Does the job we do define who we are? And, if so, what does this largely Western mantra mean for the generation of youth faced with the prospect of mass unemployment for years to come?
As countries around Europe brace for a long period of austerity, high unemployment and falling living standards, many fear society is set to become harsher on those the system leaves behind.
For more go to the Interview with celebrated philosopher Alain de Botton who in layman's terms talks about the challenges faced by society in the wake of the global financial crisis.
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podunkmarte
TheBadScot
Frank Apisa
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Jan Sand
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Good topic...
Leaving a segment "behind" is no longer possible,
in the sense of segregating them to a ghetto
where we don't gotta see 'em..."out of sight out of mind"....
that old trick is not gonna cut it...
They will be right there in our faces.
If they feel unfairly disenfranchised, they will eventually explode.
Especially since they can see what they are missing
very clearly, on tv or Internet....
All the ingredients for a revolution are cohering
as if to a nightmarish script....
the last 50 years or so have been
a tsunami of rising expectations,
maybe the biggest in human history...
not just economically, but culturally (civil&women's rights)...
if Austerity is coming, better beef up the police forces
to keep internal conditions from devolving
to feudal mayhem.
the loss of Oprah soon, very soon...
unless you can afford expanded cable & get Oxygen ,or the O Channel, or whatever it's called....
Rolling, M for Melissa I suppose, but this is not quite me coming back, but I thought had to post this interview...
Just my thoughts, I found this interesting.
I caught on to it in this description he gives of a woman on a roof, "“seemed possess[ed] of a kind of joy that drove and pressed and hurled herself in all kinds of movement; she seemed to enjoy a strange, delightful pulsation in various facets of her beauty and in the various currents of her throbbing bloodstream.” (Asian Literature in Comparative Perspectives, pp. 117) Ahem by the way that book his free on Google books. But, as you can see the woman on the roof acts very different than a woman raised in the west would ever think of behaving.
But, yet I like this woman on the roof so I thought of the (Forgive me if I spell his name wrong) Adjucta and Krisha. Adjucta believed their were the four categories that ran through all human problems or as the Greeks would have called them tragedies. He categories them I believe as personal duty (dharma), personal desire (kama), and action (kharma). While Krishna believed all these ideas were more tied to the real self (atman) than any of the four categories Adjucta thought to be the overriding theme of all human Tragedy. Krishna believed there was a basic contradiction to existence and the way to true liberation from the mundane existence was through various forms of discipline. Discipline (Yoga) including devotion (bhakti) to him was the way to the incarnation of cosmic totality.
So I then went on to think of how I am raising my daughter and have decided to change many things I am currently doing because I want her to be more happy and feel really feel like the lady on the roof. I want her to find her atman. I believe that western traditions stop the process in this early on while we are raising the child. The age of innocence lost that the romantics discuss so fervently is what I think is the end of the path of the westerner to find their atman.
So I have been thinking about how I am going to change my parenting techniques. First I am going to consult my Indian women friends. Thank-you for discussing this with me as I am missing James Emmerling a lot on here. He has been gone for a while and said he would be back on Monday. That means he is taking a long break, which makes me sad.
Anyways if you have any thoughts on this I would love to hear it. I do think this ties in with your blog here. I think westerners look to meaning in things that pertain to the dollar because they have been stunted as a child in finding their true selves or their atman. And would love to know what you think of my thoughts.
The question will be asked, "What is goodness? What does our moral nature mean?" My answer is that when a man begins to have an extended vision of his self, when he realizes that he is much more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious of his moral nature. Then he grows aware of that which he is yet to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real than that under his direct experience.
Necessarily, his perspective of life changes, and his Will takes the place of his wishes. For Will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of whose objects are not before our sight.
Then comes the conflict of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our Will, of the desire for things affecting our sense with the purpose that is within our heart. Then we begin to distinguish between what we immediately desire and what is good. For good is that which is desirable for our greater self. Thus, the sense of goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is a connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which takes into account not only what is present before us but what is not, and perhaps never humanly can be.
However, while I respect Indian history, philosophy and culture, I personally think it is not necessarily better or worse than that in the West but a product of its place and time. Also, western materialism and consumerism as embodied in the meritocratic society that resulted can in many ways be viewed as great societal advance of our much maligned feudal past, and that India is yet to go down that path. And based on what is transpiring at this time, does not leave much to be admired. Social inequality is also built into their religious tenets (reincarnation and the caste system), so apparent happiness by the poor in many ways can be viewed as mere subservience to ones supposed karmic fate. Other issues are the inferiority of women, wife scarring, child slavery, indentured labour (essentially Slavery) gross inequality and many more... are rife in Indian Society today and appears not to be diminishing, albeit that they are experiencing an economic boom.
My personal view is that an existential view, being dedicated to inner reality at all cost, is the surest way to lasting happiness and personal mastery. In the West's case, the solution merely is a personal one, and it comes down to a re-evaluation of what is truly valuable. Status anxiety, for instance, is simple to cure, but the inducements of materialism appear to be too strong for many. It thus comes down to personal choice, and thus, in a way, we choose to suffer…
Describing this conflict in the words of Tagore: "Then comes the conflict of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our Will, of the desire for things affecting our sense with the purpose that is within our heart".
But alas, the associated suffering of this existential striving to find that higher self appears to be the price we are obliged pay for adulthood, and hence, to truly be free from the bondage of our own mind...
That made a lot of sense to me.
"to be free of our own mind."
Do you mean worrying about every little thing?
What I'm arguing for is an existential view of reality, and suffering. What it comes down to is that we choose to suffer existentially, in other words, that we accept the suffering associated with the reality of the events of our lives, and that we distinguish it from neurotic suffering, which is in our mind.
For instance, that we existentially suffer the reality of loosing a spouse in a divorce for instance, and do what is necessary to constructively move on with our life; but that it is neurotic to go around suffering the eventuality that one's spouse may leave because he or she may not think we're attractive or desirable for whatever reason.
This philosophy is also central to the Christian doctrine (and hence it's association with Christian suffering, Christ dreadfully suffering for what he believed in, and the notion of being in the storm and not praying for the storm to end), but to purposefully seek out suffering or to deny oneself because that is what you believe Christian suffering is about, indeed is neurotic as well.
Buddhist also have an existential view, the first of the Buddhist wisdoms saying that "Life is suffering". This, however, is a paradox, because in the very acceptance that life is difficult, and that it was never meant to be a bed of roses in which our every whim and desire is to be met, we are set free from neurotic suffering, and that we can far more easily bear the burden of real suffering (or living). And since taking on the burden of life truly is not suffering which we impose upon ourselves, therefore, is not suffering at all, but often times the meaning (or the highest calling of our life) that we are to able to fulfill in this mere fleeting mortal existence.
we need u. i think in my weird paranoid panoromic nouveau-
cortex that u might be
SURESH EMRE.
OR ...you friggin timetravelled & now are 2,
a young u (him)
and the african one (u)
is angelique prospering? still psychoanalyzing
dullards?
jimenace?
appropriately enough,
dylan's tangled up in blue is on.
"i dont know what they did with their llives.
me i am still on the road"
not literally, thank Lila. and also God.
BE TERSE. FLASH COMMENTS.
THEN GO ELSEWHERE. OS WILL
NOT LET U DOWN NO MORE.