Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category
Perspective
Hindsight is, it seems, the only true sight, and only when we look back on things and discuss them with others do we tend to be able to truly put them into a reasonable perspective, something that sees their consequences and implications in the most realistic light. It is particularly amazing, I find, how much what we are doing right now or what we are involved in or what we are trying to read from other’s words and actions seems so amazingly significant at the time we are doing whatever it is we are involved in, compared with how insignificant they later seem. This is, I imagine, due to the hold that emotions seem to have over our ability to judge situations. It is always a worry to me how dependent we all are on such forces. I’d like to think that I am less susceptible than most, but how do I know this is not just because I hold positive feelings about the things I engage in? Maybe my perceived ability to ride through things that upset others is just because of a certain emotional set, not a lack of one. But again, this is something that changes with time. Our own point of view of events is incredibly significant in our ability to deal with them. The question is then whether or not there is a better set of views to hold in order to not be held back by emotions but only having them serve as bolstering, useful forces. For many years I have maintained that there is but while I’m still fairly sure of this I seem to make little progress towards it. Just maybe, human life should be something infused with passion for what is perceived to matter – for otherwise it seems we have little reason to do very much at all, aside from simple biological ones.
The worrying thing about all of this is that at the end of the day, I am faced with the arguments from pure utilitarianism that in fact any claims I make to be doing something with any kind of meaning and worth could always be derived from the positive emotional state that I seem to gain from such pursuits. It is depressing to consider the possibility that all of these high-minded claims we all try to make to living what we like to call rich and fulfilled lives in which we flourish potentially all collapse with startling rapidity into mere attempts to release certain chemicals in the brain. But I’m not sure this argument is quite so deadly as it sometimes seems. Perhaps happiness can be equated with something being ‘good’, as merely a definitional reaction to certain events which we see as either worthwhile, fun or interesting. I’m not going to try and develop this argument now as I’m not entirely sure why I sat down to write this post at all, but it is something to consider. I maintain my scepticism. I don’t know anything but merely work on through life according to my nature, and try to examine it as I go for if I did not, it would be just another life, even less significant on the scales of history than it already is.
So is there a useful conclusion from these considerations? One is, I believe, simply to keep such considerations in mind. When an event or person or idea overcomes the senses and dominates the mind’s thoughts as it twists through the day’s considerations, stepping back is a useful tool. Take things slowly, get other opinions, recognise the deficiencies of one’s own intellect as something that, when it cares, can let emotion get the better of it. Recognise unnecessary desires as something that experience shows will be fleeting but don’t destroy them, merely add them to an ever-growing list of considerations and ideas to be tried if life offers such opportunities. For you never know where you’ll go next, who you’ll meet, or what you’ll be doing – and if it will perhaps seem, at the time, to be of the utmost significance.
Some realisations and some conclusions
Humans tend to do well when they have a goal in mind and something long-term that they are aiming for – the only suitable replacement for this in ensuring that one progresses through day-to-day life is, I think, either having achieved said goal and spending one’s time in the results of that success, or simply making use of habits built up over wide expanses of time to continue plodding along in mediocrity. For example, someone who is maybe approaching their middle years and is just working and playing and sleeping through their time with no goal in sight is just following what they’ve always done and the human mind is good at this. A school pupil or other student who doesn’t know where they’re going and lounges around all weekend suddenly pulls themself into the classroom from some sense of duty born out of having done the same thing for the last eight years of their life. Then there is the contented retiree, bumbling around their garden and caring for the grandchildren, happy with what they have done in their years and what they have maybe created or sustained. Then there are those with a clear goal in mind who work to achieve it. The young person who, unpriveledged under modern capitalism, works for years to save for the chance of going to University or some other institution to fulfill their various dreams and who drags themselves to their monotonous, under-paid job every day where they are fed small reward that somehow pretends to consider them a person, all for that future goal. Those who don’t fit into these categories don’t seem to get a lot done in any respect. I am not referring to those hedonists who have chosen that way of being, but those who have fallen into it.
