(Note: there are about 30 posts absent from this miror blog site, these posts can be found here.)
I have been talking about how motivation as a matter of value and worth, how desire and passion as a matter of 'individual will', are indicative of our common and individual humanity at some essential and meaningful level so that I may ultimately shed some light on (my) interior darkness and (my lack of) heroism.
Throughout most of my life I have found very little to be of 'lasting value and worth', consequently I've always been very uninterested and unmotivated compared to other people. Even now, I don't watch television or film (or movies), I don't 'entertain', drink or smoke, have a hobby, garden, collect anything, or even have any 'friends' most people might consider worthy of the name. In college, my professors believed I was good at understanding the necessary shadings of difference that make a good student when I applied myself. But that was the problem, so very little struck me as of lasting significance, value or worth that I spent most of my time shunning education and even most forms of 'fun' in favor of searching for something 'better' and more fulfilling. If I managed decent grades on strength of good memory and sheer cleverness, I was never a very good student, and today, though I am not 'searching' as diligently as I once was or even for the same sorts of things, in some ways my 'persistent perpetual dissatisfaction' now finds even less to be of lasting significance or importance than ever before.
And such a maximizing 'search' has its price; as my wife often remarks, I don’t seem to enjoy life very much and worse, my abiding lack of interest in nearly everything has been often (mis)perceived as an evaluative and reductive dismissal, earning me something of a reputation for being arrogant. And to some extent, I think both assessments are correct. I've said before I think of myself as a differentialist, seeing difference and similarity everywhere, but I suspect it's precisely such constant analysis that leaves me with a somewhat dark attitude about living and enjoying the activities of life. By taking and enjoying so little of life at face value, I find much of life little of value.
~
In my defense, I do point out that I do enjoy reading and writing, that a good bit of my reading and writing is quite life affirming – but of course some of it is really a continuation of my 'negative differentialist search'. Differentiation inevitably has its shortcomings, but in the course of separating life affirming analysis from the more nihilistic that I discovered how such negativity is detrimental – even in a life affirming relationship.
I also enjoy my 'occupation' and truly feel being my wife's partner, homemaker and stay at home father is my 'avocation', my 'calling in life', so unsurprisingly there are a great many things about 'doing what I'm doing' that make me deeply happy and satisfied (whether I am good at them or not). But I've been trying (as possibly many uxorious men do) to use the 'powerotic' passion I have for my wife to get me motivated to do things I wouldn't otherwise have the motivation to do, but the 'bait and switch' tactic of trying to get my wife to demand that I do things I don't want to do (ostensibly so she'll be happy) violates some pretty basic realities of an honest, intimate love symbol negotiation.
And this is what I meant about true heroism: I may be happy now merely to be on the path I'm on and 'doing what I'm doing', but in order to have the most happiness I can have in life, I'm eventually going to need to do something about this darkness. But my darkness, my shadow self, can only ever be faced down and conquered by me. My wife will help me of course because she loves me, but she can't, powerotically or otherwise, do it for me. If I'm ever going to manage my own idea, hope and standard of 'standing tall', one less selfish, lazy, uncaring, unsympathetic, unmotivated and nihilistic, then I've got to be brave and be my own hero.
Showing posts with label Life Purpose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life Purpose. Show all posts
June 6, 2010
March 11, 2010
Being Better from the Inside
In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus suggests love is great because it makes you want to be a better person; his idea doesn't fare well philosophically. Even today, common wisdom has it that you can't make your life or your self better for anyone else's sake besides your own self's sake; you have to (consistently) want to be better at whatever it is before any lasting permanent change will take hold. I think I agree with this and today I think I noticed the difference between her sake and self sake.
On one hand, I think it can sometimes be difficult to sort out whose wants are who's in a relationship, often enough they overlap. Many times the betterment and standard I want for myself but have a hard time implementing I do eventually accomplish because I know it is also her standard too and the betterment she wants for me as well.
Of course on the other hand, there are those occasions when I am trying to accomplish something almost entirely for her sake; I might think this something is a good idea of itself or fine for other people, it's just not something I would choose for myself. And unsurprisingly these are the occasions I suffer from a serious lack of motivation; I'll procrastinate, and rush the process at the last minute, quite naturally doing a qualitatively shoddy job of it. And of course this inevitably comes back to haunt me (see love symbol negotiation).
