So long as we are creatures of flesh, personal morality will always begin in the body.
We are fools if we think we can regulate our behaviour off of abstract moral principles and convictions alone. Every person has a duty to themself to appease their own bodily and basal needs first and foremost. Then only can one find the peace and equanimity to be moral in the more refined sense of the word.
One needs two minds to both understand the world and live well in it. For the more you learn about the world, the less enchanted you become. But to live well in it, it is requisite that you see every truth and meet every occurrence as if it were a gift from God himself.
And I think that is the purpose and necessity of art in all its forms. It renders an aesthetic unto the world so as to make it palatable to the human sensitivity. And so where there is the biological crudeness of reproduction, there is also love. And where there is slaughter, there is also sacrifice and legacy. And so we have embellished every harsh reality and sublimated it in our works of art.
Art lets us cope.
I've stopped identifying myself as just this parcel of flesh and blood. Each person is more of a wave in a trajectory of waves. Each person is but one in a lineage of persons. So what use is there to compare myself to another? Am I really going to compare myself to millions of years of evolution culminating in that person right there? Who is to say where my lineage may end up another million years from now? So no point in comparing.
For any healthy individual with a good shot at life, the best value to live by is this:
"Savour life, and do what you can to make life easier for the people around you."
Because life is fleeting. And we live on in the people around us. So enjoy the good meals. Enjoy the hot showers. Enjoy being able to breathe without pain. Savour the fuck out of it. And the justification, if you ever need one for enjoying and savouring your own life, is that you help other people when you can.
A pernicious idea in the west is this idea of the solitary individual, hustling, chasing after a vision or a passion with insane drive at the expense of all else. Creative expression is a necessary part of life for most people, yes. But this idea of solitary success needs to go. Life is so much easier when people work together.
Unfortunately the idea of solitary success is all the more pernicious because it is very feasible. Especially in this age with social media as an easy platform for any person anywhere to make a name for themself. But this feasibility is only because social media is such a novel platform. It just isn't sustainable for everyone to try and make themselves heard without anything important to say.
The real value of social media is that anyone, anywhere, can showcase their talent, experience, or message and share it to the whole world instantly. So cultivate that talent. Experience life and share it. Speak your message. Revel in creative expression. But don't chase success at the expense of all else. Do your duty to yourself and to the people around you. And then in your spare time, create.
I've realized that logic is not the primary means of discerning truth that we assume it is.
Take private logic for example:
When a dog gets hit by a car, it will avoid that particular spot for a long time.
And what humans do is not so much more sensible. Early on enough in childhood if a person gets it into their head that success is no longer a possibility, they will withdraw from the world completely and relegate their living to the safety of underachievement.
And from a stance of pure logic, how could you blame either the dog or the human? And how would you even go about correcting their thinking?
I've realized a far better way of discerning truth is looking at where it stems from. So if you know that pampered children tend to exhibit such withdrawals from the world and from challenges, no matter how convincing the private logic, you can convince them of their foolishness by showing them similar examples. Or if you wanted to understand how to be moral, you would be better served examining the lives of virtuous people, the source of morality, than examining abstract moral principles or performing the calculations of utilitarianism.
And you could argue that the two examples I used were a straw-man argument capturing logic at its worst. Sure.
But the problem is that the individual is a microcosm of society. And the neurosis of an individual becomes a collective neurosis when enough people are afflicted. And as a society we often operate under a collective neurosis; take for example racism or Social Darwinism.
We don't realize that when a whole society operates under a 'private logic,' it isn't so easy to snap out of it and rebel. Because that logic is so compelling. And the only defence we have against the 'private logic' of a whole society is to study the social milieu that gives rise to such thinking and recognize the conditions should they spring up again.
The truth cannot always be grasped logically.
I've realized that instead of arguing with other people, it's best to put in the effort to understand what they are saying, ask questions to flesh out their ideas, and then present your own stance elsewhere at another time.
I don't believe in cutting down another's position. Nor do I believe in countering it with your own position.
I think the best way is to ask questions, with genuine curiosity and concern, and that way there is a better chance of both parties coming away with a greater understanding of whatever is being discussed. And in answering your questions, the other person may realize that they don't, in fact, have the answers.
And I believe it best to not counter another's position because there are too many dissenting voices in this world already. Imagine trying to argue with all the people who disagree with you on even one social media platform.
It is best to just present your own position at another time, elsewhere. And live that truth. When you present your own position instead of countering someone else's, you are more vested in it, and so you will be sure to present your genuine ideas instead of some devil's advocate position or being facetious.
Lastly, arguing often becomes a pissing contest because humans are territorial creatures, and our ideas hold the same importance to us as our property. When someone is arguing with your idea, your first reaction is usually to defend it with all the fire you would use to defend your own person and property. Only after the argument is over and both parties have, more often than not, made fools of themselves, do you realize that perhaps the other person did make some good points. And so it is better to create some delay between entertaining another's ideas and responding with your own.
An angel in my life asked me if I remembered ever reading those 'pick-your-own-adventure' books as a kid. I said yes. And then she told me, that in a sense, that's what all of us are really doing.
No one has any idea of the final picture or final estimation of things. Only God knows the final picture. Who knows where any of us could end up?
She told me of a news story not too long ago of a guy who had fallen off a balcony on his job because he went up without a safety harness and because he chose to wear a hoodie that day. And that was her point, that even our choice of clothing can factor into a drastic life direction.
See, the common orientation to reality in our privileged society is all this law of attraction shit. And it works. No doubt it works.
But the fact that the law of attraction shit works is not so much a testament to it's power but to the predictability and safety of our society.