I don’t know how good a model this is for humanity’s collective number but I shall work with it for now, for I have a great deal that I wish to write about this evening that has been brewing away in my head for a while and is finally at a stage where I am prepared to let it loose upon that small section of the world that will read this. Bear with my seemingly unrelated thoughts in the hope that they come together at the conclusion of this text. I’m coming to the end of my two week Easter holiday and overall I have not had a fantastic time. I have gone to bed late successively due to not being able to put down and cease participating in interesting activities, few of which have actually had any real value. And following this I have got up far later than I ever normally would, ruining my sleep schedule. Losing this time in the morning has messed up my ability to get things done and as a result the holiday has been incredibly unproductive. And this has got to me a great deal. I seem to be naturally wired up to be fairly lazy and yet conciously crave more fulfilled time. Every night I have gone to my diary and written about how useless I have been and how I will try to make the next day more useful but overall this has been unsuccessful. It’s very easy to say such things before bed when you can’t be more useful that day, and far harder to put them into practice the following day when there are distractions to be had.
I have realised, coming clear in my mind over recent weeks with the aid of some others but also added to greatly this evening, various things about myself that I don’t like but that I wasn’t really aware of too. I have long known that I have an inferiority complex and, horridly, am rarely happier (in the sense of glee) than when I outdo someone close to me or they fail through their own devices. I am also aware and have long been told by family that I have a tendency to be fairly lazy and to not follow up suggestions of things that I then find to be worthwhile and interesting. These are the things that I am already aware of and have written about on here before. But then there are other things. Internet colleagues who I get on well with on a personal and social level express their frustration with the fact that I tend to pick up jobs and interests fanatically, only to swiftly get bored of them but remain unwilling to let others in to take up the reins because, cynically I am unwilling to give up power, and more optimistically I am unable to recognise when I don’t have the time or willingness to continue to carry something through. Recently this has manifested in a steadily brewing mess over something I can’t really talk publically about yet which, in general terms, has other people at each other’s throats due to my negligence that I am now attempting to fix. This is something that I intend to work my hardest against allowing to happen again. I am going to rectify this particular mess and then continue in my role only if I genuinely have the time to and interest in doing so. But this is a general tendency I need to try and avoid – for my sake and more importantly those others it affects.
Perhaps more seriously in the context of my proclaimed philosophies is the fact that I have realised how dependent I have become on the opinions of others compared to how I used to be. The vast majority of this kind of thing is not, I believe, generally something that others are likely to notice although I imagine I have friends who are more perceptive than I am. But I have caught myself, with yawning horror, feeling from time to time as though I am missing out and want to be part of the common (that is numerically common) culture around me with all the activities that people tend to get up to, and as part of this, seem to have found myself caring more and more about what others think of me and how they see various aspects of my activities and personality. It seems I am in the middle of a crisis of self-confidence – that last sentence was difficult to write as it sits so juxtaposed with every other thought I hold dear. Essentially it seems I want, subconciously, to be more included – and this is the very antithesis of all that I believe in terms of the way one best lives one’s life, which is by no means an anti-social life, but one that is not in any way controlled by such interactions. More conciously speaking I remain outwardly confident of virtually everything and inwardly confident of everything except my own academic abilities and my lack of ability to use my time well as before. But this realisation, expressed not-so-fantastically here, has deeply shocked me. I do not wish to publically admit specific examples of what I describe here most generally.
Only one side of the story has been shown here as too often when anyone tries to analyse themself too far. While I might be someone who says strange things in an expression of the above subconcious social concerns, I am also someone who, I am told, listens to the views of pretty much everyone and tries to take them onboard intellectually as much as is possible. I have a hefty dose of rationality and employ it fairly successfully in the abstract sense, even if I fail hard at things of a practical nature in the real world, which fortunately concerns me little. I can pull out masses of enthusiasm and energy for certain things, even if it may trail off given time as described above. I think, I believe, fairly well – but I recognise that such a thing is never perfected in a life and I withhold my absolute assent from anything – even this. In these terms I have recently been described as a pyrrhonist by a friend and I am proud (after learning the meaning of the term) to have been addressed as such, and I intend to blog at some point in more detail about this world view. Conciously I am in a situation that I am content with. It seems that I need to reconcile my less concious self with these thoughts so that I move away from my recognised faults, and perhaps find others to be corrected. I don’t know how far the above recognised issues have infected my concious self.