However, today I felt and noticed a difference; I started a project for her earlier than the utmost procrastination might have allowed me and I did a decent job of it. I think the difference was I that wasn't doing it solely for her sake. Oh, I was using her qualitative standards for the project (mostly), but my motivation was that I really wanted to be better at being a house husband; her house husband of course, but more as a matter of incident. This is a job I really like and I just really wanted to be better it.
The 'job' description happens to include some qualitative standards set by my beloved wife, and indeed, I rather still think most of the point behind my house husband 'job' (role expectations) is to help her to her happiness (falls under the rubric of life lesson two, see also love's interior meaning for importance of motivation for life lesson two). But within this new (female led) motivation (on my interior) in wanting to be a better partner for her (better 'fit' like glove) is a practical daily life application that I didn't have, or even see, before. (See here for female led motivation she understands.)
When do my best to help her to happiness, I realized it was perfectly all right if she weren't happy in the final outcome - because while she sets many of the standards and the outcome of her happiness is the goal of the process, helping her as much as I am able to help is my goal, and if I only do this, I can be happy with me.
On one hand, I think it can sometimes be difficult to sort out whose wants are who's in a relationship, often enough they overlap. Many times the betterment and standard I want for myself but have a hard time implementing I do eventually accomplish because I know it is also her standard too and the betterment she wants for me as well.
Of course on the other hand, there are those occasions when I am trying to accomplish something almost entirely for her sake; I might think this something is a good idea of itself or fine for other people, it's just not something I would choose for myself. And unsurprisingly these are the occasions I suffer from a serious lack of motivation; I'll procrastinate, and rush the process at the last minute, quite naturally doing a qualitatively shoddy job of it. And of course this inevitably comes back to haunt me (see love symbol negotiation).
However, today I felt and noticed a difference; I started a project for her earlier than the utmost procrastination might have allowed me and I did a decent job of it. I think the difference was I that wasn't doing it solely for her sake. Oh, I was using her qualitative standards for the project (mostly), but my motivation was that I really wanted to be better at being a house husband; her house husband of course, but more as a matter of incident. This is a job I really like and I just really wanted to be better it.
The 'job' description happens to include some qualitative standards set by my beloved wife, and indeed, I rather still think most of the point behind my house husband 'job' (role expectations) is to help her to her happiness (falls under the rubric of life lesson two, see also love's interior meaning for importance of motivation for life lesson two). But within this new (female led) motivation (on my interior) in wanting to be a better partner for her (better 'fit' like glove) is a practical daily life application that I didn't have, or even see, before. (See here for female led motivation she understands.)
When do my best to help her to happiness, I realized it was perfectly all right if she weren't happy in the final outcome - because while she sets many of the standards and the outcome of her happiness is the goal of the process, helping her as much as I am able to help is my goal, and if I only do this, I can be happy with me.
March 3, 2010
Meaning Part 1: Play, Flow, Focus and Awareness
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players… ~Shakespeare
Not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game. ~Grantland Rice
Life's a game. ~Common saying
I've already discussed how no one likes to feel as if they are playing a role in a relationship, but if life's a game in which we play for the high stakes of meaning and significance, then we're all playing a kind of 'role' already. It might then be more accurate to say we just don't like conscious awareness of playing a role in a relationship, because taking two roles on at once easily results in tension, stress, anxiety, conflicts of interest and other assorted dissonance. And if our 'primary role' is about life meaning and purpose, while the 'relationship role' is about relationship meaning and purpose, surely our primary role will have precedence as a matter of course, but the harmony of these two creates a happiness unparalleled in the game of life.
As a metaphor, as a symbol for incorporated conscious experience, the idea of life being a game reminds me of the ancient Greek concept of happiness as eudaimonia, 'living well' or 'being equal to the task', of Friedrich Schiller's idea of 'play' and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of 'flow', but with the added variables of meaning, focus and awareness of experience.
'Flow', that moment of 'optimal experience', is probably most recognizable as a moment of complete focus on doing something; athletes experience it in sports, but so do chess players, artists, martial artists and musicians. Flow is being wholly 'in the moment', 'being on the ball', 'in the zone', 'in the groove', and 'keeping your head in the game'. It's the moment when the task is so complex, takes so much skill and is so challenging, that not only can the relative importance of 'winning' or 'losing' be forgotten, because it is irrelevant towards getting the task done, but also the awareness of the task being 'just a game' can be forgotten.
