Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: wigginhall on June 01, 2016, 04:09:54 PM
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Yes, enki, I read the Harris book when it came out, (I mean, 'The Moral Landscape'). One of its flaws surely, is that he assumes that happiness is the starting point, or the end-point of human existence. This itself is a subjectively chosen goal. In any case, I think there are many other human goals, e.g. control over others, dominance, power, survival, and so on.
I recall that Freud cited the pleasure principle, but interestingly, Freud also cited the death instinct, and many people have argued that as well as happiness, we are geared towards darker things. Certainly, some people want to be unhappy, and some crave destruction.
I don't see how all of this can be squeezed into objective morality.
Moderator:
This post, and the 20-odd that follow, were originally in the 'My 'Truth' or 'YOUR 'truth'?' thread in the Christian Topic and have been moved here to create this thread. Since this post, by Wiggenhall, was the earliest of those moved it becomes the OP of this thread.
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I recall that Freud cited the pleasure principle, but interestingly, Freud also cited the death instinct, and many people have argued that as well as happiness, we are geared towards darker things. Certainly, some people want to be unhappy, and some crave destruction.
I remember an article in which Adam Philips - an orthodox Freudian - said exactly this: some people just give every appearance of being happy being miserable.
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I remember an article in which Adam Philips - an orthodox Freudian - said exactly this: some people just give every appearance of being happy being miserable.
Well, the old joke about Northerners is that they love moaning, and there is some truth in it. But I think you find it everywhere, we used to play a game in therapy groups, called 'ain't it awful', and you had to say it, and then fill in the gap. Ain't it awful how short girls' skirts have become. Ha ha ha.
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Found it - thank you, overburdened ol' memory o' mine:
https://goo.gl/ynQaHz
... some people like being unhappy. Indeed for some people their lives can be construed as the pursuit of unhappiness. It is astounding the lengths to which some people will go to be unhappy, to contrive their own misery, as though happiness itself were a phobic object and held terrors. And we don't talk of the right to be unhappy, when we should. Unhappiness can, after all, among many other things, be the registration of injustice or loss. At its best, a culture committed to the pursuit of happiness might be committed, say, to the diminishing of injustice; but at its worst, the culture of happiness may proscribe a whole range of feelings and perceptions.
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Great quote. Freud also talked about 'secondary gain' and the need to suffer, in fact, he thought this could be a huge barrier to treatment. In fact, I remember somebody saying to me, 'please don't take away my depression, it's all I've got'.
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What is happiness, exactly?
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I remember an article in which Adam Philips - an orthodox Freudian - said exactly this: some people just give every appearance of being happy being miserable.
Sums up our very own Keith? :-\
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I'll get back to you ...
... in the meantime, Freud defined happiness (or at least, contentment) as "love and work" - a fulfilling relationship coupled with something engaging, meaningful and purposeful to do.
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Sums up our very own Keith? :-\
Maybe; but then again, not necessarily. Keith does at least come up with links to and quotes of interesting ideas (interesting to him and to me at any rate) that undercut the often automatic not to say facile assumptions that most people make most of the time - that life is the greatest good of all goods, that existence is a net benefit, that happiness is the supreme goal of life, and so forth. I see Phillips doing much the same when he talks about a person's right to unhappiness as a conversation that we should be having - a viewpoint which is unusual, little heard, deeply counterintuitive to many and not at all self-evidently wrong.
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I think people have the right to be miserable, of course they do. Who would want some busybody telling them that they 'should' not be? I don't know how this fits in with Harris's theory of morality, since you have to build this in, presumably.
Most people have miserable periods, don't they? They are probably essential, actually.
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Oh, absolutely. There's nothing worse than not being allowed to feel what you feel. 'Cheer up, it might never happen.' 'There's plenty worse off than you.' Its rejection pure and simple. Well you know what, if you can't accept that I feel what I feel then fuck off.
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Having read the article again for the first time in yonks I do like Phillips's idea that unhappiness is a justified registration of protest at injustice or loss - echoes of the anti-psychiatry movement's view of insanity as a (perhaps the only) justified reaction to an intolerable situation.
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I think we can probably know what we mean by 'miserable' and 'unhappy'. But what's 'happiness'? That I find far harder to picture.
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Having read the article again for the first time in yonks I do like Phillips's idea that unhappiness is a justified registration of protest at injustice or loss - echoes of the anti-psychiatry movement's view of insanity as a (perhaps the only) justified reaction to an intolerable situation.
Yes, good old Ronnie Laing. He went a bit overboard, but had some brilliant ideas. The idea that society is crazy, and also, that your family may be crazy, and you are protesting, are important ideas.
Actually, again, give Freud his due, he argued that Viennese bourgeois women went crazy in sexless marriages, and he said that they either became depressed, or got a lover!
