Consumerism propels us towards an ever-more lonely and isolated existence” and “although technology pretends to unite us, more often than not all it delivers are simulated images that distance us from our lives.” Written slightly before the dramatic transformation those strands of modernity brought to our lives, it’s fascinating to consider how he might’ve described things today.

Given the many challenges we’re all facing within modern society, it seems so important to grasp the underlying sense of what it is to be human – what we truly need to feel our lives are valued, purposeful, meaningful in the eyes of others. Technology might well make our lives “easier”, but if that’s coming at the cost of true understanding and connectedness it seems a high price to pay (Notes Three).

In reality, every sentence of this book deserves to be quoted; which seems to imply it’s simply a wonderful reflection of the value of our inner lives, the validity of our struggles, and the importance of grasping (and, holding onto) what makes us human. Then, ensuring that those essential qualities aren’t allowed to just be swept away or misdirected within all the fast-moving insistence of modern living (Notes Four).

Seeing life in terms of dislocated souls seeking belonging might make sense of many things; so, I really couldn’t recommend this book more highly for offering a fresh, beautiful, yet powerful perspective on our existence.

Notes and References:

“Eternal Echoes. Exploring our hunger to belong” by John O’Donohue, (Bantam Books, GB), 2000 (originally 1998).

Note 1: Going towards the unknown
Note 1: Does being alone amplify things?
Note 2: True relationship within society?
Note 2: Do we know what stands before us?
Note 2: What it is to be human
Note 3: Trust in technology?
Note 3: The insatiable desire for more
Note 3: Detaching from the world around us
Note 3: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 4: Overwhelm and resignation
Note 4: Society that doesn’t deal with the soul
Note 4: Losing the sense of meaning

Looking at life, large chunks of time seem to be immersed in what’s called “culture” – all the shows, movies, podcasts, literature, productions, songs and performances that, grouped together, become this world of stories we tell, voices we listen to, and experiences or characters we’re letting populate our minds. It’s fascinating, really, because what does it all mean?

It’s not quite reality, but seems related to it and considered worthwhile as an activity. Is this to help us understand life, society, and the relationships we stand within? Is it intended to inform us about the nature of our world and kinds of attitudes that might serve well in navigating it? A sidebar within “real life” where we can safely learn essential lessons.

Almost this condensed version of reality, offering what we’d eventually figure out ourselves by way of living. Following others’ examples or learning from their mistakes; seeing things portrayed and exploring values people might choose to live by; developing this common “code” for what’s deemed admirable, dangerous or justifiable presumably lets us see our community’s thinking more clearly.

All these masks and metaphors through which social meanings are communicated – a valve or flow of ideas, reflections and estimations of the worth we might hold in others’ eyes. The ways things are presented perhaps subtly shaping our own thoughts about life and filtering out into the conversations, interactions and relationships of the real world (Notes One).

Isn’t it true there’s this two-way flow, this reciprocity between culture and reality? It’s where we might find ourselves, our options for expressing who we are from within the definitions on offer. It gives us this shared sense of what those choices mean – how we might or must interpret the image and behaviour of others. This sense of deciphering where each person stands within our collective narratives.

Within all that, there seems a lot of scope for influencing both individuals and society. If we’re “reading” the world around us – and, acting within it – based on what we’re experiencing culturally, there’s this sense in which culture’s doing this constant dance of forms and meanings with the society it purports to serve. Isn’t the hope that, somehow, a community will operate “better” as a result of all this?

But, these days particularly – with the opportunities technology offers and inclination to capitalise on any given trend – it’s seeming questionable where things are headed (Notes Two). If culture’s a sort of mirror that sets itself up to reflect our realities while also distorting or adding something to them, how responsible are we being with all we’re taking in and making our own?

