Posted by jonvon on November 19, 2001 at 23:48:13:
In Reply to: Re: brain-checking as evolution posted by John on November 19, 2001 at 07:56:47:
: First of all, I engage in this sort of discussion because I enjoy it, but the strange thing with me is that it really doesn't have so much bearing on my actual treatment of people. What i'm getting at is that I would never judge someone (at least not consciously) on any of this, nor would I treat anyone with less respect for having a different opinion. The only thing is that political correctness doesn't allow for good discussion, we have to run with a line of thought and clash them until they break.
hm. i'm not sure exactly what you are getting at, but to clarify, my thoughts about all this don't have anything to do with political correctness. you mention below about wishing to be immersed in life experiences. i think that for me all things are kind of "integrated"; in some senses i am perpetually immersed. its a little hard to explain. i put quotes around the word because it is a very personal concept that i have slowly discovered over time, discovered in the self discovery sense. i'm a bit like bill in that i sort of see all things connected together. in a different way than bill though, bill seems to categorize things with a bit more conscious purpose. he makes actual drawings of things connected all together, he can tell you why this is connected to that and so forth. i do that too in certain areas, but mostly it is just everything is intertwined internally. in other words i see bill putting together these intricate mobiles of all these external objects, like the scientific names for fish and so forth. i do something that is somewhat analogous but in an internal, mostly unconscious sense. if i dig my toes into the sand i might feel something in the backs of my eyes. kinda sorta. i understand building models and prototypes; i do this sort of thing at work a lot. i tend not to do that though when it comes to discussions like these. as soon as we start getting into Point A, i am feeling it out in some cloudy matrix. out pops a thought or a feeling. as bill likes to say, something like this...
so anyway i'm not the best person to discuss these things in the framework of your medieval model (where is this derived from?). to me it is always integrated back into the real as i understand it. outside of this, these trains of thought end up going nowhere fast, at least for me. i don't mean to suggest that they wouldn't hold any value for anyone else. also for me lately there is another thing underlying my thoughts. the buddhists have a concept that says that anything that does not arise out of compassion does not exist. this is very interesting. i think of "and only these three remain, faith hope and love". so i tie a lot of stuff back into this as well. this is the piece that might feel like political correctness, maybe? unless i am misunderstanding you. if talking about things in the light of compassion is PC, then so be it, i'm a PC bigot. lately i have come to see compassion, or love, as ultimate reality. all things arising out of love exist. anything else is illusiory and impermanent. anger (unless it is truly a righteous anger) or hatred for instance arise out of illusion, or out of a perception that is flawed. there is a whole lot of good stuff underlying this but i don't have the wherewithall to go into it now. but anyway these concepts color my thoughts a lot lately.
: That way we can see what parts of it are true steel and which need to be scrapped. I learned this type of study in college. It's actually a medieval model and I really like it. It fits my head because I think critically and test everything rigorously. In this model, I have to know my stuff or the ideas will get ripped apart. If they do, great I go with the better set. The precondition though is that you have to spearate the argument from your daily life.
this is an interesting trick. i can do this with programming. i can make a drawing of an object model and decide what will fit with what, how can i most efficiently reuse code, how can i meet the project requirements and so forth. and then i get into the programming and inevitably the model is refined and usually gets more streamlined. or sometimes i've forgotten a really big piece of it and have to change a whole bunch of stuff. when it comes to philosophical ideas i can do this too, to some degree, although i'm not really all that big on philosophy per se. but when i am talking about things that have to do with god i am in the realm of poetry. in a way nonsense is almost better than rational thought. i have learned in the context of the creative process to listen in a different way; it isn't about extrapolating ideas into an artificiality, it is about sinking them into a river that i feel is alive. if i can feel them living in the stream, wriggling in my hands, i know they are true. if they lie dead in my hands then i know i have gotten hold of the wrong thing and i will keep listening until i hear the thing that makes me want to sing. i will let the dead thing go and i will not think of it again. kinda thing.