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I think we can probably know what we mean by 'miserable' and 'unhappy'. But what's 'happiness'? That I find far harder to picture.
I'm working on a few ideas, be patient ;)
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Lots of sex. Well, with somebody nice.
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Lots of sex. Well, with somebody nice.
... when possible ;)
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Well this is it, isn't it? What's pleasure and what's happiness? Is happiness just lots of pleasurable moments? I'm not sure it is.
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... when possible ;)
You must know the Woody Allen joke. Good sex is brilliant, but bad sex is pretty good too.
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Well this is it, isn't it? What's pleasure and what's happiness? Is happiness just lots of pleasurable moments? I'm not sure it is.
Shaker, he say: pleasure is to happiness as weather is to climate.
In other words, weather is what's happening now when you look out of the kitchen window - a temporary, transient state, i.e. a good lunch, a bottle of wine, a new car bring pleasure rather than happiness. Happiness, like climate, implies a more settled, long-term state.
Pleasure is emotional weather; happiness, climate.
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You must know the Woody Allen joke. Good sex is brilliant, but bad sex is pretty good too.
Exactly what I had in mind, wiggles :D
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Wiggs,
You must know the Woody Allen joke. Good sex is brilliant, but bad sex is pretty good too.
And this one: sex between two people is a wonderful thing...
...provided you get between the right two people ; - )
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Shaker, he say: pleasure is to happiness as weather is to climate.
In other words, weather is what's happening now when you look out of the kitchen window - a temporary, transient state, i.e. a good lunch, a bottle of wine, a new car bring pleasure rather than happiness. Happiness, like climate, implies a more settled, long-term state.
Pleasure is emotional weather; happiness, climate.
Yes, and I think we often seek pleasure when the climate isn't to our liking or feels out of kilter in some way.
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And WA on masturbation: Don't knock it; it's sex with someone I love!
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What is it, exactly?
Satisfying the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain, perhaps? 'Happiness', derived from the great Goddess 'Hap', the goddess of chance. If she smiles upon you and you win the lottery it opens up the imagination to all kinds of satisfactory pleasures. If she turns her back on you, you suffer a mis-hap.
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And again WA ' Is sex dirty? Yes, if you're doing it right'
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Wiggs,
And this one: sex between two people is a wonderful thing...
...provided you get between the right two people ; - )
During World War I Lytton Strachey was up before the board, claiming conscientious objector status. He was asked the usual questions about his opposition to war, etc., including all manner of hypothetical scenarios. One member of the panel said: "Suppose you saw a young girl about to be ravished by a filthy Hun soldier - what would you do?"
"Oh," said Strachey in his inimitably arch, fey manner, "I should try to come between them."
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And again WA ' Is sex dirty? Yes, if you're doing it right'
Shhhh, don't let Spud hear you!
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http://www.humancondition.com/
I've been dipping into the book, "Freedom" - a free download from the website. It seems to be being quite heavily promoted recently.
Jeremy Griffith's basic contention is that our "human condition", happiness/unhappiness or morality/behaviour comes down to conflicts between our instincts and the conscious parts of our minds. - not really that new an idea as it can be seen in various religions and philosophy or psychology.
Anyone come across this before? I haven't got far enough into it to get to how exactly he wants to "transform the world" other than by just studying "the human condition" or come to my own conclusion.
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Sure - it's absolute rock-bottom Freud, for instance - Civilization and Its Discontents is the go-to work here but it's a thread that runs pretty much all the way through his work. We're permanently forked creatures because we're animals with instincts, drives and desires that demand to be satisfied, yet we've constructed groups - societies - and moral codes in those groups that say some shouldn't be satisfied at all or if so, only within a very narrow band of a few certain approved ways. Hence neurosis, or as everybody else calls it, humanity. Rock and a hard place, constantly.
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What is happiness, exactly?
Contentment, no suffering, optimism.
Some people are afraid of it, because they think if they sit back and enjoy it, something dire will come along.
You know, " everything is fine ATM, touch wood! "
A superstitious reaction to Sod's law.
Happiness is feeling all is well in your world.
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But 'all life is suffering'. If I have to not suffer in order to be happy then I might as well give up now.
And Victor Frankl noted in his book Man's Search for Meani g that the optimists suffered and very often gave up and died almost as quickly as the defeatists did in the concentration camp where he was incarcerated. He found it was possible to be 'happy' (if that is the word) by looking for the meaning in the moment.
So maybe that is what happiness is - living a life where every day has meaning.
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http://www.humancondition.com/
I've been dipping into the book, "Freedom" - a free download from the website. It seems to be being quite heavily promoted recently.
Jeremy Griffith's basic contention is that our "human condition", happiness/unhappiness or morality/behaviour comes down to conflicts between our instincts and the conscious parts of our minds. - not really that new an idea as it can be seen in various religions and philosophy or psychology.
