Category: Self

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes and References:

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

Aren’t a lot of situations in life asking us to trust? Relationships, conversations, activities, commitments, the idea of society itself – in countless ways, we’re repeatedly placing our lives, our hopes, our outcomes into the hands of others (Notes One). It seems this fundamental “step” in the constructs of human society and community: trusting one another and the overarching thought process behind what we’re working within.

At the core, it seems life perhaps comes down to this notion of being “able” to place trust in others and in the structures governing our lives in all these big and little ways. That we “can” rest safe in the knowledge that everyone has their side of things in hand and those at the helm are bearing our lives in mind as they’re making decisions on our behalf. That the whole thing is working for the good of all people.

This basic idea of each person being responsible for all that’s falling to them; a person of character who appreciates the faith placed in them by so many unknown others; someone whose words can be believed, who’ll stand by their commitments and carry them through in ways that resolve problems rather than creating more. An ideal of fully-informed, concerned, actively engaged members of society. (Notes Two)

While that doesn’t seem the most accurate description of what’s often being encouraged by modern culture, education or media, as an ideal it’s a beautiful notion: this dance of each person understanding the world and society in which they live then acting with the clear intention of making everything better and leaving nothing neglected (Notes Three). Everyone working towards these common goals of progress, harmony, love.

Yet, if the people or systems surrounding us aren’t deserving of such trust, what are we to do? As intelligent creatures, turning a blind eye to paths that might prove harmful in the long run doesn’t seem right. Not being sure of the words being spoken or truth of what others really have in mind seems deeply stressful and concerning. After all, don’t we “need” to be able to trust this conversation we’re all part of? (Notes Four)

The situation we’re currently in seems to be calling on that trust more than ever: that we believe what we’re told and act upon it, even if we don’t fully understand the science or the thinking that’s being applied. Just as so many disparate voices are planting seeds of doubt, society’s needing us to trust and act in accordance with the vision of whoever’s at the helm. Almost like this modern act of faith in the unknown.

As with any act of faith, don’t we need to trust? To believe in what’s said and the intentions behind it. How much that basic trust – in others and in systems – might’ve been sorely tried over the years becomes a troubling thought. How much faith do we actually have in our fellow man? How much transparency has there been around all the paths we’ve been placed upon?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 1: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 1: Knowing who to trust
Note 1: Trust in technology?
Note 2: Understanding & staying informed
Note 2: Common sense as a rare & essential quality
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: Picking up after one another
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: Knowing the value of what you have
Note 4: Which voice can we trust?
Note 4: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 4: Treating people like sims?
Note 4: Trust within modern society

Whether it’s through isolation, technology or heightened individualism, might we not risk losing our social muscles through lack of use? Sometimes it seems “getting along with others” is perhaps as unnatural as it is natural: having tended to live within social groups, it must’ve always been part of our makeup; yet happily making room for others and their way of being doesn’t seem to come effortlessly.

For whatever reasons, it also seems “modern living” exacerbates the trend: amplifying our own experiences, perceptions, ideas and struggles to a level where we’ve little spare for showing genuine interest in others or tolerating all our inevitable differences (Notes One). If “our own thoughts” are dialled up to the point of becoming “all we see”, how are we to make room for another equally dialled up individual?

Looking to the notion of technology forming some kind of ideological echo chamber around us, doesn’t it constantly emphasise our own ways of thinking? Isn’t the focus completely on “you”, the user, and your experience as mediated through this highly-tailored portal? Each of us, perhaps, living in our own interactive, self-confirming world of information, communication, and so forth.

Sometimes it’s like we’re all retreating into our own personal version of reality and having it confirmed for us at every turn. As if the walls of personality, constantly reinforced, could potentially become the prison we’re trapped in or barricade we’ll defend to the hilt. Of course, we’re all a world unto ourselves in terms of our experiences and ideas; but setting up permanent camp there seems questionable. (Notes Two)

I mean, isn’t social life generally some form of compromise? Some form of “letting another exist in your presence” without attack: respecting their right to be who they are and express their viewpoints. This strange act of communion, accommodation, acceptance as we make space for another who’s just like us yet, conceivably, completely different in the sense they’ve made of things and concerns they have in life.

