Let us start here:
Who are you?
What do you want?
What prevents you from moving forward?
What do you need?
These set of questions can be seen in any temporal context you wish. They will provide an intriguing mosaic; contrasting the identities and underlying desires we currently embody.
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.SEPTEMBER 4th.
12 comments:
HERE is one.
If someone comes across an interesting reading that isn't too long i'd be down. too.
I've answered these questions, albeit somewhat tangentially, more functional than philosophical, here
This is the travelblog I have established for my trip to Senegal. All y'all best follow it. Dante is there any way to link it with the peninsula kids blog so that I post directly here as well? I want this to open up a discussion about a westerner's role in foreign aid, it's a sticky question with no simple answers, and I want your help keeping me honest as I wrestle with it. As far as answering the question, 'What keeps me from achieving my goals?' The perception that a lack of money can inhibit your visions. When I get hung up on money, I remind myself to be more creative, there is always a way out. To that end I will shamelessly plug a fundraising dinner (cooking Senegalese peanut stew) that'll go down in a few weeks. I'd love all y'alls help in getting the word out to any friend/work/kin networks., as well as clubs/cults/church groups you may be apart of. I'll keep you posted of further details.
That's it. Enter your email on my blog to receive regular updates. Lets plan an epic going away gathering too. I'm looking forward to reading all your responses. Deadline's in three days, fellas.
I know that I have yet to start writing on this assignment, and I think that I am going to change the context a bit for myself to make the process a bit easier, perhaps some of you want to follow suit.
Answer the above question in 2hrs or less, do not edit (more than basic grammar or structural elements), write fast and let it flow.
I hope that this will prompt initial reactions to become full ideas and avoid time for comparison or self doubt, if you feel it, write it and see where it goes.
Everyone who is actually planning on completing this should comment up here, it will motivate others to complete, and the sentiment will be reciprocated.
YEAHYEAHYEAH don't edit the self, let it all hang out!!!
For my own contribution to this post I have decided to address the first question, "who are you?". In order to answer this question though, I think one must first consider the nature of the self; this will be the emphasis of my musing.
Generically a persons selfness, or identity, are the qualities that constitute a persons uniqueness or essential being. From an empirical perspective it is important to note that the molecules that compose our body are replaced or recycled many times throughout our lives. So, from a strictly physical point of view the idea of humans having anything but very transient selves seems unlikely. This realization though is contrary to my and most peoples intuition, we seem to be able to recognize patterns in peoples behaviors over long periods of time that would indicate the existence of a self.
My own reconciliation of these two ideas is to interpret the self as a convenient fiction, I will clarify. In physics there is the concept of center of gravity; a hula hoops COG is a non existent point in space in the center of the hoop. Physicists create a non existent (fictional) point to (conveniently) describe the behavior of the hoop. Like wise there is no physical conduit for the self but we use the word “self” as a convenient fiction to describe peoples behavior.
So what causes us to perceive these phantom identities in our own lives and others? Here is my answer. At any given point a man has ideas and values that compose his self. In the preceding and succeeding moment he is not only physically different, as we discussed before, but his ideas and values have also changed to some degree. Despite this constant flux in the individual, humans are perceptive enough to understand(at least vaguely) why the changes occurred and are therefore able to relate the two states of being. In this way we form a concept of the self.
The questions that you asked dante are too big and open ended in my opinion. Perhaps following questions can be a little more specific. That said thank you for taking the initiative to post the questions, I really enjoyed the excuse to think and write in my otherwise philosophically understimulating life. I look forward to reading yalls thoughts!
Questions:
~Does a persons sense of self depend more on memory of events occurring or factual memory of ones past?
~Can an amnesiac have a sense of self?