Anyone come across this before? I haven't got far enough into it to get to how exactly he wants to "transform the world" other than by just studying "the human condition" or come to my own conclusion.
Come back and let us know how you get on with this.
I'd imagine Griffith has many useful insights but I am suspicious of people with grand narratives and single ideas that attract believers and form movements, it all sounds a bit New Agey to me. For instance, this from his World Transformation Movement website :
explanation of the human condition has brought the long dreamed of dawn of understanding for humankind, so you simply have to join the sunshine army on the sunshine highway to the world in sunshine!
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Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?
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Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?
Not so much that - I've always concentrated on samatha meditation.
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Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?
I've read a lot on it but personally I didn't feel comfortable doing it without having a teacher present. Probably just as well as I have had a couple of panic attacks in the past while meditating.
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Like God, happiness can't be defined so it is a stupid place to start. It means different things to different people.
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Lots of sex. Well, with somebody nice.
Nah! It's too short lived.... :-[ ......what I mean is that it can't fill in the whole of a day or week.......you know 24hrs and all that...... :-X
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Shaker, he say: pleasure is to happiness as weather is to climate.
In other words, weather is what's happening now when you look out of the kitchen window - a temporary, transient state, i.e. a good lunch, a bottle of wine, a new car bring pleasure rather than happiness. Happiness, like climate, implies a more settled, long-term state.
Pleasure is emotional weather; happiness, climate.
Inner peace and quietness.
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Like God, happiness can't be defined so it is a stupid place to start. It means different things to different people.
But it's the fact it means different things that makes it a good topic for discussion.
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But it's the fact it means different things that makes it a good topic for discussion.
I tend to distinguish 'happiness' from 'joy'. Happiness depends upon the external to stimulate a sense of wellbeing whereas joy arises from within with more spontaneity and is exported outwards into the world.
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That interesting. I think of 'joy' as being akin to feyness - it feels delusional in s way - but I wonder if that's because I'm irritated by a particular kind of religious connotation that the word has.
Increasingly I think happiness means 'not sad'. But then I find I can have extremely sad stuff and very happy stuff going on at the same time.
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One way of defining happiness would be to invoke Abraham Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs* and to say that happiness consists of the greatest number of those needs being satisfied or fulfilled - an ascent up the pyramid, so to speak.
* https://goo.gl/fLBPsR
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I remember when happiness was a cigar called Hamlet. Those were the days.
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... whereas some of us know that in actual fact happiness is a cigar called a Hoyo de Monterey Double Corona. Or a Romeo y Julieta Churchill at any rate.
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'Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.' (George Burns)
There's a bad woman living not a mile from here who, rumour has it, will tie you up and punish you all night for £300.
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That interesting. I think of 'joy' as being akin to feyness - it feels delusional in s way - but I wonder if that's because I'm irritated by a particular kind of religious connotation that the word has.
Increasingly I think happiness means 'not sad'. But then I find I can have extremely sad stuff and very happy stuff going on at the same time.
It seems the opposite to me rather than being vague and delusional. It is enlivening, exuberant, fulfilling without it being at the mercy of changeable external sources. I agree that the word 'joy' can have all sorts of connotations and doesn't do the experience justice, just like its religious synonyms - bliss, blessed, ananda.
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'Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.' (George Burns)
There's a bad woman living not a mile from here who, rumour has it, will tie you up and punish you all night for £300.
For £300 she's probably quite good at it actually.
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It seems the opposite to me rather than being vague and delusional. It is enlivening, exuberant, fulfilling without it being at the mercy of changeable external sources. I agree that the word 'joy' can have all sorts of connotations and doesn't do the experience justice, just like its religious synonyms - bliss, blessed, ananda.
It might just be me but blessed and bliss have different connotations now.
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It might just be me but blessed and bliss have different connotations now.
No, quite the reverse I suspect. I'm more likely to be the odd one out.
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I blame CS Lewis.
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It might just be me but blessed and bliss have different connotations now.
This made me think of a Mary Oliver poem, probably because I've spent most of today idling in buttercup fields. Blissful and, in its way, blessed too.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
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Yes, that's my kind of bliss.
I often feel I wasted too much time, but I can always console myself that there has never been a day when I haven't stopped to look at the clouds and observe the trees, get down close to look at the wild things.
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But it's the fact it means different things that makes it a good topic for discussion.
But this thread was started by a Mod who split it off from another and if you read the OP it is primarily about morality with happiness as a possible factor to this. So the thread is wrongly named.
And so, it would seem to be that morality is a social contract where happiness is probably a sub clause in it and not the main factor to its construction.
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For £300 she's probably quite good at it actually.
Are you able to undercut that price ?
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Yes, that's my kind of bliss.
I often feel I wasted too much time, but I can always console myself that there has never been a day when I haven't stopped to look at the clouds and observe the trees, get down close to look at the wild things.