If “to be human”, now, is to experience the self dialled up to the point where it might fill our own consciousness and drown out anyone else’s, how are we to live alongside one another? Are we to push our own thinking, our perceptions and conclusions, into their space – projecting our understanding over theirs then relating to them on that basis – or allow their way of being space in our mind to be itself? (Notes Three)

Rather than completely identifying with our own ideas of life and everything in it, might we not be better off realising every single one of us sees life our own way? If we’re expecting others to accommodate us, surely that needs to go both ways if things aren’t to descend into a strangely aggressive, mutually intolerant world of indignant self-insistence.

Maybe living alongside others has never been easy, though? While convention or expectation might’ve guided people more firmly before, it seems we now have this strange encouragement to abandon the challenge and think mainly of ourselves.

Notes and References:

Note 1: All in such a rush
Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 1: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: Can “how we relate” really change?
Note 2: Does being alone amplify things?
Note 2: Letting people change
Note 3: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 3: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 3: Conversation as revelation
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?

Within modern life, where are standards being set? Sometimes it seems there’s such a circularity to it all – needing money to live, yet peddling against a never-ending tide of shifting targets as we attempt to prove or maintain our worth in the eyes of others. As if we’re stuck in a cleverly designed loop that’ll simply consume all our energy, churning away through limited resources and finite time.

Aren’t the ends quite neatly tied up? The industries profiting from our belief in these standards being the same ones often establishing – and, forever changing – them. As if we might spend our whole lives chasing this illusion of worth, belonging and admiration, always finding it drifting out of reach as we approach. Like a mirage, an oasis, a hope that leads us to believe there’s a destination. (Notes One)

It’s almost as if every aspect of our being has been broken down and set against conveniently unattainable goals. Aren’t many of them mutually incompatible? Like beauty and cleansing, or indulgent versus healthy lifestyles. As if industries are literally propping themselves up by solving or creating each other’s problems. This house of cards approach to human needs where we’ll never quite achieve balance.

And maybe that is what it is? A market, filled by our quite natural demand for approval and acceptance. Don’t we all want to feel we belong? That others look on us with respect and consider us part of this community. Aren’t we looking to culture to understand how we should judge – which things are worthy of praise? This code for how we should “read” the world and act within it. (Notes Two)

How else do we know what to make of one another, or what choices best define us? Maybe we need these reference points to know what our options “mean” or “say” about us as people. But it’s interesting to imagine who’s setting these standards; and, what they really mean. In terms of life and how we choose to live it – the impacts we’re having and values we’re living by – what kind of options are we given?

Sometimes it just seems almost everything dovetails into commerce: beauty industries defining beauty; porn industries defining relationship; modelling industries defining appearance. As if product, demand, need and solution are all tangled together into these compulsive, addictive cycles. As if we’re chasing “self” or “love” in the pursuit of such things (Notes Three).

It’s intriguing how meaning and profit merge together. How we seek identity or definition through crafting our image, our brand, out of what’s available. Each curating our sense of “who we are” by drawing, so knowingly, from the options presented. All these personal statements as we highlight our own take on life through the unique combination of our choices.

Isn’t it an interesting way to be spending our lives – our chance at life – on this planet? This sense in which we’re seeking meaning, purpose or self-esteem through these almost entirely commercial offerings. As if that’s where our worth lies.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 1: Solving all the problems we’re creating
Note 2: Visual language and spaces
Note 2: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 2: Culture as what we relate to
Note 3: This thing called love
Note 3: Markets, and what they might mean
Note 3: Where do we get our ideas from?