The fact that you can have a goal, and work hard towards it and, more often than not, achieve it, is a testament to the robust society we live in where we don't have to worry about shit like getting murdered, robbed, falling off a balcony, getting eaten by an animal, getting hit by a car, ending up in jail, and so on.
But ultimately, even this goal oriented approach is not a very resilient one.
Because sometimes you can fall through the cracks. And end up in a really fucked up situation where nothing is sure anymore, not even your next meal or your livelihood.
And that's where the 'pick-your-own-adventure' orientation to life is wickedly empowering. Because you let go of the outcomes of your actions and let go of any pretence at controlling them. The best you have is to make each decision in front of you in such a way that it makes the most of your abilities, values and passion. I mean if you're going to live out any adventure and face the uncertain outcomes of your action right now, why not make a choice that makes it more likely that you'll live out the consequences on your own terms?
So pick an adventure. And to hell with the outcome.
Intentions are more important than any actions or words when it comes to abiding with loved ones. Recognize that they are coming from a loving place. And forgive them when they push your buttons. Because they really are a blessing. And they are not perfect. Neither are you. So dig your feet into the ground, feel your body clench, feel the bodily manifestations of the frustration building up inside you, and just observe all this take place. Let the event transpire. And then go channel that energy elsewhere, like the gym. It was just a momentary frustration.
What we have always sought for is not the meaning of life, but how to live it.
There is a tacit agreement you make with your God every time you take a breath: it's that life is worth living; it's that you accept this vessel you are born into, which offers a unique vantage point from which to take in the experience of life; it's that, instead of rejecting your existence, you will take up your play in the world with all the seriousness befitting the miracle you are.
And I will say this again:
The essence of life is to savour it while doing what you can to make life easier for the people around you. All else is vanity.
It's a balance between "I matter" and "you matter."
At first you will struggle to find this balance; I know I do. But I think the better you get at living, the more you can interlace the two,
to the point that everything you do is in the service of others,
but you savour every breath, every meal, every warm shower, every intimate encounter,
till it becomes a joy just to exist at all,
and it becomes blissful just to be doing anything,
and it just so happens that you are helping people around you with your actions.
There are, of course, some secondary concerns once you have accepted that the way to live life is to "savour it and do what you can to make life easier for the people around you."
The main one is that, afforded the chance, you should, of course, live in such a way that you make the most of your abilities, natural talents, and passion. You can, no doubt, be far more effective, exude far more good-feeling, and do far more good in the world as a result of tailoring your mode of being in the world to your unique talents, abilities and passion.
The other concern is that most if not all of us are maladjusted to life in some way or another: most of us have thinking distortions, past traumas, and defects of character. And so most of us will, at some point, hurt other people and hurt ourselves; most of us will, at some point, reject our very existence and play the blame game; most of us will, at some point, cease to care about anything at all in this world and take to distraction after distraction to numb us to the void in the centre of our being.
The solution, I think, is to take refuge in protocols as well as form a crutch for yourself.
Frame your life in such a way as to make it as hard as possible to fall off the wagon. Have protocols in place that can keep you functioning at a base level of "I matter" and "you matter." That base level is probably something that allows you to just live without hurting other people. You might not be particularly thrilled at the prospect of life. And you might not give a fuck about anyone. Hell, you might even be bitter as fuck. But at least you aren't hurting anyone.
And the crutch... I suggest deluding yourself. Give yourself a story, a narrative, something to identify with. This crutch can be religion, a cult, school, the military, a hierarchy, a vocation, a dream, anything at all. But you are so much more resilient when you affix yourself to something else.
I'm beginning to understand that there is a whole other level of life a person can unlock if they live honestly and fully.
Sometimes I can catch myself holding back from a full immersion into a beautiful experience because it overwhelms my sensitivity and I feel that if I give way to it, I won't be able to stop the tears. And I feel particularly hesitant because I am scared that the experience will end at some point, that my life can be taken away from me at any point. And beautiful experiences remind me of this in a profound and substantial way.
But it isn't even my finitude that scares me and holds me back. It's absolutely overwhelming fear that I am going to die with words and feelings unshared with the people I care about.
And it's that fear that keeps me awake at night.
I'm realizing the power of living honestly and fully.
If I told everyone I care about that I love them; if I let every angel in my life know that I appreciate them and all that they have done; if even more than that, I can make them feel as worthy as they are and deserve to feel...
Then I'd live life with an abandon and give myself over to beautiful experiences to do with my heart as they desire. I'd let the tears flow because my heart would be unbared.
Each of us has an immeasurable worth, if for no other reason than to bear witness to the life of another.
My life gains credence through the people who have entertained my presence and being at some point or another.
And so there is such life-affirming power in observing, appreciating, and validating.
We each make life for each other.
In an overly sexualized and individualistic culture, it requires a great effort to recognize the miracle of life in someone before assessing their worthiness in terms of appearance or utility to oneself.
I remember sitting at the back of the bus, in the middle of the long seat, so that I could survey all the people in the bus. At first I was staring at this girl I found beautiful. But then it struck me, why is that girl any more beautiful than the older person sitting next to her? Or what about that homeless looking fellow at the front? Or what about any other person? And in that moment everyone started to appear incredibly beautiful. It helped that it was a sunny day and the warm haze of sunlight softened even the harshest features inside the bus. We were maybe fifty souls, each running our own errands in life, caught up inside our own thoughts, fifty minds awash with emotions, hopes, desires, and ambitions just like mine. Who was I to appraise any one individual in terms of their attractiveness to me?
And so now I see such beauty in the greeting, 'Namaste.' It means, 'I bow to the divinity in you.'