Just some questions then. Are you able to continue being blissful on those occasions after closing your eyes to those stimuli? Are you able to continue to sustain that blissfulness despite the pleasant stimuli being absent and other less pleasant have replaced them? If so, then its source might be within you and less to do with the clouds, trees etc. and is accessible without the stimuli.
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Maybe happiness is like a dream; something we catch glimpses of from time to time but we cannot live in it for long, for it soon becomes unhappy. Rather, the real deal, what motivates us, what gets us out of bed in the morning, apply for that new job, is seeking after happiness. Maybe it is the journey that really counts, not the destination.
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Or maybe it is the source which enlivens and empowers the journey and where the source and the destination, the Alpha and the Omega, are the same.
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Yes, that's my kind of bliss.
I often feel I wasted too much time, but I can always console myself that there has never been a day when I haven't stopped to look at the clouds and observe the trees, get down close to look at the wild things.
Then it doesn't sound to me as though you have wasted your time. As children we learn that we must measure up in some socially approved way to make our lives meaningful or successful, although those who taught us this were almost certainly themselves victims of the same fiction.
'In the landscape of spring there is neither better nor worse,
The branches grow naturally, some long, some short.'
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Re Happiness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a5vaIsaxB8
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Just some questions then. Are you able to continue being blissful on those occasions after closing your eyes to those stimuli? Are you able to continue to sustain that blissfulness despite the pleasant stimuli being absent and other less pleasant have replaced them? If so, then its source might be within you and less to do with the clouds, trees etc. and is accessible without the stimuli.
It's an interesting question. Certainly not often, I would say. But not never either.
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Then it doesn't sound to me as though you have wasted your time. As children we learn that we must measure up in some socially approved way to make our lives meaningful or successful, although those who taught us this were almost certainly themselves victims of the same fiction.
'In the landscape of spring there is neither better nor worse,
The branches grow naturally, some long, some short.'
Thank you, Bramble, although I've never much cared for social approval.
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Bramble's quote and the Alan Watts quote that currently forms your signature teach the same idea - look to the natural world as a guide.
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I blame CS Lewis.
Rhiannon
Yes, he does have a curiously idiosyncratic way of describing what he means by "joy" in his autobiography "Surprised by joy". Waffles on about a sense of "clouds and northern immensities" (not that contemplating such things is devoid of poetic charm).
As for happiness, Shaw just about hit the nail on the head:
"But a lifetime of happiness! No man* alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” (Man and Superman)
*I suspect he probably thought this might apply to women too, if pressed on the point.
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Rhiannon
Yes, he does have a curiously idiosyncratic way of describing what he means by "joy" in his autobiography "Surprised by joy". Waffles on about a sense of "clouds and northern immensities" (not that contemplating such things is devoid of poetic charm).
As for happiness, Shaw just about hit the nail on the head:
"But a lifetime of happiness! No man* alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” (Man and Superman)
*I suspect he probably thought this might apply to women too, if pressed on the point.
I presume a life time of happiness would be essentially death (or a lack of life as we know it) as it would preclude all meaningful forms of experience.
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Yes, this is what I think. We wouldn't know what happiness is (not that I'm sure we've pinned it down to beyond 'not unhappy') without knowing other states of being. It'd be meaningless.
And given that everything is impermanent accepting happiness also means accepting unhappiness.
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Rhiannon
Yes, he does have a curiously idiosyncratic way of describing what he means by "joy" in his autobiography "Surprised by joy". Waffles on about a sense of "clouds and northern immensities" (not that contemplating such things is devoid of poetic charm).
As for happiness, Shaw just about hit the nail on the head:
"But a lifetime of happiness! No man* alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” (Man and Superman)
*I suspect he probably thought this might apply to women too, if pressed on the point.
For me it's just 'CS Lewis, urgh.'
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Bramble's quote and the Alan Watts quote that currently forms your signature teach the same idea - look to the natural world as a guide.
Yes, each one (one of anything) is unique, special and completely small and insignificant, and perfect for whatever it is.
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Yes, this is what I think. We wouldn't know what happiness is (not that I'm sure we've pinned it down to beyond 'not unhappy') without knowing other states of being. It'd be meaningless.
And given that everything is impermanent accepting happiness also means accepting unhappiness.
The quote from Shaw could just as easily read "But a lifetime of unhappiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.”
Perhaps it depends upon one's personal definition of 'happiness'. For some it might be more about sustaining a conscious harmonious balance amidst the vicissitudes of life, rather than seeing it as an attraction to happiness and avoidance of unhappiness, like surfing the waves of life. It becomes more like a live centring process rather than finding a dead centre or chasing after extremes.