Very nice nathan. Underneath the questions were two sentences providing directional context/parameters. Leaving space for your own interpretation & creative spirit & state of being. (HERE is was what I thought while reading)You first began to search for the self through the lens of 'physics' and biology. With so much movement and energy our physical structures are rapidly changing!-- so how can the self remain? Well as you note the self is also an expression of our behaviors and thoughts, it becomes multidimensional. Which raises the rhetorical question: is the self static? No. It evolves and flows to its exposures and experiences. Just as our minds shift after sitting through a college course or our bodies shift as we begin to frequent the gym. The self, I think, therefore is an accumulation of the past present and future and not just our perception but also the perceptions of others as we are understood and experienced by them. Which is pretty much what you came to, too. & I can see why it might be hard to answer the next question: what do you want?- through the lens you chose. But that is not my fault. You framed the questions within your own mind. In fact I think your response reflects well as to where you were (mood, thoughts, energy, school and classes you are taking) when tackling the challenge. I am not your college professor. There are no A's to be gotten. It was only a prompt.
WITH THAT NATHAN PLEASE POST THE NEXT ASSIGNMENT and you can make it as specifc as you want...or open!!
Within the next few years I would like to improve my skills as a facilitator and artist. To give space and birth to: our souls, a re-examination (& re-imagination) of our dominant culture, re-imbue intentions in regards to relationships. I want to create space for people to breathe and step away from their busy lives to examine the structures they espouse in a sincere manner. I want to create space where fundamental shifts of the self can occur. Where defining moments of the soul arrive and process in such a way that the current love for our culture is redirected towards each other and this world. I've stumbled across a quote by Joseph Campbell that has struck a bell within me,
For we move--each--in two worlds: the inward world of our own awareness, and an outward of participation in the history of our time and place. The scientists and historian serve the latter: the world, that is to say, of things "out there," where people are interchangeable and language serves to communicate information and commands. Creative artists, on the other hand, are mankind's wakeners to recollection: summoners of our outward mind to conscious contact with ourselves, not as participants in this or that morsel of history, but as spirit, in the consciousness of being. Their task, therefore, is to communicate directly from one inward world to another, in such a way that an actual shock of experience will have been rendered: not a mere statement for the information or persuasion of a brain, but an effective communication across the void of space and time from one center of consciousness to another.
I can only dream of this, this is what I would like to accomplish. If I could obtain that quality of communication through my art my heart would sing.
Currently my lack of skill and knowledge as an artist and as a facilitator limit my abilities. Monies also are limiting. There are so many directions that I would like to go in that I am stretched thin. I have a lack of organization and have not developed a direct method for processing each idea. The current environment that I am in is great but not best for my dreams. I need to be surrounded by artists who are more accomplished than I am. My work ethic is shit. I am easily distracted.
I need to go to a good school: a regiment, teachers, a curious society, collaborations, exchanges, new ideas, challenges, & skills. I need to be in community with the people I aspire to be: They awaken my soul to go further & love deeper, They create with me, They share secrets, we tackle a project. I need to find quality in my life: I work hard, I follow through, I laugh, I dream & imagine, I challenge my friends, I love, I express, I collect & document, I process fully, I BE HERE NOW.
I'll post and comment in a day or two, I don't have internet at my house yet so I'm a little scattered
In the end, I think I will be a teacher. Right now I prefer to be a student, but sometimes I can’t help but be on the other side of the equation. I said to Jo the other day that it’s easy to mistake intelligence for experience (slightly tongue-in-cheek), but when you dive into topics foreign to others, after a while it can difficult to have conversations instead of lessons. So for now, I am a student/teacher.
I prefer to rephrase the second question: what are your goals? When I grow up, I’d like to be a doctor with a practice. If life is kind, I’d like to start a clinic with Nathan that covers all of the bases: the Fight or Flight school, with physical therapy and naturopathic services available. That would be pretty cool. I’d also like to save all beings from suffering. This sounds tongue-in-cheek, but it is a real goal. It would be worth considering, I think, what other goals should supersede this one; most other goals indicate an attachment to objects on different levels, but in this goal (if you recognized it, the Bodhisattva’s vow) is the implicit understanding that to save all beings from suffering, you only have to save yourself. So I’ll put enlightenment on the bucket list.
