I was just thinking about this very subject when I clicked onto your well written and interesting blog!

Most people seem to bask in the so called glory of one-upping in the form of belittling and berating and this has become the "group" norm. Compassion has become an old fashioned value unfortunately for most losing sight of the greatness that is within all of us.



 

Hi Marian. I appreciate your comments. The dialogue has just become so abrasive and so caustic and everything seems to viewed within this lens of cynicism. There is of course good reason for all of this cynicism and there is an understandable contempt for the 'dumb down" society but when all you get is the biting irony and sarcastic wit, without any empathy or deep understanding then you create an environment for indifference. Yes, all of these problems do exist, but that doesn't subtract one bit from how astoundingly beautiful it all is and what a remarkable mystery this thing called life is. But of course you'll never see that with the intellect. The things that are most real can only be seen with the heart.  

 

That everything is a construct and ideology a linguistic structure that has no meaning in actuality only in functionality designed to dispel the too arid "desert of the real." “...What shall we do tomorrow?/ What shall we ever do?"

Watch Marx Brothers films....

It's fun! :)

 

Always the trickster you. Marx Brothers are damn funny. But are the Marx brother's going to quell the deep existential pangs, are they going to bring you face to face with your true self? Afraid not.

I do believe it was the inability solve this question that doomed David Foster Wallace. I have great empathy with him especially because of his struggles with anxiety and depression. I've struggled with both at times. DFW couldn't find his way out of the labryinth and couldn't find his way to anything beyond his ego's own hall of mirrors. His next book, ironically enough,  was to be a book on mindfulness, set in of all places an IRS office. I think he was desperately in search of a spiritual solution but didn't know where to begin. When the depression, anxiety and the malaise became too much he hanged himself. What a loss. It makes me sad just thinking aobut it.

 I'm certain there's lots of good dharma in the Marx Brothers too. :D Love you beautiful..     

 

Jeff, I adore your soul seeking heart!

I have pondered these questions to no avail...
There is no answer. None that can satisfy us. It is a doomed quest. Like those poor knights in search for the Holy Grail, what we seek & try to see significance in resides within us...

Let go of that attachment to the existential need, it is the only way to stay sane.
I believe we all suffer to some degree with bouts of anxiety & depression. I fight it more often than not, but my survival instincts tell m that when this fight is particularly poignant, I must have action of some kind... do something that I enjoy & find both engrossing & creative...

Distraction, really. That is what it is... what other choice do we have?
Sitting around gazing into our navels & lamenting the hopelessness of it all helps us not one iota.

I do not say that such self-reflection is  always pointless, but too much of it is self-indulgent & ultimately self-destructive.
Poor David Foster Wallace is a case in point... a dose of Groucho may have gone a long way to help me...

Ponder the simple & the beautiful... there is much of it in this world, ephemeral though much of it is...
Help someone who needs you, even if it is a pointless & futile exercise because all we have is the here & now...


An IRS office???
That was destined to be a classic...


Here's a bit of dharma from Woody Allen in my blog on my birthday from last year.
I cover my feelings very fully there:

On Life And Aging: A Hellish But Delectable Dish (Happy Birthday to Me, Yaay!!!)

xoxoxo






 

If all we have is the here and now how can it be ephemeral? Here's a line from the Course In Miracles "It has taken thousands of years to misguide you so completely but it takes no time to be who you are."  And your right there is no solution to the problem of existence. But maybe that is because existence is not a problem? Ok, you know I love “kick'in it” with you. 

BTW:Just saw the first part of Angels in America the HBO series adaptation of Tony Kushner's pulitzer prize-winning play. It was very well done. Now I want to see the stage version.  Art said Schopenhauer was the only way to overcome the separation of self. I wouldn't say the only way but it certainly is a very powerful one.  Must be why I love it so?

Thanks for stopping..

 

Ahh... I said beauty is ephemeral and many times it is, depending , of course, on one's definition of beauty...hahahaa & round & round the Maypole we go.... where we'll stop? We'll never know... :)

I so wanted to see Angels in America on stage, too,.

The plight of so many... it was by all accounts, incredibly moving to see performed  live in a theater.

I love kicking it with you, too!

xoxox


 

I would qualify your statement and say that objects of beauty are ephemeral; beauty itself, however, is timeless. And that is what all works of great works beauty are meant to do: remind of us of that timelessness. When you contemplate something beautiful you are left in the state of James Joyce called "aesthetic arrest." That is your mind is stilled and for the briefest of seconds you are completely and wholly identified with the object of your contemplation. There is not the slightest separation. This is a moment of timelessness, when you are released from the normal sense of self and are left only in a supreme sense of awe and wonder. You behold the mystery of being. Beauty than is a doorway to the transcendent. But it is more even than that. It is the very character of Being; the nature of the manifested and unmanifested universe itself.  This is what leads Nietzsche to exclaim "Art is the proper task of life, art is life's metaphysical exercise..Art is worth more than truth." Because art can lead one to the ultimate truth, the realization of being,  Buddha Nature, God, whatever other names you want to call it. Of course there are other ways to be inititated into transcendence but art, at least in my experience, is certainly a very powerful one.         