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Don't know about anybody else, but I consider happiness as applying to a state of mind, often activated as a result of extraneous factors. Hence I can achieve a certain feeling of happiness by succeeding in something in particular that I have done, or that others close to me have done, or by a combination of factors which might give me a sense of well being, or a combination of factors which might involve absence of worry or anxiety. I find it to be rather an ephemeral state which can change according to all sorts of circumstances. Although generally I would consider myself a moderately happy person, I'm not sure that some exact state of happiness actually exists.
It seems to me that the mind is in a constant state of flux and we use the word happiness as describing a relative state of mind at a particular time in comparison to the relative state of unhappiness that we may feel at other times. Also I think that it is quite possible that what can make us feel happy at one particular time may not necessarily do so on another occasion.
Having said that, it does seem to me that happiness is something that is more likely to be experienced the more that one is at ease with oneself and others.
Just some musings: Feel free to comment or criticise. :)
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Don't know about anybody else, but I consider happiness as applying to a state of mind, often activated as a result of extraneous factors. Hence I can achieve a certain feeling of happiness by succeeding in something in particular that I have done, or that others close to me have done, or by a combination of factors which might give me a sense of well being, or a combination of factors which might involve absence of worry or anxiety. I find it to be rather an ephemeral state which can change according to all sorts of circumstances. Although generally I would consider myself a moderately happy person, I'm not sure that some exact state of happiness actually exists.
It seems to me that the mind is in a constant state of flux and we use the word happiness as describing a relative state of mind at a particular time in comparison to the relative state of unhappiness that we may feel at other times. Also I think that it is quite possible that what can make us feel happy at one particular time may not necessarily do so on another occasion.
Having said that, it does seem to me that happiness is something that is more likely to be experienced the more that one is at ease with oneself and others.
Just some musings: Feel free to comment or criticise. :)
I would designate the term joy to what you described in the first paragraph; something that is acquired by events and things etc. And my definition of happiness would be an overall appraisal of things so far, how one feels about one's life to date. This however ebbs and flows over time as the underlining psychological currents impose their influence upon one's conscious state.
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I would designate the term joy to what you described in the first paragraph; something that is acquired by events and things etc. And my definition of happiness would be an overall appraisal of things so far, how one feels about one's life to date. This however ebbs and flows over time as the underlining psychological currents impose their influence upon one's conscious state.
Interesting ideas, Jack. Joy, to me, is an extremely positive emotion which has an attribute of exhilaration attached. I would rather say that what I described is nearer to satisfaction than joy. Perhaps, when I talk about feelings of happiness, satisfaction is part of this mix.
I agree that such feelings ebb and flow however, often according to circumstances or even according to the chemical make up of the brain at any given time.
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There's a school of thought that we are responsible for our own happiness. Whilst there will be things that will always be a huge challenge to that, there are people who live happy lives in the most difficult circumstances. Here I'm reminded yet again of Frankl's experiences in the concentration camps. Maybe that is what happiness is - finding meaning in life whatever the external circumstances are that we find ourselves.
It bothers me that happiness should be seen as a reactive state to circumstances and events.
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It bothers me that happiness should be seen as a reactive state to circumstances and events.
This is at the heart of much Buddhist teaching, because any kind of well-being that is contingent on external factors is necessarily transient and unreliable. So we have the idea that some sort of inner state is achievable that will put an end to all unsatisfactory states of mind. Ultimately, this has to mean something along the lines of Krishnamurti's 'secret' ('I don't mind what happens'), which is a state of no preferences ('The perfect way is easy except it avoids preferences' as one Zen poem has it). It's not difficult to see the problem here, that it would be very difficult to care about anything if we genuinely didn't mind what happens. Stones might not care but living things have interests. Perhaps some sort of compromise is possible, a state of relative equanimity that enables one to ride the ups and downs of life with less stress, but it seems to be in human nature to insist on unachievable goals. Whatever we mean by happiness, for most mortals it must depend on both internal and external factors.
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Yes, in order to care for something one has to be prepared to accept its loss, for nothing is permanent. And to do something one cares about involves being prepared to fail. That is the heart of it for me - the happiness comes from living fully even with its inevitable losses and failures. I regret far more the things I didn't try because of fear of it not happening and that to me is a terrible waste. So it's not so much that I don't care what the outcome is, but that not giving life my best shot hurts more.
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Thinking back to Frankl again, it wasn't so much that he didn't care about the suffering around him, or his own terrible bereavement. It was more that he accepted that life was currently this way.
Again this isn't happiness as we might think of it, but it was a life he identified as meaningful. He was alive to life even in the darkest of circumstances.
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Thinking back to Frankl again, it wasn't so much that he didn't care about the suffering around him, or his own terrible bereavement. It was more that he accepted that life was currently this way.
Again this isn't happiness as we might think of it, but it was a life he identified as meaningful. He was alive to life even in the darkest of circumstances.