Of course, there’s circularity to nature as well, but it doesn’t seem to operate quite as we do: Appreciating other ways of being.

Are we better off looking at life in terms of “being true to ourselves” or “valuable members of society”? Perhaps there’s simply a balance to be struck between them, as pursuing one at the cost of the other seems far from perfect: prioritising self without regard for social realities must be questionable, while playing our part seems fruitless if we’re never truly who we are.

If we were just to “fit in” – assuming whatever roles or obligations are asked of us in any given situation – aren’t we little different from machines? Fulfilling whatever programming those who designed us had in mind. All our actions being dictated by the needs of “society” seems a strangely top-down way of imagining the purpose of a human being: dreaming up systems, then assigning the parts we have to play. (Notes One)

Yet, if we don’t think at all of the collective nature of our lives, it seems unlikely we’d act wisely from that perspective. Aren’t we “naturally” quite self-centred? Our first priority, perhaps rightly, being our own survival or enhancement – whether that’s “us” as a person or as the community of family, friends or peers we’re feeling identified with. Our circle of interests, especially when under pressure, generally seems quite limited.

Having a sense for what each individual brings to life seems important, though: that we’re all filled with our own experiences, viewpoints, traits, concerns, and talents. Everyone being this completely irreplaceable version of “human” through having lived their lives their own unique way and brought out of that their own insights and capacities. The lived faces of all these systems we share.

If “to be human” is to stand in this world and make choices within it, finding the workable balance between personal integrity and collective integration seems the mystery we’re each presented with. Won’t there be countless “lines” where those interests are conflicting and, potentially, mutually incompatible? All these points where we have to let go of “self” for the sake of “others” or “cohesion.” (Notes Two)

Maybe “our role” is always to stand in that place between the individual and the collective? This sense in which we’re all unique, all human, yet all need to make space for everyone else if our ideals are to become a reality. Understanding where we stand – what our actions and interactions play into – then responding in ways that bring our vision of “what matters” to life seems one interpretation of human existence. (Notes Three)

Who’s to say, really? Maybe our role is whatever we choose to make it? We can stand within the collective realities that enrich and sustain our own mindfully or carelessly. We can let society define our lives so completely that we lose the sense of who “we” actually are. We can rail against the impertinence of anyone, individually or systemically, asking anything of us, or recognise the value in cooperation. (Notes Four)

While, by our nature, we exist in number, finding this balance between “us” and “everyone else” seems strangely elusive.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Treating people like sims?
Note 1: The difference humanity makes
Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: What holds it all together
Note 3: The self within society
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: In the deep end…
Note 4: The incredible responsibility of freedom
Note 4: Common sense as a rare and essential quality
Note 4: Being trusted to use our discernment…

Imagining freedom as this network of fine lines between us – all the choices we’re free to enjoy within society’s invisible contract, up to the point where those actions might infringe upon others – how much faith is being placed in our willingness and ability to use it wisely?

And how often, instead, are we conceiving of it more in terms of “I’m free to do as I please”, “you can’t stop me” or “what are they going to do about it?” This strange way we have of stretching limits, testing boundaries, and seeing if anyone cares enough to stop us. As an attitude, it seems present from childhood and perhaps it never leaves us – maybe it’s natural we test invisible walls to check if they’re real? (Notes One)

Isn’t freedom essentially this invisible construct of thought we’re attempting to bring into reality? This grand project of declaring people free then sketching out the conditions needed for that to work – figuring out all the lines where one person meets another and their freedoms risk being mutually incompatible (Notes Two). This pre-emptive defence of each person’s freedom through laying out everyone’s responsibilities.

And it’s amazing to think just how much the world’s changed since that project began: how far we’ve shifted from the fairly simple, reality-based communities of last century to the fast-paced, virtual reality of today (Notes Three). So much has been deconstructed, threaded back together and placed in our hands by way of technology – almost every area of life having been reworked by that way of thinking.