So far I have expressed a series of realisations and opinions about my own, very human, faults and perceived strengths in what probably appears to be a very juvenile mental struggle traditionally associated with my age group, where I try to settle into one of the moulds that society has set out for me. So I should now set out the nature of this mould that I want to slot myself into; how I intend to try to work towards an improved state of being far removed from the problems I have now identified. How I can stop having holidays such as this where I waste my time away despite my claimed allegiances to mental activity and service. And what it comes down to is attempts to get into better habits and better subconcious processes in order to allow me to achieve what I conciously see as my goals as described at the beginning of this post. I need to slow down and think more carefully in common activities. I need to force myself to use my time better until it becomes something that happens naturally, given that I recognise that now it is a natural tendency towards wasting it that I seem to have acquired. I need to apply my reason even more commonly and liberally than I do now to be disciplined with myself. And I need to speak only when I have something genuinely worthwhile to say. And I suppose, additionally, following my various New Year’s resolutions wouldn’t hurt either. I have no desire to destroy my trademark intellectual faux-arrogance that is really pure enthusiasm, or to change from my forceful style once I have decided to pursue something. But by widening when I apply the essence of these and by more carefully selecting when to put forth their public fronts I think I can come closer to my various goals.
It’s very easy for me to sit here before going to bed and write roughly two thousand words on things that I want to do based on deeply held but assumed principles of what is valuable and ultimately meaningful in my life as I go forward. But I truly hope that by writing this kind of thing down I can take steps in this particular direction towards being more fully what I already hope I am in my better moments. I know I am never going to make a life entirely of these, but they seem remarkably few and far between these days and so maybe I can change that trend somewhat. And maybe I am just slotting myself into yet another pre-determined mould sat in by various other people who like to call themselves thinkers over history and am really just slumping into another mediocre life as with the rest of the world. But there is always the chance that I will transcend this, a chance that I know doesn’t exist if I don’t carry out this process of recognising and at least attempting to fix bad habits and practices that lead me astray and into despair over my inability to sort them out. If it’s all wrong at least I can move myself closer to a state from which I can head to a whole host of other destinations. Hopefully for once I have now made a firm step in a better direction.
A farewell to nonage
I’m not quite sure what I want to write, but I feel I should make some sort of post this night before my eighteenth birthday. As I type this I have roughly five hours until this collection of cells other collections of cells like to refer to as Sean will have been around for eighteen years, the age at which this reasonably liberal society decides that one becomes responsible for oneself and one’s own life, when some rights end and others begin. What will I have achieved in that time? I’ve been fantastically lucky to have been born into the rich western world. I’ve had every opportunity slung at me by enthusiastic family members, I’ve had a pretty good education, and I’m supposed to be planning for a successful career in the eyes of this utilitarian society. I seem to have set myself up as someone who questions and questions and never stops, occasionally suggesting an answer to the mix, and I am proud of the fact that I don’t let myself be influenced quite so heavily as others can be by social tyranny and confirmity. I try to improve things around this plane of existence where I can. In the end I may only be another human and I may be immensely insignificant in the eyes of eternity, but at least I can pretend otherwise and write away on this blog as if I am penning an epic tale.
But this is the point. There have been a thousand eighteenth birthdays like mine, there have surely been equally as many who will have realised this and thought themselves to be philosophically superior. As Charlie says in my favourite passage of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, his friends sitting in a cafe arguing over some issue are merely replaying a conversation had a thousand times before by similar groups. There is precious little originality, and there is precious little variety left in our lives. We laugh at the same jokes and we slot ourselves into the moulds available in society: our education systems turn out doctors and lawyers and managers who then pick from a similar choice of family circumstances. And then we lose our fervour, and become dull and routine, never changing as we plod away at the lives we have chosen. It is oft said that the young are idealistic and unsettled, and that we have ridiculous, ignorant ideas of how we want to shape the world. But this is something we must keep. If everyone just does something that’s gone before and occasionally something new is thought up, why bother? If we settle for what is practical and easy and we don’t instead try our hardest to bring variety and difference and change then you might as well collapse all generations into one and stamp a historical label upon them all as a era of repitition.