In a very real sense 'flow' is the experiential awareness equivalent of the 'suspension of disbelief' in storytelling. And raising the curtain of awareness on our interior focus can be ruinous for the task, because the task is so demanding even the least bit of focus it takes to say "I'm doing, I'm doing it!" distracts us, and suddenly we are not doing it.
Yet as readers, athletes, artists, and as humans frankly, we seek out this mode of consciousness intentionally because we know it's the one that can get done what 'needs' to get done within the 'given rules' of the task. And this is what reminds me of Schiller's concept of play, a bridge between the 'formal drive' and the 'sensual drive', between human need for limitations, definitions, rules, forms and regulations on one hand, and on the other hand the humanity's boundless creative energy, imagination, spirit and soul. Children at play understand the need for rules, but they also will easily ignore the rules when they get in the way of their creativity, their imagination, and the 'flow' experience of 'fun'. However if 'play' is a 'perfect balance' of form and spirit that results in the intensely focused, time and awareness losing, happy and 'playful' 'flow' of existence, it is extremely difficult to stay in this moment very long.
The ancient Greeks (and some eastern philosophies), however, maintained more conscious awareness; the Greek eudaimonia; 'living well' was living all of their life (not just a task or game, a few moments, here and there) in a manner equal to their individual humanity. Eudaimonia is being 'all that you can be' at whatever it is that you are, with all the virtue you possess. Thus not just those few moments of flow are required to 'live well', but the athlete (for example) must both in and out of the game and at all times strives to be the best athlete he can be, with all the goodness of humanity the athlete possesses.
The positive effect of a good game off the field has been well noted, but in addition I think one needs a certain amount of mental reflective space to appreciate an experience's meaning and significance. For instance, in longer term games and projects we may have shorter bursts of flow but not continuously, yet in a long term task it is precisely these reflective moments when we assess how we are doing that we feel retrospectively 'equal to the task' and feel happiest. In a long term project perfect 'flow happiness' is harder to achieve because the task has more variables to consider and reflect upon in order to evaluate how well one is doing. Thus creating a balanced awareness of how well we are doing is important, an awareness that does not detract from our focus but achieves adequate 'mental reflective happiness'.
Not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game. ~Grantland Rice
Life's a game. ~Common saying
I've already discussed how no one likes to feel as if they are playing a role in a relationship, but if life's a game in which we play for the high stakes of meaning and significance, then we're all playing a kind of 'role' already. It might then be more accurate to say we just don't like conscious awareness of playing a role in a relationship, because taking two roles on at once easily results in tension, stress, anxiety, conflicts of interest and other assorted dissonance. And if our 'primary role' is about life meaning and purpose, while the 'relationship role' is about relationship meaning and purpose, surely our primary role will have precedence as a matter of course, but the harmony of these two creates a happiness unparalleled in the game of life.
As a metaphor, as a symbol for incorporated conscious experience, the idea of life being a game reminds me of the ancient Greek concept of happiness as eudaimonia, 'living well' or 'being equal to the task', of Friedrich Schiller's idea of 'play' and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of 'flow', but with the added variables of meaning, focus and awareness of experience.
'Flow', that moment of 'optimal experience', is probably most recognizable as a moment of complete focus on doing something; athletes experience it in sports, but so do chess players, artists, martial artists and musicians. Flow is being wholly 'in the moment', 'being on the ball', 'in the zone', 'in the groove', and 'keeping your head in the game'. It's the moment when the task is so complex, takes so much skill and is so challenging, that not only can the relative importance of 'winning' or 'losing' be forgotten, because it is irrelevant towards getting the task done, but also the awareness of the task being 'just a game' can be forgotten.
In a very real sense 'flow' is the experiential awareness equivalent of the 'suspension of disbelief' in storytelling. And raising the curtain of awareness on our interior focus can be ruinous for the task, because the task is so demanding even the least bit of focus it takes to say "I'm doing, I'm doing it!" distracts us, and suddenly we are not doing it.
