Authentic life

I hope not guarding, that seems to imply limiting freedom to me. Rather we need to take seriously the challenge of living in this current age. We engage with entertainment and leisure time as if it doesn't matter, as if there are no consequences. We do the same with sex, as primal and fundamental as it is to our survival we have relegated it to the realm of entertainment, or at best romance (which itself has been reduced to something close to entertainment), and pretend what and how we do it has no consequences.

Many of the customs, cultures, religions, norms of society are based on an intensity for our need to survive as a species. By and large most now believe that all that is nonsensical, or at least no longer applicable, and so all past culture religion norms, all of it, are shed as if they were outdated coping mechanisms no longer of any consequence.

I think both positions have a bit of validity... some nonsensical entertainment is surely good for us, makes us laugh and relax, and likewise we do not need to hone our warrior skills and re-invent farming skills just to have a slightly better chance to survive another season... but what we are faced with is what was the point? What is the point of all that past effort? Millenia of suffering and striving to reach a better easier life. Only to have a generation arrive there and basically destroy itself out of, what can really only be described as; boredom and stupidity.

I was listening to a great discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. Sam Harris is a hardnosed scientistic atheist, very smart, very articulate, Jordan Peterson is probably also an atheist but he is neither scientistic or rationalistic, he believes the archetypes from religions tell us truths about our inner selves that are not accesible to us through science. They spend forever arguing about what is truth... if it were a chess match Jordan Peterson would be losing. But then he blurts out:
"Karl Jung said: “We’re technological giants and moral infants.” So the moral issue becomes paramount. The materialist realistic perspective is a kind of ethic. It governs how people look at the world. It’s a massive philosophy. It’s a framework of reference. I would say that part of the problem with the scientific worldview as it’s currently constituted is that it doesn’t provide a reliable guide for the development of the kind of wisdom that would allow us to use technology responsibly."

And that's exactly, I think, what you are getting at with this post, from a slightly different perspective perhaps: Rather than being adrift in imaginary realities of our personal and collective making, and pretending it doesn't harm us, we need to develop the kind of wisdom that would allow us to live in the modern world responsibly.

 

"Human beings don't live forever. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye if we measure our time against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life? There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to suffer so much if our lives are but the blink of an eye? A blink of an eye in itself is nothing... but the eye that blinks: that is something. A span of life is nothing... but a man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning. So it's quality is immeasurable though it's quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning. Meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest."
--Chaim Potok, The Chosen

 

Yep. So true, far as I can tell. Any real, profound and inescapable confrontation with an existential crises with leave that lasting impression; that life is indeed essentially meaningless. We must create our own meaning and fill the void, indeed we seem to do so unconsciously at all times, to prevent the cold brutality of experience breaking our will to carry on through the pain and struggle of it all.

"I somehow doubt that technology will advance far enough to save us from itself."

- A quote from the mushroom spirit.

On a slightly brighter note, I think balance, moderation, integrity and honesty are things we can exemplify and use to maintain a healthy and wise way of life. I think that as children, we are born with all wisdom built in to us inherently, but no chance of communicating that via conventional techniques which we have not yet learned. That innate wisdom is slowly forgotten throughout childhood, then slowly recalled throughout our adulthood. Educate children and then let them decide for themselves, they are wiser than us by far.

Having said that, access to certain things should be restricted for practical purposes. All within reason, obviously.

 

I fully agree

 

Yes therein lies the rub. I recall my pediatrician quoting a study that if you let a toddler eat from a whole set of options, and track it carefully over the weeks, they actually consume a well balanced diet, even though day to day it looks like they are ignoring one food and eating too much of another. But I don't think they allowed them sugars and junk food etc. And certainly, if you allow an older kid to eat as much candy as they want.. they will do that in excess... I think that's what it comes down to: most of us cannot trust our own nature when it comes to unnatural stimulation.

 

Yeppers. Refined sugars, junk foods, pixels, bright lights, drugs. Reminds me of the now famous rat park experiments, where rats in cages given the option to binge on cocaine all day would do so, but then some bright spark repeated the experiment with an ideal and interesting rat environment to cruise around in, with all kinds of other, probably more natural stimulation, and showed a huge drop in the amount of rats doing coke to excess and nothing else.

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise." - William Blake

I love this ^ quote and find truth to it, but what it leaves out is the time it takes to 'become wise', and the specific types of folly available to us today on unprecedented levels, such as porn, junk food, powerful substances and so on. Also, relating back to the rat experiments, a key factor in the lifestyle of the rats was their environment. A mangy old cage with nothing much natural and an abundance of powerful drugs sounds a lot like every city on earth. So it becomes a matter of doing the best with what you've got, nowhere more prominent than in the cases of young children, who have no influence of choice over the environment they get their start in life within.

I am thankful for being raised with my very health-conscious mother. She was not perfect, but always tried her best to ensure that her children receive an abundance of decent, natural, fresh whole foods. She was very restrictive of junk food and to her credit offered good alternatives. Frozen yoghurt rather than ice cream. Dates and dried fruit rather than mixed lollies. Carob (bleh) rather than chocolate, etc. The flip side of that coin was that being a rebellious little shit and curious I was far more interested in those off limits items. The more forbidden, the more interesting, like alcohol drinking and tobacco smoking. Seemed totally fucking stupid to me as a kid observing adults doing these things, but I was curious to experience them for myself and discover what the appeal was, if any.

I would have liked to have been treated with a little more respect and openness, to be shown things exactly for what they were, at appropriate times, and be allowed to form opinions without having to go behind any backs or defy anyone's orders to do so. The risk of being caught doing such things was a big part of the allure, and with full permission, that shine dulled off real quick.

It should be said that I do not have children. I simply remember being one. I am many times over an uncle, that's as far as it goes and is quite far enough for me at this stage, still learning to care for myself.

Should we strive to live and lead authentic lives? Most definitely and always.

Should we be guarded and in turn, do the guarding? I'm not so sure, after all, who guards the guards?

 

Yes that study is depressing and uplifting at the same time. There's a similar one with Viet Nam vets, many addicted to heroin over there, come back here and just kick it. The hopeful part is that you can improve outcome by improving the environment.... the despairing part is what of the multitudes who have the good environment and yet get stuck and cannot break free. With porn and the internet, and possibly some of the newer drugs, more of us are falling on the dark side of a grey area and getting stuck when we shouldn't. I say this living in a pretty awesome rural natural area where I have spent countless hours in PMO....

Well like you said before it depends on the age. No way children can navigate this world on their own. They, rather need to be taught the possible dangers and given tools to get through them. It seems that now more than ever philosophy and literature are really important. Also psychological knowledge like how addiction works and the steps of overcoming it.
But as for adults: there is no benefit to treat them like children.

 

Good points. The dark side of grey areas indeed.

Unless they are Donald Trump.

 

Yes. with power comes responsibility.

What's with the hate of trump? Typically americans just say their presidents suck balls, but this time people just seem to be grudgingly silent and making passive comments like you did just now. Presidents come and go, it's not like he will be in office forever. Vote a new better one then.

 

@lantti No hate here brother, was only kidding and fyi I am not an American. I could hardly care less.