The above is probably full of fallacies and I’m sure I’m a hypocrite in so many ways here. If what we have right now isn’t good enough, and never will be according to this model, what is it that we are trying to reach? Why have variety if actually it doesn’t turn out to be very much different for individuals? Maybe by sticking with a routine and what one has one has merely reached the ideal situation. And maybe it is all irrelevent anyway as we all die, and it all ends. Maybe instead of worrying about trying to strike out we should try to achieve that fabled balance between the extremes of progress and conservation, and be satisfied in the knowledge that we’re never likely to divine some sort of eternal meaning, but trying makes us understand things better.
The above is what goes round and round in my head on a day to day basis. When I see a tired looking worker on the bus or a bored school pupil, when I see a stereotypical student or teenager or toddler just going through their lives, I consider these issues. I’m not going to try to pick a side here on the question of what the answer is here. All I would like to hope and set as a goal is that I keep thinking. If we ever put aside questions as unanswerable, there isn’t much point in having the questions at all. And in this again I’m just another would-be philosopher who likes to play around with questions, just someone else who secretly thinks themselves better for doing so, but knows they’re really not. So I’ll keep trying to be original and new, and I know I’ll never likely be happy with how that comes out, and I’ll never be satisfied with the quest. But a life with no certainty and permenance and purpose is infinitely better than one of false surety and contentment. There has to be something more than mere happiness. I suspect I’ll always hold that belief.
I won’t be any different tomorrow morning, but this was worth saying, even if it was a bit garbled and unclear – but that’s sort of the point. Good night.
Society’s progression
I’ve railed against utilitarianism before now: speaking as a philosopher who’s trying to build things up from little, I’m against basing the entirety of morality on happiness primarily because this means the ends always justify the means if the end result maximises happiness for the maximum number of people. However, in having a discussion over the ideal society the other day, I realised that I don’t seem to follow this. In fact, I’m actually far from it: I often seem to be arguing for a society where there is as little suffering as possible. In said discussion, I was trying to make the point that I’d rather see a world where no-one was in poverty or suffered a poor standard of living, even if there were members of that society not pulling their weight, by not working when they could do so. My opposition said that they would rather see what they called a fair world, where everyone had the opportunity to take part in society and those who didn’t would rightly face the consequences of poverty. I’m talking about those who can work but choose not to: not those who can’t due to disability etc. My opponent asserted that the UK right now is pretty good at providing such opportunities even though there are improvements to be made. My first thought is that this is unrealistic, but I don’t really know about, so I shall leave such empirical arguments behind.
So I was arguing for a society where people were individually better off even if they didn’t deserve it in the standards of many other members of said society. Why? Because they would be happier, and because I don’t see the rest of that society as having any right to take such basic rights of a decent standard of living away, because we’ve had too much poverty and suffering in the human race already. But this is effectively utilitarianism: I’m arguing that the duty of contributing to one’s society is less important than the outcome of happiness for all. However, I believe I can reconcile this apparent hole. The reason I want to allow everyone to have basic rights at all costs is one of liberty: people must be in a position where they can be individuals if we are to be in a position where society is exposed to as many possible variations of humanity as possible, because this is the only way we can hope to achieve a better society on whatever scale of betterment you choose to use. Many would use happiness, I’m not sure yet.
I am having other general problems with my arguments for morality. One thing I particularly hold to is the importance of intentions. To me, given that the only thing people have control over is what they aim to do, this is the only thing that can possibly be used to judge them. It’s not reasonable to punish someone for causing great misery when they didn’t intend to because there’s no point: it’ll just make them suffer when they can’t do anything about it. This suggests that now is very important. It’s not what happens in the future, it’s what we do now that defines us, what we choose to do or not do. But we make choices about what to (try and) do now based on what we are aiming for in the future, so I’m not actually making any kind of progress on things. I attack consequentialism for aiming at future ends rather than worrying about the means needed to achieve them for always looking into a future and never ‘landing’ somewhere. But actually, I end up in the same problem myself.
This isn’t flowing properly today so I’ll leave it there.