Nietzsche said that a man can bear almost any how just as long as he has a why. I often think of that in connection to Frankl and others in the death camps who managed to hang on to - or create - a meaningful existence pro. tem.
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Nietzsche said that a man can bear almost any how just as long as he has a why. I often think of that in connection to Frankl and others in the death camps who managed to hang on to - or create - a meaningful existence pro. tem.
Yes.
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It seems very hard for humans to accept things as they are. We tend to see ourselves as fixers and view our lives and the world as a set of problems to be solved. That's what progress is all about. Everything can and must be improved. Much misery comes this way.
'The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it' (Dao De Ching). This kind of thing doesn't go down well with most people. The other Krishnamurti (U.G.) believed that the human self was composed of nothing but the demand to bring about change in itself and the world. One interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth is that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was precisely this: deciding to change things according to ideas of good and bad. Now we're back to having preferences.
Don't we always give life our best shot? In the relative world of comparisons we cannot avoid measuring our lives against hypothetical alternatives but don't we always simply do what we can at the time? Is it even the case that 'we' do anything at all, or do 'we' simply claim ownership of things done? The older I get the more it seems to me that this is so. It isn't a popular view because it seems to rob us of a sense of self-determination without which we may believe our lives to be void and meaningless, but I don't think it does. It's the tyranny of a self that is somehow thought to be master of its own destiny that strikes me as horrific. You can't win in the game of success and failure. The Zen master Lin Chi talked of the person of 'no rank' inside us all. We can't escape the dimension of rank, but it's there that we suffer. Perhaps the secret of lasting happiness is to find that person of no rank, for whom success and failure are meaningless fictions.
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Don't we always give life our best shot? In the relative world of comparisons we cannot avoid measuring our lives against hypothetical alternatives but don't we always simply do what we can at the time? Is it even the case that 'we' do anything at all, or do 'we' simply claim ownership of things done? The older I get the more it seems to me that this is so. It isn't a popular view because it seems to rob us of a sense of self-determination without which we may believe our lives to be void and meaningless, but I don't think it does.
I agree. Alan Burns's really quite desperate not to say frantic insistence that we must have free will, should have free will and by God do have free will springs to mind here.
The Zen master Lin Chi talked of the person of 'no rank' inside us all. We can't escape the dimension of rank, but it's there that we suffer. Perhaps the secret of lasting happiness is to find that person of no rank, for whom success and failure are meaningless fictions.
The older I get the more I come around to the idea - found in Zen as you say; also sketched in some of the Stoics - that a meaningful and worthwhile life could well be one in which considerations even of happiness and unhappiness don't matter, or not as much at any rate.
This - what the bubbles called ataraxia and the Romans called aequanimitas - is highly unnatural and ferociously difficult to achieve, which of course is why people have historically had to spend brutally, punishingly long periods in silence/isolation/meditation to be in with a shout.
Great post btw.
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I would argue that we don't have free will, but when something happens in our lives that shifts us from feeling that we don't have choices to feeling that we do then we live from a place where we can take responsibility. The alternative for me would be perpetual victimhood and that's no fun. I suppose what has gone before has led to this person inevitably doing things this way or that way. And I think it's important to honour the fact we do make choices, not just for ourselves but for others.
At the same time there's no point in arguing with reality - if you do, you lose.
I know what 'unhappy' looks like. Increasingly as I'm trying to grab at where my thoughts are going it seems 'meaningful' is what 'happy' really is.
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It seems very hard for humans to accept things as they are. We tend to see ourselves as fixers and view our lives and the world as a set of problems to be solved. That's what progress is all about. Everything can and must be improved. Much misery comes this way.
'The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it' (Dao De Ching). This kind of thing doesn't go down well with most people. The other Krishnamurti (U.G.) believed that the human self was composed of nothing but the demand to bring about change in itself and the world. One interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth is that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was precisely this: deciding to change things according to ideas of good and bad. Now we're back to having preferences.
Don't we always give life our best shot? In the relative world of comparisons we cannot avoid measuring our lives against hypothetical alternatives but don't we always simply do what we can at the time? Is it even the case that 'we' do anything at all, or do 'we' simply claim ownership of things done? The older I get the more it seems to me that this is so. It isn't a popular view because it seems to rob us of a sense of self-determination without which we may believe our lives to be void and meaningless, but I don't think it does. It's the tyranny of a self that is somehow thought to be master of its own destiny that strikes me as horrific. You can't win in the game of success and failure. The Zen master Lin Chi talked of the person of 'no rank' inside us all. We can't escape the dimension of rank, but it's there that we suffer. Perhaps the secret of lasting happiness is to find that person of no rank, for whom success and failure are meaningless fictions.
Very nice post. I was at my meditation group last w/e, and we were talking about this - that when we were young, there was this fierce determination to achieve, which in the case of meditation, meant getting somewhere, that is not here!