Yet as readers, athletes, artists, and as humans frankly, we seek out this mode of consciousness intentionally because we know it's the one that can get done what 'needs' to get done within the 'given rules' of the task. And this is what reminds me of Schiller's concept of play, a bridge between the 'formal drive' and the 'sensual drive', between human need for limitations, definitions, rules, forms and regulations on one hand, and on the other hand the humanity's boundless creative energy, imagination, spirit and soul. Children at play understand the need for rules, but they also will easily ignore the rules when they get in the way of their creativity, their imagination, and the 'flow' experience of 'fun'. However if 'play' is a 'perfect balance' of form and spirit that results in the intensely focused, time and awareness losing, happy and 'playful' 'flow' of existence, it is extremely difficult to stay in this moment very long.
The ancient Greeks (and some eastern philosophies), however, maintained more conscious awareness; the Greek eudaimonia; 'living well' was living all of their life (not just a task or game, a few moments, here and there) in a manner equal to their individual humanity. Eudaimonia is being 'all that you can be' at whatever it is that you are, with all the virtue you possess. Thus not just those few moments of flow are required to 'live well', but the athlete (for example) must both in and out of the game and at all times strives to be the best athlete he can be, with all the goodness of humanity the athlete possesses.
The positive effect of a good game off the field has been well noted, but in addition I think one needs a certain amount of mental reflective space to appreciate an experience's meaning and significance. For instance, in longer term games and projects we may have shorter bursts of flow but not continuously, yet in a long term task it is precisely these reflective moments when we assess how we are doing that we feel retrospectively 'equal to the task' and feel happiest. In a long term project perfect 'flow happiness' is harder to achieve because the task has more variables to consider and reflect upon in order to evaluate how well one is doing. Thus creating a balanced awareness of how well we are doing is important, an awareness that does not detract from our focus but achieves adequate 'mental reflective happiness'.
February 16, 2010
Perhaps the Origin Doesn't Make the Species
I stopped caring very much about human origins years ago but couldn't explain to people (who obviously did care) exactly why I didn't care anymore, but now I think I can explain. It seems to me many people are preoccupied with the meaning and significance of 'how' we got to have the human experiences we have, and the idea that the origin of humanity might somehow help explain the purpose of humanity is perfectly understandable. So whether it was evolution, or a divinity (or divinities), or aliens, or some other process or some combination of processes, 'what separates us from the (other) animals' is usually part of a body of evidence either supporting or detracting from one or another of these theories.
Yes, it makes sense; except I don't think I really associate my human origin with my human purpose so much. The fact is (right now) our human origin is not a knowable thing (with any degree of acceptable certainty [to me]) while the facts of my experience are knowable things, and I feel very confident in the interactive nature of my physical body with my consciousness.
So if our 'human' consciousness, or what ever it is that separates us from (other) animal species, is an emergent phenomena from the sheer complexity of biology, genetics and evolution (as the scientist in this video seems to suggest), then that's all well and good (I'll honestly be an automatic fan of anything that 'makes me human'), but now I have these meaningful numinous (spiritual, religious) experiences that seem far more significant than the purpose (or lack of purpose) my evolutionary origin can satisfy.
While evolutionary theory can explain 'how' we came to have (some) experiences of meaning we have, it can't meaningfully explain 'why' as in purpose (unless the answer is 'no reason' - which [with apologies to Existentialism] is not meaningful ) without resorting to some sort of scientism. Unfortunately scientistic, evolutionary-biologic explanations of my experiences simply do not reference enough important pieces of my puzzle interior to have satisfactory explanatory power over the human biological meaning matrix.
What I recently realized is that the most meaningful piece for my interior purpose (and motivation) isn't what separates 'humans' (or human experience) from anything else (period), but rather what has the most explanatory power over what I experience as a human, over what I already have on my (human) interior framework. And one thing I already have there are some powerful experiences of meaning and significance that have now become a part of the order of my (human) existence.
On the other hand I am not arguing for 'divinely given purpose' for humanity either, for if I owe my origin to a divinity (or divinities) who claim a purpose for me then I have some faith the divinity would want my experiences (including experiences of and through my biology) to reveal the good purpose(s) the divinity has for me. And while I have been religious in the past, I haven't quite arrived at a divinely inspired personal purpose for my (human) life yet.
