Something I've noticed in my life is that I'm a little manic sometimes and fairly mellow a lot of the other times and very rarely depressed. It seems like I physically can't hold an emotion for more than a couple of weeks. After a couple of weeks I go back to being content.
Hence, over the summer I came to doubt the idea that happiness should be the ultimate goal of an individual. I don't know how others feel about this, but to me it was weird, at first, to think of happiness not being one's ultimate desire.
The whole concept of happiness not being important came from a very interesting, but a little bit annoying, book called "The Pursuit of Happiness" and, no, it wasn't the same thing as the movie. The author suggested something that had never even crossed my mind.. that maybe it wasn't abnormal for someone to not be happy.
It was kind of a weird and intriguing concept for me.
Now let me get this cleared up before I go on: I'm not saying that it shouldn't be concerning if someone is unhappy. To me there is a difference between being unhappy and not happy. To be unhappy is the opposite of happiness, while to not be happy is just that.. to not feel that sort of ecstatic feeling.
It seems like here in Utah people claim that there are only two states of being: happiness or misery. I've even had someone tell me that if one lives the gospel of Jesus Christ to its fullest measure, that it is impossible for one not to be happy. (Which I sincerely doubt and argued with him about for quite a while.. after all "Jesus Wept".. isn't that significant?)For a while I thought this way as well, but I rarely am in either of those extremes.. usually I just am and I'm fine with that until you bring it up. Then as I concentrate and try to be "happy" I tend to become very unhappy.
Perhaps Hawthorne was right that: "Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Instead of happiness, I purposed that the goal of the individual should, in fact, be that they take up their "civic duty" and do something worthwhile for the World. This is, by far, the less selfish goal.
The idea itself is one that requires an intrinsic motivation for other people, however, one that is very hard for most people to have (myself included.) The idea purports that, in fact, none of us are doing service for anyone. There is no such thing as service. We are doing what we are supposed to be doing - nothing more.
This comes into major conflict with religious arguments, however. At first when I took the idea up I doubted anyone who made the argument that something was true because it made you feel happy. It actually turned into quite the angry debate.
I went on a long time this way and, yet, somehow I can't get myself to make the argument that happiness holds no validity in determining truth anymore.
And perhaps this is a crazy argument.. but there is something about feeling God that is undeniably happy. It doesn't seem to matter which religion's approach is being made to come to the reality of divinity.. but when one has that sort of mystic experience or the feeling of the spirit in Christianity one cannot deny that truth does bring happiness.
When I said in an earlier post that I've become very unsure about things lately I wasn't kidding.. The degree to which happiness should be the goal of one's life is something about which I simply have to say:
I don't know.
Dec 11, 2008
Dec 8, 2008
It's not time to make a change
It's funny because I've always been a very opinionated person, but lately I've been feeling a little thrown for a loop on my opinions.
The quote above is from the song "Father and Son" which is set up in the classic argument between traditionality and idealism, thus, father and son.
An idealist is something I've always wanted to be. (We CAN become a peaceful little World! We can end genocide! The attitudes of men and women are essentially the same: its nurture, not nature that makes the difference. etc.)
The funny thing is that now that I've backed off a little I've noticed that maybe it's the idealism that's really hurting the World. Many who like to think of themselves as idealists say things along the lines of: Nothing's really right or wrong, it's all relevant, let's get rid of the classic system of civility - it obviously wasn't working!, Meh. Who's to say that eroticism isn't art?, The World would be better if it were set up in Freud's most wanted manner, etc.
Maybe Cat Stevens' father figure was right: it's not time to make a change. I'm finding myself ever more conforming with Aristotle's realist plan (to look at the institutions of government that already work and improve upon them) than Plato's idealist plan (to destroy the current government and set up a new one essentially ruled by aristocrats.) Aristotle's plan makes sense. Why not improve upon what we already have?
The quote above is from the song "Father and Son" which is set up in the classic argument between traditionality and idealism, thus, father and son.
An idealist is something I've always wanted to be. (We CAN become a peaceful little World! We can end genocide! The attitudes of men and women are essentially the same: its nurture, not nature that makes the difference. etc.)
The funny thing is that now that I've backed off a little I've noticed that maybe it's the idealism that's really hurting the World. Many who like to think of themselves as idealists say things along the lines of: Nothing's really right or wrong, it's all relevant, let's get rid of the classic system of civility - it obviously wasn't working!, Meh. Who's to say that eroticism isn't art?, The World would be better if it were set up in Freud's most wanted manner, etc.
Maybe Cat Stevens' father figure was right: it's not time to make a change. I'm finding myself ever more conforming with Aristotle's realist plan (to look at the institutions of government that already work and improve upon them) than Plato's idealist plan (to destroy the current government and set up a new one essentially ruled by aristocrats.) Aristotle's plan makes sense. Why not improve upon what we already have?
Nov 25, 2008
"Crawling around my brain."
There definitely is something therapeutic about free association.