Anywho, I have wandered the highways and byways about this for decades, and remembered Lenin's great question, 'what is to be done?', and I thought that there is nothing to be done. Of course, sometimes there is, just to be awkward. Ego and no ego.
Also, Shaker's point about not minding about happiness and unhappiness, I think this is very relevant, and seems to arrive with great age! You can't expect anyone under 50 to think like this, except unusual people.
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I don't know, I still rage against the amount of time I wasted being unhappy. How much choice I ever had is a moot point, but it took up far too much of my life.
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I don't know, I still rage against the amount of time I wasted being unhappy. How much choice I ever had is a moot point, but it took up far too much of my life.
Yes, I still do that. In fact, it's quite addictive, I want to prove that X was a really mean bitch. But I spend less time on it now!
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Yes, I still do that. In fact, it's quite addictive, I want to prove that X was a really mean bitch. But I spend less time on it now!
It's not about proving anything, it's about reaching 45 and feeling that life's finally just starting. But then would I be who I am now without the shit? No.
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I was at my meditation group last w/e, and we were talking about this - that when we were young, there was this fierce determination to achieve, which in the case of meditation, meant getting somewhere, that is not here!
Yes, the first part of life seems to be taken up to a large extent with striving of one sort or another and then in middle age there comes a looking back as well as forwards and with it, perhaps, a reconsideration of what it's all about and whether we're going anywhere but a wooden box. Then certain ideas often drop away, not so much I think as a result of letting go, which suggests an active relinquishment, but as a kind of wearing out. They just don't seem relevant any more. It may be one of the few compensations of old age.
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What a lovely meandering thread this is!
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I don't know, I still rage against the amount of time I wasted being unhappy. How much choice I ever had is a moot point, but it took up far too much of my life.
I can still remember - very vividly - stopping my bicycle on a hill, aged 17, and marvelling at a feeling I couldn't recall ever having had before. I realised it was happiness and it felt so good. Sadly it didn't last and was followed by many years of misery and depression as I sought to work through those childhood years and find some sort of peace. I don't know whether we ever 'get there', whatever that might mean, but something I did learn was that we start afresh in every moment.
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Yes, the first part of life seems to be taken up to a large extent with striving of one sort or another and then in middle age there comes a looking back as well as forwards and with it, perhaps, a reconsideration of what it's all about and whether we're going anywhere but a wooden box. Then certain ideas often drop away, not so much I think as a result of letting go, which suggests an active relinquishment, but as a kind of wearing out. They just don't seem relevant any more. It may be one of the few compensations of old age.
One of the great joys I've found in Zen meditation, when faced with a particularly noxious koan, such as 'what is the purpose of my life?', is that I can say, I don't know and I don't care. This is my mini-liberation, and I don't care if any Zen big cheese likes it or not. We also work on 'What am I?', and again, I felt very satisfied to say, 'it doesn't matter what I am'.
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One of the great joys I've found in Zen meditation, when faced with a particularly noxious koan, such as 'what is the purpose of my life?', is that I can say, I don't know and I don't care. This is my mini-liberation, and I don't care if any Zen big cheese likes it or not. We also work on 'What am I?', and again, I felt very satisfied to say, 'it doesn't matter what I am'.
Yes, this I get. When I had my breakdown I had loads of therapy and came out of it with the realisation that everything I thought about who I was (largely based on what other people told me) was actually false. So I knew what I wasn't, but had no clue what I was.
And I still don't know. But does it matter? I'm this person that does this, and my purpose is to do this, until I don't and I'm not.
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I can still remember - very vividly - stopping my bicycle on a hill, aged 17, and marvelling at a feeling I couldn't recall ever having had before. I realised it was happiness and it felt so good. Sadly it didn't last and was followed by many years of misery and depression as I sought to work through those childhood years and find some sort of peace. I don't know whether we ever 'get there', whatever that might mean, but something I did learn was that we start afresh in every moment.
No, we don't get there, and nor would I want to. Always a journey, always being unmade and made.
The concept of starting afresh is an interesting one. There's nothing new about the person that looks through my eyes, yet the moment itself is new. So do I bring to it what I am or lose what I am? But then I e just said to Wiggs that I'm just this.
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Yes, this I get. When I had my breakdown I had loads of therapy and came out of it with the realisation that everything I thought about who I was (largely based on what other people told me) was actually false. So I knew what I wasn't, but had no clue what I was.
And I still don't know. But does it matter? I'm this person that does this, and my purpose is to do this, until I don't and I'm not.
Yes, I kind of broke down what I was, not via a breakdown, but through other means, and drilled down to some sort of base, which is not even being a person. But then I got bored with all the Zen stuff, and now I don't care really, and I don't know what I am, and if people try to define me, that's them getting their rocks off. And I'm not on a journey at all.