Aren’t our freedoms now feeding into countless inscrutable systems? Everything we do rippling out as an example or impact on others. Especially given the contagious nature of social behaviour and the “trends” of thought or action it quickly sets in motion. Sometimes it seems completely conceivable that freedom – at the extreme, careless greed and self-insistence – might be a force capable of destabilising the whole world.

If we’re free to do as we please with the options placed freely before us, what will we make of that opportunity? How much of the world’s resources will be pulled into meeting our seemingly insatiable desire for “more”? How many troublesome forces will we let run amok through communities, landscapes or lives? (Notes Four)

Maybe there’s no end to it, if no one stops us? “The law” might sketch in the boundaries where we’re at risk of doing harm to ourselves, others or society itself, but if freedom’s largely being seen as “doing whatever we like, as long as it’s profitable” then perhaps that overrules any concern we might have for the environment, social cohesion or human suffering.

But if, as citizens as much as consumers, everything we choose to do “matters” – our social, personal, political, economic, environmental, cultural choices deeply impacting the world we all share – then maybe freedom “must” come hand-in-hand with a weighty responsibility of understanding, compassion and self-discipline (Notes Five). Otherwise, aren’t we at risk of having it taken away for our own safety?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Invisible ties
Note 1: What keeps us in check
Note 1: Picking up after one another
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 2: Trust within modern society
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: How quickly things can change
Note 3: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 4: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 4: The insatiable desire for more
Note 4: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 5: What we create by our presence
Note 5: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 5: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 5: Too much responsibility?

Ideas around preparing people for the responsibility of freedom – and, the things that might cause us to lose it – were one aspect of “Brave New World Revisited” back in 2017.

How often are we waking up in life thinking, “What am I going to contribute today? In what ways might I invest in and strengthen society through my attitudes and actions?” Not simply through work or payment, but through the manner in which we live our lives and the things we’re choosing to support. To what extent is our involvement in building up the fabric of society active and intentional?

Because isn’t that what all our moments play into? Each word, thought, decision feeding into the social, economic, interpersonal reality we’re all a part of (Notes One). Almost everything we’re choosing to do must strengthen certain aspects of society or, potentially, weaken them. Each choice becoming an example, an encouragement, a condonement of whatever courses of action we’re putting our weight behind.

Almost as if we’re all permeating the space around us with what we’re choosing or allowing ourselves to share with the world. Each person perhaps serving as a beacon by way of the example we’re setting and values we’re upholding throughout our lives. Everyone having encountered the world, its forms and opportunities, and decided what they’ll bring to life through their presence within it.

There must be countless opportunities each day to improve things – making more of life than what we came across; weaving something valuable into our shared existence; taking a stand based on a judgement of what’s best. Don’t all the small, accumulated actions and interactions of our lives inevitably add up to “something”?

Not to say we should just willingly “fill” society as it currently stands, adopting whatever ideas or assumptions might’ve been handed down to us, but that our engagement seems to make a difference (Notes Two). Undoubtedly, modern society still has a way to go in bringing essential ideals to life through the systems and structures surrounding us all; and perhaps an important part of that is our role in insisting upon them.

Don’t the choices we make all sit within and contribute towards this overall picture of a “reality” we’re all sharing? Much as that might now take the form of transactions within systems hidden from easy observation, they still all fit into something our actions are serving to sustain. Don’t we still need to “see” that picture and be clear on what matters within it? Even if it’s of a scale that humans before us never needed to imagine.

Maybe it simply comes down to what we think life’s about? This sense we might have of what matters, what’s acceptable, what’s admirable, and so forth. We perhaps each have different – often, personal – priorities guiding all these choices we’re making, but the sense of how it all comes together into something humans everywhere have to live with is both intriguing and daunting. What is it we’re all taking part in?

Once again, this has drifted a little from the course I’d imagined these thoughts might take. Ultimately, though, isn’t it true that we’re all offering life “something” through the choices we’re making?

