Sunday 7 December 2008

Eggs or soup

I want to continue with the ideas in yesterday's post. Moment by moment I face choice; eggs or soup (for lunch), read, listen to the radio, join the conversation or not, express a view or not, etc., etc. What about hold a view or not? What are my views? What are my values? What do I hold important? What do I desire? My view and my desires affect the choices I make. I am talking about the map I hold to guide me through, no, make my life. I hold up my frames through which I make meaning, compare what I see with the yardstick of my views and choose. My views, values and desires are in relationship. And I am not always aware of the complex precess which is driving all this. I have my compass; I might watch my emotions, look out for attachments as best I can but I can't see all the map and bits of it keep getting redrawn. Not to get stuck with a fixed view, to avoid dogma is a very challenging goal. And of course, it's the goal bit that needs to be dropped, or at least the attachment to it, if one is to avoid getting stuck. To really be awake to every option and to be awake to choosing and the reasons for that choice, not to sleepwalk through it, that is to expand ones life

I think this a very different position from someone who accepts a dogma and is devastated when life crashes through it showing the limitations of the frames, the emptiness of the forms. But such a person is unlikely to be aware of their frames and will probably view forms as absolute. Views and values which are based on belief in forms as absolute will always run up against conflicting values because we don't all have the same frames. We each must make our own meaning. What's this, solipsism? No! We make our meaning in relation to others, we exist in relation to others. Which brings focus around to the ego, the extent to which our relations are selfish. And it can take a lot to know when we are selfish, because our values can get in the way. Dogma? And as if this were not enough, we need remember that life is much bigger than us; it makes us moment after moment and we need to remember not to get stuck.

I need to remember not to get stuck and not to get too idealistic.

2 comments:

  1. I found this in Philosophy Works (William Wray, 2005), p. 177, on that tricky question of what to do next:

    "The best way we can serve the things we love is by serving the principle of love in the present. It's only this that will tell us what is the right and proper thng to do under the circumstances."

    Worth my trying out.

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  2. PS I like the fake words one has to type in in order to post and prove one is not a webbot:
    'Turrepa'.

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