If these are the references we’re allowing in to shape how we’re living and interpreting the world (Notes Three), can we really not consider where they may lead? We might look to culture for the latest trends or conversations, forming our sense of identity and belonging around what we find there, but letting too many of these things trickle out into society, unfiltered, doesn’t exactly seem wise.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as reflection
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 2: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 2: All that’s going on around us
Note 3: Reading into social realities?
Note 3: Making things up as we go along
Note 3: Do we know what we’re doing?

For some slightly more timeless thoughts around the question of culture, there’s Plato & “The Republic”.

Modern bookshops sometimes seem inundated by literature that, for want of a better term, concerns itself with soul – the inner life of beliefs, attitudes, feelings, struggles and so forth. As if there’s been this void created by the fairly recent rejection of both belief and tradition; all of us now left to drift unaccompanied and undirected within life’s ocean.

A void into which is poured this tidal wave of advice, theories and strategies for making the best of a modern life (Notes One). Instead of moral authorities and wise leaders we have this wealth of self-help conversations promising to tell us all we need to know. It’s fascinating, really, how deconstructed our sense of meaning has become.

We might choose to listen to those sharing their life story as a case study, a body of material from which they’re drawing lessons we may find helpfully universal. We might listen to the “experts” who’ve distilled all they’ve learnt through life into a basic philosophy, way of thinking or set of labels for dealing with things.

Maybe it’s all about perspective? Finding ways of looking at life that “fit” and seem capable of matching up to modern society’s slightly crazy realities. Aren’t we asking, “What should I think about all this? How should I respond?” It’s like we’re seeking helpful thoughts – some cobbled-together worldview able to encompass everything in a meaningful, constructive way (Notes Two)

Because – between the economic realities forever telling us we’re not good enough and the cultural ones feeding us unrealistic expectations or interpretations of “life” – where are we to find attitudes that nurture the soul? What “is” the best picture of humanity, society and the purpose of our lives? Is there a perspective comprehensive enough to accommodate us all?

Taking culture to be the place we’re talking about life, assigning meaning within complex social realities, and imagining ways of being that might prove helpful in navigating this world, what are we being offered and which options are we taking onboard? That seems one way of looking at this: reflections on life that we’re choosing to accept and work with inwardly (Notes Three).

So, how does “the soul” – that space of perception, meaning, feeling, thought and decision – live these days? What recognition and respect are afforded to the inner life as we’re making our way through reality? How well are our lives framed by modern culture – what kind of ideas is human life being surrounded and informed by within this increasingly frenetic, lurching global conversation?

It’s philosophical, but where “can” we stand in understanding and responding to life? How much are we focussing on superficial, ephemeral realities destined by their very nature to pass and fade? Historically, traditions have discouraged people from trying to create permanency out of the physical; perhaps what we’re struggling with now – in our undeniably materialistic world – is effectively the same?

Trying to make sense of our place in life and what it all might mean, though, is quite a beautiful aspect of being human.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Spiritually committed literature
Note 1: “Brave New World Revisited”
Note 1: “The Measure of a Man”
Note 1: “Women who run with the wolves”
Note 1: “Living Beautifully” by Pema Chödrön
Note 1: “The Obstacle is the Way”
Note 1: Matt Haig’s “Notes on a Nervous Planet”
Note 1: Krishnamurti’s “Inward Revolution”
Note 1: The idea of self reliance
Note 1: Podcasts as models of transformation
Note 1: Ideas of agreement & mastery
Note 2: The sense of having a worldview
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: Mastering life’s invisible realities
Note 3: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 3: Stories that bind us
Note 3: Emotion and culture’s realities

If we were to break society down to its simplest form, isn’t it mainly about eating? Putting meals on the table, securing food sources, providing nourishment to those we love, sharing things politely and fairly. It perhaps naturally follows that “Table manners are as old as human society itself, the reason being that no human society can exist without them.”