Notes and References:

Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 1: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 1: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 1: Society as an imposition?
Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 2: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: The thought surrounding us
Note 2: Whether we make a difference

For more thoughts on human creativity, there’s Living as a form of art.

Of all the ideas we have in mind, how sure can we be of where they’ve come from? How firm of a gatekeeper have we been over the years about all we’ve let in to set up camp there? Then, how clear are we of the ways they’re coming together? Of which ideas may combine into questionable or erroneous conclusions we may act upon. If our minds are the places we’re making sense of life and charting our way within it, surely it matters?

Isn’t it true that, all throughout our lives, things are pouring into our minds? Incredible amounts of information constantly flowing through our senses into this vast repository of all our experiences, observations, ideas, assumptions, theories, interpretations, and beliefs. Lessons of childhood merging with moments of adult life; the words of others often pressed in for good measure.

These days, there’s such a staggering amount of input we’re supposed to process, integrate and work with on a daily basis: this flood of words, images, subconscious messages, opinions, and attempts to influence. Our job, perhaps, being to filter through it all, weed much of it out, and only place the most reliable items on the valuable shelves of our mental space. (Notes One)

Often it seems likely those shelves are going to be cluttered and imperfect – that, along the way, things would’ve snuck through and earnt a place they don’t deserve. How are we to judge? Particularly when so much of “this” is specifically, intelligently designed to sneak past whatever defences we might’ve erected. Isn’t there a concerted effort, from various quarters, to shape our thinking and guide our behaviour? (Notes Two)

Sometimes it seems like a strange battle is raging over the contents of our minds, with so many “interested parties” hoping to change our ideas and thereby our actions. Perhaps as much of that’s well-meaning as the rest is dubious. Like this marketplace for human thought, where almost everyone’s trying to win you over, tempt you in, or otherwise induce you to buy into whatever they’re offering.

Maybe that’s too negative an image, but it’s often not seeming so far from the reality we’re faced with. Whether we’re talking of influencers or tribes or whatever else, our attention and belief seem like valuable commodities. Is it because, as humans, that’s where our freedom lies? This sense in which the ideas we take in and build our lives upon “become” the paths we’re walking.

The question of where we’re getting those ideas from and how well we’re managing them seems important. Hopefully education does us the wonderful service of providing a robust, reliable, yet flexible foundation of both ideas and the capacity to form them. Hopefully the conversations of media and cultural life help round out, strengthen and enhance our understanding of life. If not, how are we to stand against this? (Notes Three)

Otherwise it just seems we’re being constantly assailed with questionable, half-finished ideas that might do little more than create confusion, doubt and frustration.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The self within society
Note 1: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 1: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 1: The thought surrounding us
Note 2: Do we really need incentives?
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: What is the public conversation?

As humans, particularly those living in the West, isn’t a lot of faith being placed in our capacity for judgement? In every area of life, it seems we have so many choices to make, so many temptations placed on our path, so many distractions to hold us back from fully focussing on any given thing. Yet, still, it’s our choices that are setting so many things in motion.

If we’re being given this much freedom to decide for ourselves what our lives are going to be – which things we’ll buy, initiatives we’ll support, places we’ll go and activities we’ll encourage – it’s intriguing to think how we’re supposed to prepare ourselves for that level of responsibility. How are we to be sure each person’s truly capable of making the “best” decisions for themselves and the system at large? (Notes One)

It hardly seems an insignificant thing, given that each life is conceivably composed of the countless decisions making up our days. How are we to maintain our awareness of every single option and how it fits into all the systems evolving around us at such startling speed? How are the precepts and instructions of anyone’s childhood to “meet” the shifting realities of modern living?

The tasks of education, the media and culture presumably take on a slightly different light if we conceive of them as preparing, supporting and maintaining each individual’s active understanding of both their society and its place in an ever-changing world (Notes Two). If each person is to emerge with a thorough yet flexible understanding of “reality” capable of informing every decision they’ll make, those tasks seem quite weighty.