I read a book recently titled “What I Wish I Knew When I Was Twenty,” by Tina Seelig. In it, she shares an anecdote about a professor at Stanford who asks students on the first day of school to make a list of the things holding them back from reaching their goals. Most students are able to come up a number of things restricting their progress, but when they turn them in he tells the students that the only thing on the piece of paper should be their name. I agree. The only thing preventing my progress are my own interior attachments and roadblocks, and I don’t think there is an interior restriction that can’t be accessed and reformed. So my imagination sets the limits of my potential.
“Need” implies attachment when it refers to things that aren’t practically necessary, like supplies for a project, so I like to avoid using it. But things that are very close to necessary for me: supportive family, friends, and community, and health. You couldn’t ask for a stronger base than that.
"If life is kind, I’d like to start a clinic with Nathan that covers all of the bases: the Fight or Flight school, with physical therapy and naturopathic services available"
word.
Who am I?
I have had an epiphany of sorts the last little while which has changed the way I will answer. You might be expecting something longwinded, demeaning, condescending, and extremely heady - you won't be disappointed.
To me, concern with the self, personal growth and the individual is affirmatively a bourgeoisie affliction. Here is why.
1. To ponder the self, versus working for continued existence requires quite a bit of privilege, hence many spiritual paths are distorted to being only pursued by the wealthy leisure class of white people and occasionally have racist conclusions. I ask you to honestly consider how much your personal enlightenment, a smile or a kind word will do to stop the bombs from falling. To stop currency from collapsing. Does it keep pollutants out of the water, does it stop the chainsaws from running, does it protect species from extinction?
2. Capitalism teaches you that there is a fix for everything. That a certain product will grant you something. Increasingly people identify with products more and more as signifiers of their lifestyle, of what their existence means. I shop here so I am this, I only consume X this so I am not Y.
3. Our society is one of isolation distorted through various layers. Be it the windshield, the ATM or the computer screen. Suburbia, social stratification. This is a generalization that is hard to argue with. It is only this insanity that is fully embraced by consumer culture that would leave someone to believe that their path toward self-knowledge would be to go further inward, versus trying to interact with the layers of the world around them that do not exist within ones own reality.
What do you want?
To break the spell that has allowed a society to exist that enshrines inequality and hate. To strip away the illusions of what our existence really means - we don't have to be anything, we don't have to play their fucking game, the system exists because we bare witness to it.
I think that the world I was born into robbed me of a chance at sanity, of the possibility of living a full life. When an individual life or countless lives can be valued as a commodity and where I can purchase it without any feeling that I have just participated in anothers oppression is when I know that I am fallen. I think there are parts of me that I will never be able to know myself.There are too many social structures, too many pedagogues and too powerful of conditioning for me to ever rid myself of all that has been imprinted into me.
While I may never have a chance at humanity, to be complacent in the reproduction of that alienation is the nail in the coffin. The role of the individual in today's society needs to be the destruction of the systemic pathologies to give the opportunity for the possibility of fully realized humans to even exist.
Ben, thanks for your words. I am often in tension between reflection and action. Yes, we are privileged to be able to have this space to reflect. Does the fact that self-reflection is an activity largely available to the privileged make it automatically invalid? How should our privilege inform our actions? Our position is unavoidable and trying to obscure it is an equally self-absorbed activity. Kind of the white upperclass existential bind, right? That's a dead horse, I don't want to talk about it any more for the moment.
I read raptly what you had to say, and am fully on board with the content. The tone makes me hope your heart is okay. To say that you will 'never have a chance at humanity' sounds so painful. I was witnessing your humanity in your writing up until the reading of that line; your ability to wrestle with hypocrisies and paradoxes that exist within all of us is a sign you sure are human. I don't know where I am going with this, I just feel compelled to speak honestly to my first gut reaction without formulating a contrived thesis as a response. WHat you bring to this group is vital, keep it up. For my part, I don't pick up on condescension from you, maybe just a feeling from you that we don't get you because of where you've been. we're closer than you might think? fuck, i hope i haven't dug myself in to deep. bottom line: i want to talk in person, keep questing, keep holding yourself to your high integrity. i love you.
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