 

I do agree that the concept of beauty is timeless. In fact, I consider it essential. Joyce's "aesthetic arrest" is indeed a meditative state & you become with the beautiful thing you contemplate &, by default, then become beautiful yourself.
 

"Colors us beautiful too" I like the way you put that. You find where Angels In America is playing and I'll buy the tickets, ok?

 

Ooops, I meant a dose of Groucho may have gone a long way to help him (David Wallace) as it did me...

hahah

I must learn to proof before posting!~
:)



 

Like Woody Allen says as Mickey in the movie, Hannah and Her Sisters:
"... And Nietzche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said the life we've lived we're gonna live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again."

Now that was funny. I love Woody. He tells it like it is.

 

So LOVE him!!!

Thanks for reading that post.... I figured it would be easier than me cutting & pasting the whole darn thing here! :)

xoxoxo


 

I agree with your attack on Postmodernism, but I feel that you've misused the term "individuation." That specific term, i think, wrongly describes the relativists you target.

The process of individuation is the self-understanding, self-reflecting, self-birthing, and ego-destroying process developed by Dr. Carl Jung. And i think his idea doesn't fit into the postmodernist agenda. His idea describes an individual who is actualized, but not self-centered, not self-deprecating, not against truth, and certainly not a value-relative individual.

People who have undergone Maslow's self-actualization, Jung's individuation, Wilber's Integration, and so forth, have transformed into value-full, world-centric, and truly universal human beings. Not postmodernists bent on the destruction of truth, but compassionate people with value and integrity.

Thank you.

 

It's true that I'm generally referring to the postmoderns and not to those individuals who have reached a self-actualization level of development. I'm  trying to point out the dangers of individualization, the possible pathologies of this stage, as Wilber would put it. I don't disagree with what your so saying at all but I wasn't referring specifically to either Jung or Maslow's ideas about development. Even Suan Cook-Greutner, a Wilber fan and disciple of Jane Lovinger, mentions that at the post-conventional stage of development, individuals can become apathetic and bitter and fall into the postmoderm malaise.

Don't see postmodernists as bent on a destruction of truth, but realizing, quite accurately, that truth is ultimately unknowable. This realization is, of course, what often gives rise to those feeling enui and apathy, bitterness and contempt. 

Thx for sharing Kent. 

 

Sorry, your language threw me off, and made some aspects of your blog vague. But overall, i enjoyed what you were saying. You're the type of person who I'm on the same page with. I don't meet many people familiar with Wilber's work, and i would love to discuss his stuff more at length. It's brilliant, but some aspects don't sit well with me. Luckily, hes got a nice firm grasp of Continental philosophy. And this makes me happy.

Cheerio.

 

There are some places where I see some discrepancies, most notably Wilber's emphasis on a cognitive model rather than an emotionally-based one, ala Dan Goldman. Wilber makes EI a line in his model, but Goldman seems to suggest a different way of viewing intelligence and the inseparability of emotions and cognition that goes beyond EI just a multiple-intelligence line. But the developmental theorists all take a cognitive approach. And they almost all say that cognition is necessary for advancement in the other lines. Goldman's seems to be heavily based on the latest neuroscientific research, so I don't know.   Yes, would live to chat with you about his work.   

 

The name's "Goleman." Anyway...

I haven't read Goleman's work, but "emotional intelligence" is on my to-read list. And as for Wilber, i disagree with you on that aspect, i mean your right, he's a stage theorist or developmentalist, whatever you call it, but he stresses emotionality in his left-hand, I, creative, and expressive quandrant. He may not mention emotionality per say, but i think it's indicative through his philosphy, particularly the left-hand quadrant.

He may sound unemotional because of his politics. They stem from conservative and libertarian thought, which can sound selfish, base, and woman-hating. But Wilber's none of these things.

He cares about the state of the world.

 

Thanks for the proofreading. No, I agree that EI capacities would mostly fall in the upper left, but certain expressions of it could fall in the upper right as well, the interpersonal-communication piece for example. But EI is not about emotionality it's rather, about a persons capacity to experience emotions but be free of their unsettling effects, in Wilber language to make emotions the object of the subject. Goleman refers to this as the capacity for self-awareness, other capacities are built on this one, such as the capacity to remain positive or motivate yourself.

But what DG is describing as self-awareness sounds extremely similar to the non-dual witness state, he just doesn't use spiritual language when describing it. He does speak of a high EI giving individuals increased likelyhood of experiencing flow state which he describes as "egoless." But for DG the emotional and rational brain are so interconnected and the propensity for emotions to hijack the reasoning side such a danger, that he concludes emotional intelligence is more significant than cognitive intelligence. It's just a different emphasis, but one that makes me question certain aspects of cognitively-based theories, like Wilber's.

I still think KW's is the most comprehensive philosophy around and his four quandrants are a stunning discovery.  I don't think he's unemotional at all. He's a genuine Bodhisattva.    

 

Indeed.

Interesting stuff Golemon says. I'll pick up his book soon.

Thank you.