To be able to judge, don’t we need to understand? Not only our own position, but also the broader context in which we stand. Not only what each option means for us, but also what it means more widely within our social reality. If every decision we make feeds into the bigger picture of all that’s surrounding us, our understanding of that world seemingly needs to be quite vast if we’re to conceive of every possible ramification.

Yet, Western society seemingly trusts us all to develop and exercise our discernment. Where will that “project” go if we’re not deserving of such trust? If we act obliviously or carelessly of the consequences of our actions. If we think only of “us”, at the cost of the broader context we’re all undeniably a part of. Where’s society headed if we’re mainly using our freedom to please ourselves in the short-term? (Notes Three)

If society were filled with people who truly understood it, from every perspective, and cared deeply about what life was like through those eyes, everything could presumably be trusted to go relatively smoothly. If everyone knew the significance of their every role and contribution, the necessity for regulation could conceivably disappear.

All the while we don’t quite understand thoroughly enough or judge in the light of such compassionate understanding, the sense of where society’s standing sometimes seems quite precarious.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 1: The need for discernment
Note 1: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 1: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: What keeps us in check
Note 3: The self within society
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: The value we’re giving to things

Turning this around the other way, to look at who we’re asked to trust within modern society, was one focus of Concerns over how we’re living.

What is it to be a “self” within “society”? All these highly personal, intensely lived points where humanity becomes aware of itself within the social structures that envelop, define and inform its existence. The collective nature of our individual lives is fascinating – if overwhelming – to consider: each one of us connected in all the significant, impactful activities that make up our lives together.

Within it all, aren’t we generally seeking meaning, purpose, and the recognition of our worth within our community? This sense in which the mind seemingly always looks for the relationship between things, people, events, environments, and society itself (Notes One). As if “to be human” is to apply our capacity for thought and find meaning within the world around us.

As beings who think – perhaps, can’t help but think – isn’t it “natural” we would seek to make sense of all that’s surrounding us? This idea that being human “is” to stand within reality and reflect it in thought (Notes Two). Almost as if “that” is what we bring to the table: intelligence, analysis, forethought and, hopefully, concern. Each of us personally experiencing and drawing conclusions about life and how to live it.

We might look on society as comprised of units we call humans – these strange, predictable or surprising creatures – that arguably have to be constrained, educated or directed in ways that “work” for the systems sustaining their every need (Notes Three). As if communal life is a conceptual exercise of “knowing the human” then extrapolating to create ways of uniting us all through belief and action.

Given how this relationship between self and society goes both ways, the question of whether we’re held together or willingly hold ourselves together seems interesting. Do we need threats, constraints or incentives to act cohesively? This picture of humans as being guided mainly by self-interest; needing strong enough reasons to go against that. As opposed to us being guided by understanding, vision, or hope.

Modern society, in many ways, seems to take the first approach: surrounding us with carrots and sticks that shepherd us down the paths that’ve been deemed wisest overall. As if we’re “supposed” to judge based only on personal concerns and how much we’ll benefit from any given option. Alternatively, couldn’t we choose what seems right based on our thorough understanding of complex realities? (Notes Four)

Who’s the say what’s the best way of arranging individual humans into collective systems? There are presumably many ways of doing so, as evidenced by past and present societies. Within it all, the West perhaps stands out for the beautiful sentiment of attempting to establish social realities based around universal principles of human worth – those philosophical starting points underpinning where things now stand.

Ultimately, it seems society “must” establish itself around its understanding of individuals – their needs and inclinations – in order to create structures likely to be able to contain us all in meaningful, purposeful, sustainable ways. How well it’s all working out, though, seems to be giving cause for concern.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 1: The struggle with being alive
Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: What are we thinking?
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 4: Do we really need incentives?
Note 4: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 4: Whether we make a difference