Thus, despite all the posible causal permutations and variations of human origination, it seems to me my experience always has primacy over my origin - at least as far as meaning is concerned.
Yes, it makes sense; except I don't think I really associate my human origin with my human purpose so much. The fact is (right now) our human origin is not a knowable thing (with any degree of acceptable certainty [to me]) while the facts of my experience are knowable things, and I feel very confident in the interactive nature of my physical body with my consciousness.
So if our 'human' consciousness, or what ever it is that separates us from (other) animal species, is an emergent phenomena from the sheer complexity of biology, genetics and evolution (as the scientist in this video seems to suggest), then that's all well and good (I'll honestly be an automatic fan of anything that 'makes me human'), but now I have these meaningful numinous (spiritual, religious) experiences that seem far more significant than the purpose (or lack of purpose) my evolutionary origin can satisfy.
While evolutionary theory can explain 'how' we came to have (some) experiences of meaning we have, it can't meaningfully explain 'why' as in purpose (unless the answer is 'no reason' - which [with apologies to Existentialism] is not meaningful ) without resorting to some sort of scientism. Unfortunately scientistic, evolutionary-biologic explanations of my experiences simply do not reference enough important pieces of my puzzle interior to have satisfactory explanatory power over the human biological meaning matrix.
What I recently realized is that the most meaningful piece for my interior purpose (and motivation) isn't what separates 'humans' (or human experience) from anything else (period), but rather what has the most explanatory power over what I experience as a human, over what I already have on my (human) interior framework. And one thing I already have there are some powerful experiences of meaning and significance that have now become a part of the order of my (human) existence.
On the other hand I am not arguing for 'divinely given purpose' for humanity either, for if I owe my origin to a divinity (or divinities) who claim a purpose for me then I have some faith the divinity would want my experiences (including experiences of and through my biology) to reveal the good purpose(s) the divinity has for me. And while I have been religious in the past, I haven't quite arrived at a divinely inspired personal purpose for my (human) life yet.
Thus, despite all the posible causal permutations and variations of human origination, it seems to me my experience always has primacy over my origin - at least as far as meaning is concerned.
December 21, 2009
Functions of Guilt
So I end up wondering if certain stories, certain fantasies, appeal to me, are more true than others to me, precisely because I like to make my wife happy so much. I like it when she is happy, better when she is actively making her self happy, best when she demands I be a specific part of her personal happiness process. I feel as if being her personal 'Spousal Happiness Facilitator' is my career, my calling, my vocation. But what such stories of human experience are only appealing because of a simple lack of self esteem?
While she has made me so happy, happy with having her as my wife and partner in life, perhaps I feel if she does not reciprocally derive equal happiness from having me as her spouse, then I must be doing something wrong. Sure people are different and different things make them happy, but perhaps the whole female led malarkey is only a function of guilt and poor self confidence.
In the character comparative with my wife, I might just feel guilty such a great personality has given up so much (any) of her self, her goals, her dreams for me. Guilt drives me to do anything for her in an attempt to work off my debt of sin against her, to somehow obtain her forgiveness, perhaps to somehow prove to her that such a trade off wasn't so bad, that gaining all my love and all the things I'll do for her somehow show that her sacrifices were well worth while.
And of course if it works, if I can make her happy this way, participate in her happiness this way, and she becomes at least happier, well then, I will have been worth while, I will (therefore) have worth, and my self esteem (therefore) will increase, despite the perfect cycle of dependency.
While she has made me so happy, happy with having her as my wife and partner in life, perhaps I feel if she does not reciprocally derive equal happiness from having me as her spouse, then I must be doing something wrong. Sure people are different and different things make them happy, but perhaps the whole female led malarkey is only a function of guilt and poor self confidence.
In the character comparative with my wife, I might just feel guilty such a great personality has given up so much (any) of her self, her goals, her dreams for me. Guilt drives me to do anything for her in an attempt to work off my debt of sin against her, to somehow obtain her forgiveness, perhaps to somehow prove to her that such a trade off wasn't so bad, that gaining all my love and all the things I'll do for her somehow show that her sacrifices were well worth while.
And of course if it works, if I can make her happy this way, participate in her happiness this way, and she becomes at least happier, well then, I will have been worth while, I will (therefore) have worth, and my self esteem (therefore) will increase, despite the perfect cycle of dependency.
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