Isn’t food, in many ways, society’s foundation? This regular requirement that serves to structure our days, guide our activities, and give our lives both purpose and meaning. Ways people have regulated these things is quite fascinating – isn’t it all an expression of how we stand in relation to one another and to nature itself? (Notes One)

There’s this whole world of ritual woven around food: ways things are done, how we should act, what it means if we don’t. Knowing ‘all that’ is surely a large part of what it means to navigate our social world? Understanding its forms, meeting expectations, taking part in this complicated dance of human interaction to ensure important principles stay alive.

It’s like the language of society. Rather than making things up, we learn what’s gone before, grasp its meaning, and adapt it if needed while ensuring nothing essential is lost. Convention perhaps offers the starting point for innovation: knowing what’s expected and why, we can know what it means to change or drop things altogether. Isn’t it important we know?

Reading “The Rituals of Dinner” by Margaret Visser, it’s intriguing to hear all the ways people create and carry forward meaning. She paints a picture of convention as a form of communication that helps us interrelate and engage with the values at the heart of our community. That we might be enacting meaning with every encounter is a beautiful idea of what life could be.

All tradition perhaps carries this sense of how groups pass on meaning and structure, linking the past through the present into the future (Notes Two). Inherited practices might seem a senseless burden, but maybe it’s true that “if we stop celebrating, we also soon cease to understand; the price for not taking the time and the trouble is loss of communication.”

If shared realities are “communication with others” and “it is only the individual who can personally mean what is going on” then isn’t this dance what’s expressing our appreciation of the ground on which we stand? So many essential human and social values seem deeply embedded in these things.

Recently, though, “old manners are dying and new ones are still being forged… Sometimes we hold the terrifying conviction that the social fabric is breaking up altogether… backsliding from previous social agreements that everyone should habitually behave with consideration for others. At other times a reaction against the social rituals of our own recent past leads us to lump all manners together as empty forms, to be rejected on principle.”

Might the place convention holds within society and meaning woven into its rituals be important to keep in mind?

Notes and References:

“The Rituals of Dinner. The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners” by Margaret Visser, (Penguin Group), 1991.

Note 1: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 1: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: The difference humanity makes
Note 1: What we create by patterns of behaviour
Note 2: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 2: Any such thing as normal?
Note 2: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 2: Different places, different ways

It’s intriguing to think how the ideas, characters and messages of culture travel across time in this perennial discussion of what it might mean to be human. It’s a conversation that seems capable of crossing almost any number of years – highlighting, perhaps, the timeless nature of the dilemmas and decisions we all encounter in life. Isn’t a part of culture this sense of helping people understand what it is to live well?

Maybe it’s impossible to pin down exactly what culture’s achieving or hopes to achieve for society. It’s interesting how, for so long, people have told these stories that represent their past and those values that have served them well through the years – this reflection of what’s considered effective, constructive and helpful within that community (Notes One). Also, what’s harmful or dangerous for individuals and the group.

Isn’t every community ultimately concerned with its own survival? With encouraging behaviour that’ll help ensure that outcome. With shaping the thinking and character of its members so they’ll understand the importance of their involvement and the significance of what’s at stake. Isn’t it vitally important we all understand our place in the world and our relationships within it?

And don’t we also need a vision – a sense of where this is headed and why we should cooperate for that end? There’s surely this future element to culture’s stories: preparing people for how best to respond to the challenges of life and potential threats to their community’s existence. For us to give up prized notions of individual freedom, don’t we need a compelling reason to do so? (Notes Two)

Culture, in its way, perhaps attempts to weave us all into society’s present by helping us know, understand and appreciate our past; carry all that’s essential forward; and act wisely for our future. Isn’t “all this” about cultivating the kind of thinking and action community depends upon?

It’s just interesting, then, how modern culture’s often deconstructing, falsifying, and casting despairing stories around us at every turn (Notes Three). Why would a society want to do that? Maybe it’s trying to alert people that their future is uncertain? That the kinds of thinking we’ve been living by have seriously destabilised our social, international and natural environments. That our past and future are both questionable.

