So, what do I want to do that is different with my writing?
Writing, to me, if you allow me to express myself philosophically again, are words which lie on the boundary of the physical and the power of thought. It's not some fixed line, for thought is never defined anyway, but may seek to answer the question, where does the thinking lie, at this time, on this subject.
I do not doubt that people write, to entertain, to engage others and that can be interesting. I want to write so that those who read me, can use it like a butcher uses his carving knife, to cut away the fat, the stuff that is not after all so vital and take away the real and meaningful.
More like a surgeon sometimes, I want to correct a disfigurement of thought, an idea that has un-necessarily grown into a diabolical and grotesque caricature of something originally sublime and natural - something in the way we could see things, but do not.
When you are done with a piece, consider it, for the truth in it. I try to convey meanings, unfamiliar and strange sometimes, in small steps; but keeping in mind the larger idea that I would like to lead you to. Then leave you alone with it, that you may reconstruct familiar things, with new rules, and decide do they enhance or diminish your understanding of life.
Here's how what I am trying to do, different from other motivational, self-help advice. Where that advice leads you with the promise of making you stronger, in many ways, my paradigm is, to unbefuddle. I take it, that's very important, else you would'nt have come this far. Please raise your questions, as you see things from where you stand. Knock down my hypothesis, you will earn my gratitude.
I mean it!
to continue...
So it seems that the physical world is like a scaffolding, and it comes into reality through our senses, mostly of sights, sounds and touch. Another substratum lies within and beyond it, of events which take place, our significant and personal experiences.
These are independent of time as we are familiar with it, but related as sequence and consequence, and it is here we see ourselves existing as we do, striving to be more.
This is the realm where we also accept the meaning of things, the reason, why meanings appear more acceptable, and we assimilate them into ourselves more easily than the objects and sounds they represent.
It is in this realm one would find the trails in ourself which indicate the events yet to be for us. The outside world will faithfully follow the direction of this internal force of will. The man who wronged us, sometime long ago, actually anytime back to eternity, has left the imprint in our mind, our consciousness, and if we bump into him, even in the most incidental way, the recognition will try to emerge out from this inner consciousness and in the event his motive earlier was in fact to do us wrong, the events around us on this occasion are so created that, almost without anything which may be attributed to us as motive, we will be avenged. We will feel a lightening within ourselves, a removal of a crease in our consciousness, unless we had already let it go earlier, and had forgiven him his wrong to us.
Greetings!
I like your paradigm of unbefuddling! Hey, somebody needed to do it! ;-)) This piece strikes me as having greater clarity than some of the previous ones; that is, my perception of it seems to more easily grasp the meaning. I particularly like the phrase "a crease in our consciousness."
Very nice!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
is the concept of God only an inference?
who goes to sleep?
the roving mental eye dims.
if the earth did not go around, and the sun stood still, would we have no concept as time?
if we look at the process of going to sleep, it seems to begin from outside, a darkening of the sky, the returning of people to their homes, a movement within , all the time of settling the body, replenshing it, then withdrawing. Something is withdrawing within, something other than ourselves, we can identify ourselves with, but who goes to sleep when the roving mental eye dims down, are we totally extinguished. Are we inferring our own presence.
Greetings!
"if the earth did not go around, and the sun stood still, would we have no concept as time?" - it might be better to say either "no concept such as time" or "no concept of time"...almost identical meanings, but not quite. It's an interesting question...what does create the concept of the passage of time? Does someone who cannot see, cannot tell light from dark, have the same concept of the passage of time as a sighted person?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Thank you Sarah; do you catch something here, though...
If we look at the process of going to sleep, it seems to begin from outside, a darkening of the sky, the returning of people to their homes, a movement within, all the time of settling the body, replenshing it, then withdrawing. Something is withdrawing within, something other than ourselves, but we can identify with; but who goes to sleep when the roving mental eye dims down, are we totally extinguished, are we inferring our own presence?
Greetings!
I think you are saying that we can identify with that something which is withdrawing within, even though it is other than ourselves? If that is the case, then from a grammatical standpoint, it is not expressed quite right. (Don't you hate when grammar rules get in the way of creativity? ;-)) IF that was the meaning you intended, you would need to say, "Something is withdrawing within, something other than ourselves, but which we can identify with." (As I understand it, grammarians are now saying that it is not necessarily incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition; if it were, you'd have to say "but with which we can identify" which is perhaps even less elegant.)