And that is what I have already found about this blogging thing (which is not to say that I'm telling massive quantities of my thoughts - but enough). It gives me the chance to ramble as I really think that I need sometimes (although sketching somehow is the ultimate form of how I think - no matter how creepy SOME people think my drawings are - when I hear the part of "I wish I was a girl" that says "crawling around my brain" that is exactly how I feel about life.. especially life in art). And I am fully aware that I only have one follower at this moment.. (unless someone is stalking me..) Which doesn't bother me, because somehow even writing to myself is therapeutic.
That being said I would like to point out the glaringly obvious: later, if more people follow my blog, I will offend some of them (Cue that same person making fun of me), and, yet, I still feel as though I want to, and will, state my thoughts and opinions - which, yes, may reach a borderline state on somethings I am sure.
And I will change my opinions a couple of hundred times before I die. So, I guess this is a disclaimer.
"I don't want to be a judge and I don't want to be a jury. I know who I am, Lord knows who I will be." - Paul Simon
I wish I could tell you that I'd take this approach on life - but I won't and can't always do so. Sometimes I really feel as though something is worth pushing over a few people for.
For better or for worse I would ask that I be able to state my ideas.. good, bad, or indifferent without having to apologize every five seconds. Feel free to disagree.. but just realize that I'm human too.
And that is what I have already found about this blogging thing (which is not to say that I'm telling massive quantities of my thoughts - but enough). It gives me the chance to ramble as I really think that I need sometimes (although sketching somehow is the ultimate form of how I think - no matter how creepy SOME people think my drawings are - when I hear the part of "I wish I was a girl" that says "crawling around my brain" that is exactly how I feel about life.. especially life in art). And I am fully aware that I only have one follower at this moment.. (unless someone is stalking me..) Which doesn't bother me, because somehow even writing to myself is therapeutic.
That being said I would like to point out the glaringly obvious: later, if more people follow my blog, I will offend some of them (Cue that same person making fun of me), and, yet, I still feel as though I want to, and will, state my thoughts and opinions - which, yes, may reach a borderline state on somethings I am sure.
And I will change my opinions a couple of hundred times before I die. So, I guess this is a disclaimer.
"I don't want to be a judge and I don't want to be a jury. I know who I am, Lord knows who I will be." - Paul Simon
I wish I could tell you that I'd take this approach on life - but I won't and can't always do so. Sometimes I really feel as though something is worth pushing over a few people for.
For better or for worse I would ask that I be able to state my ideas.. good, bad, or indifferent without having to apologize every five seconds. Feel free to disagree.. but just realize that I'm human too.
Nov 24, 2008
Divinity
Maybe I'm just a little Baha'i.. but it seems odd to me to assume that any religious group (perhaps with a few exceptions like Wicca and Scientology - which I actually, contraversially enough, don't believe should be classified as 'religions') can proclaim that their deity(es) (despite the polythestic, monothestic, henotheistic, or any other -istic form of the nature of the deity(es)) is/are any different from the God(s) (I'll stop being overwhelmingly politically correct here) of other religions.
Allah, Brahman (and the many deities which are said to have shown the nature of Brahman), the Tao (The Way), the God of the Jews/Christians, Amaterasu, Krishna (in a Hare Krishna sense), etc. It all seems to be the same to me. A divine force that, despite differing views on the nature of the divine force, is the same throughout all religions. To me an insult in the name of a deity - no matter the religion - is an insult to divinity of one's own religious beliefs.
The hard part about holding this view of divinty is being willing to stand up for divinity despite what we personally see as being "odd" characteristics in another relgion's views of deity. Maybe it shouldn't be, but I, at least, tend to let insults to the viewed divinity of religions that do not quite conform to divinity in my paradigm slip by without saying a word.
I guess a lot of my ranting goes back to a day in College Writing where a student in the class insulted Allah. It was, perhaps, the first time that I personally felt attacked by an insult thrown carelessly at divinity that did not exactly conform to my ideas of divinity at the time.
Then again, I'm a Freshman with next to nothing to show for it.
There's nothing like College to remind you that you know absolutely nothing!
P.S. - I promise I wasn't trying to write this in the most confusing way possible.. it just ended up being that way.
Allah, Brahman (and the many deities which are said to have shown the nature of Brahman), the Tao (The Way), the God of the Jews/Christians, Amaterasu, Krishna (in a Hare Krishna sense), etc. It all seems to be the same to me. A divine force that, despite differing views on the nature of the divine force, is the same throughout all religions. To me an insult in the name of a deity - no matter the religion - is an insult to divinity of one's own religious beliefs.
The hard part about holding this view of divinty is being willing to stand up for divinity despite what we personally see as being "odd" characteristics in another relgion's views of deity. Maybe it shouldn't be, but I, at least, tend to let insults to the viewed divinity of religions that do not quite conform to divinity in my paradigm slip by without saying a word.
I guess a lot of my ranting goes back to a day in College Writing where a student in the class insulted Allah. It was, perhaps, the first time that I personally felt attacked by an insult thrown carelessly at divinity that did not exactly conform to my ideas of divinity at the time.
Then again, I'm a Freshman with next to nothing to show for it.
There's nothing like College to remind you that you know absolutely nothing!
P.S. - I promise I wasn't trying to write this in the most confusing way possible.. it just ended up being that way.
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