: Secondly the only reason I stuck with Catholics was that you chose to you them as the example a couple of posts ago. I just stuck with it. Originally I mentioned that I feel the same way about any religious institution, and that as far as institutions go, I think Rome does it pretty well. A whole lot better than the greater number of protestant groups. But as you mentioned in regard to Catholics, I don't like to argue about the other groups because they are SO wack it is pointless and they don't have the weight of history to support them like the Catholic church. I mean anyone can go get an idea and start an organization, so most of those groups don't even really qualify for me.
totally cool, i wasn't offended or anything even a little bit. i also was using them as an example and stuck with them since we had started there.
: I don't think I really have to tell you any of this, I'm really just clarifying for anyone who has hung onto this thread that long, and for the record.
groove pants.
: : ok, so YOU seem to be stating this from the viewpoint of the church, perhaps as an "elder" or something.
: I didn't really get this. I just coming from the perspective of one who knows enough to argue it as opposed to one who is too new to the faith. I guess i presume that everyone who grows in the faith eventually ends up concerned for others who are less secure. Like a child grows and becomes a parent. "Elders" and whatnot have nothing to do with it in my mind.
i was trying to separate out the threads in what we were saying. i think we were getting to the same ideas but coming from very different perspectives. i used to think a lot more like you seem to be thinking but now i think otherwise. i don't think a lot of my friends have really gone where i have gone with some of this. i'm probably an outlier, maybe, on the bell curve. at least i don't hear a lot of other people saying the things that roll around in my head.
it might be that i have swung too far to the other side of that whole "concern for others" thing. live and let live is what i say. also i really DON'T feel concerned for others who are less secure. i have no idea what less secure means. how do you define that for someone else? i tend to take a darwinian "survival of the fittest" stance on this, or a stance that perhaps relies too heavily on fate. i figure if someone wants to become involved in a life of faith it is god drawing that person (as you mentioned earlier). i might pray for someone or even talk to someone about something if it feels right to do it. i'm open to being a part of the drawing,so to speak, but i'm wary of it. i've seen a lot of abuse in the name of "god's will". i choose to give respect to everyone as much as i can.
: : this is where we kind of fundamentally depart (in a way) because i just don't think about whether someone else is dependant on rules of thumb rather than what i understand to be deeper truth or if someone else isn't willing to grow past something or isn't trying hard enough or whatever.
: I understand, but here I was falling a little into the personal realm
yeah, i kinda figured. i sort of saw you trying to make statements that were "in the test tube" but then i saw you making "personal" statements as well, or statements that were connected to some experience.
: because I have seen people that no matter how many times you tell them, "if you do A again, B (which is bad) will happen again." This is just basic logical cause and effect (which I know goes out the window in emotional situations) After you have coddled and nursed a person over and over again, eventually you get burnt out
sorry to cut in on your thought mid stream again... this is actually part of the impetus for the stance i have taken, namely burn out. man i did all that stuff for years. i wonder what it really netted anyone in the end. if there is some invisible shining reward somewhere, i don't know about it. as you say, everyone has a certain existential responsibility. i say this too, and i say that there is also fate and divine purpose. these forces all conspire together in everyone's life to propel them onward. we are all doing the best we can, even though it might not seem like it to someone else.
: and you have to assume that the person is fully aware of what they are doing and only seeking sympathy, or else they are so deluded they need far greater help than you can provide. (now to anyone reading this don't assume I'm talking about you because I can tell you right now, I'm not) Like Steve's story of the crisis line and the guy who calls for prayer that he won't sleep with his girlfriend again even though he's going to her house alone at night to "study", you just have to say, "you know what? There's no easy answer, either you learn to rely on God and start growing or you continue to hurt yourself, because you can't use the rules as excuses anymore."
: Obviously this kind of person uses the rules of thumb as props, "I called for prayer, I tried, I guess I just can't do it." (said with saccharin innocence) This is either classic Sartrian self deception, or pure stupidity. And I have trouble tolerating that, a flaw I know, but honestly not one I'm too concerned with.
i just can't even begin to understand why you would put yourself through it. you mention below about not wanting to play around with futility. i can't think of anything more futile than having the kind of conversations you describe. your business though...