Perhaps it’s also that people are now more easily able to realise their vision and churn out whatever proves profitable within the cultural marketplace (Notes Four). If depictions of dystopia and intergenerational conflict resonate with people maybe that’s all that’s needed for such storylines to proliferate. Does it matter if it really doesn’t help much in terms of social cohesion, mutual understanding and so forth?

In many ways, whatever hand was guiding the stories surrounding humanity seems to have given way to quite a different set of intentions. How we might best work with such visions of destruction, despair and distrust is surely quite a crucial question in terms of whether this ultimately serves to help us all move forward together.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 1: Emotion and culture’s realities
Note 1: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: Right to look out for ourselves?
Note 2: Do we really need incentives?
Note 3: Dystopia as a powerful ideal
Note 3: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 3: Art as a way to subvert or inspire
Note 3: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 4: Economics & the realm of culture
Note 4: It resonates, but should it be amplified?
Note 4: Playing with fire?

One way of looking at life is to see youth, particularly, as a time of “agreements” we’re then living our lives by. This process of “domestication” that ushers us into the particular way of thinking of our family, community and culture. It’s the perspective skilfully deconstructed and reworked by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book “The Four Agreements”.

Childhood surely does shape our relationship with the human and social realities surrounding us? It’s the time for finding our place; discovering ourselves; learning to stand alone and firmly grasp the world in thought and action. And by far the majority do all they can to help others come to terms with life and form useful ideas for approaching it.

Life perhaps “is” our understanding of the world? Underpinned by all those ideas we’ve accepted as true. Beliefs Ruiz refers to as “dreams”: “The dream of the planet is the collective dream of billions of smaller, personal dreams”.

It’s fascinating to imagine how we’re all directing others’ attention toward what we consider or were told was important. This process of learning and socialisation that civilisation arguably depends upon: bringing people into the world of meaning, purpose and understanding their society’s upholding as valuable (Notes One).

A process where, step by step, we lose ourselves to become as we’re supposed to be – repressing or rejecting parts of “self” to become part of our community (Notes Two). We perhaps all “learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted”. Part of being human may be to accept the ideas of a community.

But there’s clearly scope for living with attitudes, ideas and beliefs quite apart from those Ruiz recommends; beliefs that can be as damaging to the individual as to those living alongside them (Notes Three). If our thinking doesn’t reflect our own worth, that of society or the world at large, presumably our behaviour will also reflect that?

The suggestion here is to “forget everything you have learned in your whole life” and, in its place, adopt the four agreements of “Be impeccable with your word”, “Don’t take anything personally”, “Don’t make assumptions” and “Always do your best”. Essentially, to break old agreements that perhaps never truly served us, replacing them with these flexible, healthy ones.

As foundational principles for smoothing our path in life they seem pretty solid, versatile and balanced. A sense of taking responsibility for yourself and doing what’s needed to unpick, relearn and become the best we can be.

Ideas Ruiz carries further in “The Mastery of Love”, exploring the impact of basing relationships on fear and self-protection rather than acceptance and forgiveness; how awareness instead of blame might help heal wounds so we’re able to share ourselves freely with others; and ways our relationship with self informs all other ties we make in life.

With the wisdom or constraint of tradition rapidly fading, this refreshing presentation of Toltec thought offers us some truly human-centred principles for living a modern life.

Notes and References:

“The Four Agreements. A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom” by Don Miguel Ruiz, (Amber Allen, California), 1997.

“The Mastery of Love. A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship” by Don Miguel Ruiz, (Amber Allen, California), 1999.

Note 1: What you’re left with
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: What are we primed for?
Note 2: The way to be
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: What it is to be human
Note 3: The struggle with being alive
Note 3: Living as an open wound
Note 3: The dignity & power of a human life
Note 3: This thing called love

Offering something of a counterpoint to this, Is cultural sensitivity still a thing? looked at the challenge of individualism meeting with tradition.