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Yes, I kind of broke down what I was, not via a breakdown, but through other means, and drilled down to some sort of base, which is not even being a person. But then I got bored with all the Zen stuff, and now I don't care really, and I don't know what I am, and if people try to define me, that's them getting their rocks off. And I'm not on a journey at all.
I haven't really done Zen stuff, but I'll live.
I like the journey metaphor simply because I don't want to have a destination.
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No Direction Home.
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Very nice post. I was at my meditation group last w/e, and we were talking about this - that when we were young, there was this fierce determination to achieve, which in the case of meditation, meant getting somewhere, that is not here!
Anywho, I have wandered the highways and byways about this for decades, and remembered Lenin's great question, 'what is to be done?', and I thought that there is nothing to be done. Of course, sometimes there is, just to be awkward. Ego and no ego.
What I find interesting in many of the (generality alert) spiritual teachings I've read both ancient and modern (the latter frequently based on the former, of course) is that the Great Work as it's called in occult circles or individuation (Jung) isn't about discovering something brand-new but rediscovery of something we already are but have forgotten - a clearing away rather than creation. This implies that working on oneself isn't about the creation or adoption of a new thing but cleaning the mirror, so to speak, in order to see what's actually there already. Which is a rather positive and optimistic view, I think.
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One of the great joys I've found in Zen meditation, when faced with a particularly noxious koan, such as 'what is the purpose of my life?', is that I can say, I don't know and I don't care. This is my mini-liberation, and I don't care if any Zen big cheese likes it or not. We also work on 'What am I?', and again, I felt very satisfied to say, 'it doesn't matter what I am'.
Obviously, if you were at all bothered by doing this Zen mularkey properly, in response to such questions you would have to respond with someting like, 'Rowntrees fruit pastilles', nod gently and smile very slightly but sagely for the full effect. I don't think you're taking the whole thing seriously at all.
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What I find interesting in many of the (generality alert) spiritual teachings I've read both ancient and modern (the latter frequently based on the former, of course) is that the Great Work as it's called in occult circles or individuation (Jung) isn't about discovering something brand-new but rediscovery of something we already are but have forgotten - a clearing away rather than creation. This implies that working on oneself isn't about the creation or adoption of a new thing but cleaning the mirror, so to speak, in order to see what's actually there already. Which is a rather positive and optimistic view, I think.
Well it's said we all come into the world ok and collect the shit that sticks as we grow. So it's a matter of clearing that away, layer by layer, to get back to the thing that is ok again. And that I think is a place of non-judgement.
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Yes, I kind of broke down what I was, not via a breakdown, but through other means, and drilled down to some sort of base, which is not even being a person. But then I got bored with all the Zen stuff, and now I don't care really, and I don't know what I am, and if people try to define me, that's them getting their rocks off. And I'm not on a journey at all.
Bodhidharma cut off his eyelids and spent nine years staring at a wall before concluding that he didn't know who he was. I think you got away lightly.
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I haven't really done Zen stuff, but I'll live.
I like the journey metaphor simply because I don't want to have a destination.
'Every day is a journey and the journey is home' (Basho)
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To be fair, if he'd cut off his eyelids he'd have spent nine years staring at absolutely anything.
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Well it's said we all come into the world ok and collect the shit that sticks as we grow. So it's a matter of clearing that away, layer by layer, to get back to the thing that is ok again. And that I think is a place of non-judgement.
We're all recycled shit. Love it.
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To be fair, if he'd cut off his eyelids he'd have spent nine years staring at absolutely anything.
Yes, one feels he may have come to regret this decision. But Buddhist literature is full of this kind of thing. My favourites are the stories about adepts who go green after living on nettles or pine needles.
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Yes, one feels he may have come to regret this decision. But Buddhist literature is full of this kind of thing. My favourites are the stories about adepts who go green after living on nettles or pine needles.
Living on Heinz tomato soup turns people orange. Think that mostly affects students rather than adepts though.
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It was Sunny Delight when I were a lad ...
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At the same time there's no point in arguing with reality - if you do, you lose.
But that is often the problem we can't always gauge what the true state of reality is at any moment of time which is why we often become stuck. It is only the process of getting ourselves free from our predicament that we can then look back and see what reality was when we got tripped up. More often than not we are behind the curve.
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The concept of starting afresh is an interesting one. There's nothing new about the person that looks through my eyes, yet the moment itself is new. So do I bring to it what I am or lose what I am? But then I e just said to Wiggs that I'm just this.
You gave the answer to this in your last post (or there abouts). Your breakdown etc. revealed that what you were told was you wasn't you. So the 'anew' is the shedding of the cultural background that put you in a given box and the stepping out to find yourself. This being like the waves on a shoreline, a gradual process that turns over and over making small steps forward.
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We're all recycled shit. Love it.
Well kind of.
Jung said that when we go 'fishing' we aim to catch the bad and rotten 'fish'.