: : if you are going to do something (and i'm not suggesting you should or you even want to but if you do that is very cool) you are going to have to be less cynical about people. love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. it at least helps if you believe in the sanctity of the fallow ground of the human heart, if you can see the kingdom of god as the mustard seed that eventually grows into a large tree. without hope you are left only with existential duty and possibly a deep despair.
: I know hopelessness well. That's my homeland. As far as cynicism goes, I think of it more as realism. I know I'm young, but I've had my time of being the idealistic dreamer, actually more than once, and every time it gets shot out of the sky, ususally with a small caliber rifle requiring many wounding shots before the thing finally plummets. I get real tired of peddling the thing as it heads for the ground. That's where "Ishmael" comes in. Excellent book, it's like the red pill man. It sent me down the rabbit hole and Kansas went bye-bye. Seriously, it sounds harsh, but I'll jump ship on anything that isn't profitable. ...No, it's more, I actively try to shoot holes in them now! Ask Bill, he knows about me and this stuff. See the reasoning is this. We're all blinded by the paradigms that work into us. And there are so many layers of falsehood that we can concievably never get out of them. But God's truth glimmers through all of them however faint it may be. So the best way to move out of these paradigms that we can't see is to take pot shots at them. Try our best to tear them apart. Because afterall truth can't be destroyed. So if we blow up every world we enter and head toward the glimmer, it should continue to get brighter. Eventually all that will be left is glimmer! Then add as a corrollary the Instrumentality thinking I've mentioned, which allows one to grab hold of everything in search for truth, shake in the mystics, and you pretty much have me philosophically, at least the short version. I guess it's pretty aggressive, but like I said, I don't like to play around with futility.
: So to bring it back, if I look cynical it may be, but the truth is many people just blink and stare when I talk like this, and I'm tired of trying to drag them along. So this is my personal quest, and anyone is welcome to come along side, but for God's sake do your homework and keep the hell up!
: Okay, so really people are just going to do what they want to do anyway. And everyone has to follow their own path. God will reach everyone in their own way and my standards don't apply to anyone else but me. I'm not God and it's a good thing it isn't my job to make sure people advance. I sound cynical not because I am bitter, but because I want to move so fast that others often appear to stand still. I want to tear and shake and rattle, sniff, taste, feel and experience until i get the truth, but many just want to inspect gently and wait on it to reveal. One flaw in my way is that I often run headlong against the chain after some glimmer only to find myself snatched off my feet like a dog when the leash runs out. Even though the leash is for my own good. But the best part is that it is ever evolving and changing as i learn. I'm learning to trust God more, to not strain on the leash so hard. I'm learning to wait for the ball to be thrown before I jump after it.
: I'd love to talk about this more. Did you ever get to read my Wilderness Essays?
nope, where do i find them?
: There's alot of this in there. And the Evangelion thing. I think it's a characteristic of natural/ environmental philosophy to be so experience oriented and immersive. I think it's probably the least academic of all philosophical pursuits. If i was going to "do anything" as you suggested, I'd prefer to just take people into extreme situations where what they knew didn't apply and they weren't in control. There they'd be able to watch the real majik of the world unfold and begin to see differently. Of course we could talk about it afterward, but we probably wouldn't have to. I did finally find one person who understood this kind of thing since I got out of college and we hiked a swamp by compass. It was awesome. I'd seriously do that kind of thing with anyone anytime.
this reminds me a bit of tantra. tantric saints seek enlightenment via experience. which is a foreign concept (at least in some senses) to the mystical model we are generally presented with in christianity. certainly our monks are seeking an experience, but it is an experience in which the instruments used in tantra (sex, alcohol, spicy food, whatever) are eliminated as completely as possible so that another kind of experience can take place. i'm not saying you are trying to be a tantric saint by any means, i just dig thinking about the similarities between things here and there.
i would be way into anything like that at all. maybe when roan gets older...