Have I totally missed your point? I wouldn't put it past me. ;-))
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
you are being twice modest.
as you have said it, it is exactly as I was struggling to do.
you have the meaning just as I intended, but you leave it at that, and let it sail past; but your response to what I am saying is always as important to me.
thank you so much.
You're welcome!
Would you be willing to expand a little on the question "is the concept of God only an inference?" I feel as if I almost understand it, yet not quite...that, and the two lines following it, seemed somewhat disconnected to me; at least, I did not grasp how they related to one another.
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Is it an inference? as will He always be beyond our ability to percieve Him, as we do other things and are comforatble with their being 'in real' for us.
The roving eye is a metaphor to our mind's constant movement, examining one thing after another, till it is time to sleep, and then it dims down, an almost involountary action, but in harmony with everything else's retiring, and then, where are we?
but are you asking for something a little more...
Greetings!
Yes, I understood the roving eye, but not its connection to the question about God. If God is an inference, is it we who are doing the inferring?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
I can take you into deeper waters, just in case that's what you really are looking for :
Why do I go about thinking almost everyone is smarter than me, knows more about life, is managing better. I am surprised that I have been thinking so. So many of the people I look at, are at the same stage where I was too at sometime. What kept me looking ahead was a projection in my mind of what the future will be. This is an illusion we are pointed to by those we work for. But, our destiny headed down a peculiar path, with no missteps, no breaks, inevitably, and almost no real surprises; why did we not believe this is how it would turn out back then? We wanted to see ourselves at the top, and I wonder why. What of everything we learnt at the turns which came along our path, real, like other real things; to avoid them would have been a weakness, a putting off, a knowledge we did not want to go on without. And so, the knowledge learnt was well learnt and now suddenly life has a meaning quite different, and I feel it is the same for all others I can relate with, of my age and beyond.
The mystery that life is, is the most significant thing now. We look around at others, of our own age and length of experience; in the city, everywhere, it is almost a certainty they all feel it the same. Something else matters more now. I look at a person spending more than I can, but I can tell with certainty he travels along the identical troughs and peaks of reality that I do, and that, almost all others at this stage of life do. What then to make of life?
We can ask ourself, what was it all about. Why did those things seems so important and these, which seem significant now, seem less.
When there really seems no answer, and everything seems to be falling away, we look to the future and imagine only a dark and bleak void; no answers at all, where we came from, why did we come, and no idea where next. In such a state, a man may accept almost anything which will remove this oppressing image of the future. And so he resists giving in to mental falsity, for he believes in the power of his own thought, his thinking abilities, that have stood by him like some trusty staff. He will stay with that. He wants to meet anything you throw at him with a resounding blow. So what do you set before him now!
Try this idea, you tell him. Imagine this for now, though I want to say, that it is really so. You have always been, always, for all eternity, your body has not, though. The world springs from your mind. On one side is the sense of yourself, illumined by consciousness, and on the other it illumines the world. Thoughts in your mind become colored by imprints of your experiences, but you can see it is this identity which asserts itself through life, the one we talk about above, that dissolves. Not the consciousness which illumines it, your awareness.
Then you go under like a stick floating on a river, and when you come up to the surface, in its light you are visible again, you to your self, and you also see the world. You can float as long as you please, ultimately you will tire of this journey.
Greetings!
You have touched on some very universal thoughts: "almost everyone is smarter than me, knows more about life, is managing better." I wonder what evolutionary advantage it might be to harbor such thoughts?
I'm afraid I really didn't follow the line of thought throughout this paragraph:
The mystery that life is, is the most significant thing now. We look around at others, of our own age and length of experience; in the city, everywhere, it is almost a certainty they all feel it the same. Something else matters more now. I look at a person spending more than I can, but I can tell with certainty he travels along the identical troughs and peaks of reality that I do, and that, almost all others at this stage of life do. What then to make of life?
Can you clarify?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Greetings Sarah,
In the first paragraph, I hope I understand your allusion correctly to be about living life in some awe, with some humility, but something more positive than negative.
To answer your next point - in Western cultures it is known as depression, but in the Eastern this mental state is considered as having a very real and productive seed. Hence the really interesting question to me is, how acceptable is what follows in the essay to you.
Thanks
Rajiv
Greetings!
I hadn't looked at it that way; but now that I see what you are getting at, I don't find anything "unacceptable" about it. :-)) When you say ultimately you will tire of this journey, are you referring to the journey of life? or of questioning everything? or...?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Greetings !
I was pointing to an excessive importance we give to living our present existence. That there could be, for us too, existences where we evolve even faster, understanding life in bigger gulps, if that is our quest.
thanks
I see, thank you!
Sarah
