"Talk Is Cheap"

Living Authentically and Creatively

Preface:
As already explained, in this transcendental and humanistic reality every single human being is of equal inherent worth (like the Friends, UU, and other hopeful worldviews espouse).
(See previous blog article.)

Step A:
Be aware that everyone of us is complex, a multi-part person. The more aware we are of life, others, and ourselves, the more authentically and creatively we can live, moment by moment.

We humans have at least 3 parts, 3 ego states*, that of--

#1 TAUGHT Part of I (how our parents or guardians raised us in the past, their rules, behavior, and attitudes)

#2 FEEL Part of I (especially how we felt and experienced life as a kid naturally and how we react now to our "internal parent," too, and how we feel spontaneously)

#3 THINK Part of I (how we operate using our reason, awareness, ethics, and sense-of-life to make rational, thoughtful, and smart decisions; our inner computer)

Often there is conflict between all 3 parts of us.

To live authentically, is to let our rational self decide each time our feelings and our internal “taught” get in a disagreement.

Also, keep in mind a very key point:
Remember, you are all 3 ego states/parts! All 3 are important, but your FEELings part--your inner you--is probably the most important.

You cannot do away with your inner you in yourself. Besides, your FEELings
are the most fun and the most creative.
It's your THINKing's job to help meet your inner you's needs, hopes, and dreams without getting into trouble.

It's your TAUGHT'S job to treat your FEELings, your inner you, with respect and love and to provide your THINKing reasoning part with data from human civilization's past, so you can consider, reflect on, and make decisions about each future action.

Here's a bad example of what not to say:

FEELING: "Someday I'm going to be rich."

TAUGHT: "Money isn't everything. Look how it burns a hole in your pocket. You may end up on welfare."
*Adapted

Or take this very real life event:

Let’s say we got to sleep very late last night because we had company—our relatives—for the weekend.
Now it’s 5:30 am and we need to get up, we are so tired, and don’t FEEL like getting up.

#3 If we let our FEEL rule, of course, we’ll be late for work.

#2 If we let our TAUGHT rule, we’ll get up, but probably will be grumpy, maybe even complain like we did (if we did) when we were kids and our parents had to get us out of bed for school. So, we may gripe or grumble as we drive to work. (Not that this is a huge misstep, it’s just a minor example of how our ego states work.)

#2 If we let our THINK operate, we can be aware of our tiredness, but be thankful that we had such a great time the night before,
give ourselves a few seconds to energize,
and then get up and be thankful for a new day.
(A little caffeine will help, probably.)

Living rationally and thoughtfully:-)

But it can get more complicated when our 3 parts meet the 3 parts of another person at work, and far more complicated with other persons (and their ego states), too---when all of us get combined in a group situation.

If other individuals for why-ever, let their TAUGHT or FEEL predominate and direct actions, it is very easy for there to be multi-person conflict.

For example:

If the manager is having a trying time with his teenage daughter or his elderly parent suffering dementia, and he is under a lot of pressure from higher-ups to speed up production, he may be tempted to order everyone to work harder,
but not say so in a moderate, rational tone from his THINK,
but switch to his TAUGHT,
glaring at anyone who takes an extra moment at the coffee machine.

If so, then 6, 9, 12, or even 90 different ego states can get in a brief verbal tussle.

What if I got up grumpy?

I’m going for an extra cup of coffee, wishing I wasn’t at work.
Why didn’t I call in sick, or take a vacation day?

Our manager rushes by and orders me back to my desk.

If I am not THINKing clearly, I may make a negative remark to him, or after he leaves, complain to my work group—
“What’s with Uptight-Joe this morning?!”
--

https://acoarecovery.wordpress.com/tag/ego-states/

Listen closely—as an observer—of yourself and others and you will even be able to hear others or voices within your head say thing like this:

#1 TAUGHT: “You must.” “Don’t raise your voice.” “You listen to me.” “If you do that again…” “You can’t trust_____(Fill in blank-- police, women, workers, bosses, politicians, minorities, bankers, etc.)

#2 FEEL: “Wow, such fun!” I want it now!” “Try and make me.” Or “Why doesn’t my father like me?”

#3 THINK: “Hmm, I see the way that works.” What if we added this new method?” “How does one code that into his computer?” “What is the best way to make sure that everyone is treated fairly?”

Consider this brief story:
A young teen--after he attacked an elderly man and stole his wallet--
when caught, admitted, “I knew taking another person’s possession is wrong because it’s unfair;
yes, I shouldn’t have ever taken his wallet;
but I wanted some money now.”

Figure out which phrase is THINK, which is TAUGHT, and which is FEEL.



To be continued--


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

*Adapted from Transactional Analysis.
See Introduce Yourself to Transactional Analysis by Paul McCormick and Leonard Campos,
Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of TA
and What Do You Say After You Say Hello?
by Eric Berne, psychiatrist and developer of TA

Paradoxical Truths to Live By

The Wonder of Our Finite Species

Many factors influence human choices including our evolutionary past, our temperament, our family background, our culture/worldview, etc., but we aren’t determined fatalistically
by any God or Allah or the Cosmos or Nature or the Big Bang.

As aware humans, (homo sapiens, reasoning and creative primates), we have the amazing ability to choose among various alternative thoughts, plans, actions. We have alternative choice. Our decisions change the world around us and change us.

Homo sapiens aren’t like some modern thinkers claim—only “wet robots,” “puppets,” “bags of chemicals,” or inanimate “bowls of sugar” only being acted on, with no choice.

Existence (space and time) isn’t a cosmic block of amber with all sentient life including humans’ finite lives only petrified termites within.

On the contrary, the cosmos is in creative flux and has at least one species which has rational and creative ability--US.

According to many humanistic thinkers, every human has at least 5 abilities:

#1 Self Awareness:

We primates, unlike many more basic life forms such as a clam;-), are aware that we exist, and aware that we are aware. Also, we are aware to one degree or another of our own eventual ceasing to be in death.

And if each of us becomes a student of history, each “I” can become aware that millions of years existed and billions of humans before this finite “I,” came into being.

We have great ability to learn about our environment from our backyard to far-flung galaxies beyond the Milky Way, and from this present moment in February 2, 2016 to back to the beginning of time billions of years ago, and to speculate about the eventual demise of the cosmos many billions of years in the future.

#2 Ethical Sense of Ought:

NOT only do we have those amazing learning skills to learn facts of what IS
and what was,
we also have a deeply embedded sense of conscience of what OUGHT
to become—
what is transcendent, what is essential
what is ‘beyond’ the basic facts of matter and energy.

Our conscience doesn’t tell us precisely what is right and what is wrong, but that we ought to do right and to reject wrong.

However, as all humans usually learn, growing into a reliable sense of ought ‘ain’t’ easy.

Not only does one need to guide, even restrain impulse and instinct, one needs to question the basic assumptions of one’s ethnic, cultural, and national background.
But then all difficult learning takes time and much effort.

Think of learning calculus to build bridges and skyscrapers, or how to perform brain surgery, or to play multiple musical instruments well.

Why should ethics be any simpler?

For more details on this, read a good philosophical book like the skeptic Martin Gardner’s The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener.

#3 Ability to Reason:

Using our thinking ability, we rationally think through possible future actions. We can observe our self, our situation, “stand apart from our self,” in order to make as objectively accurate decisions as possible.

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
Thomas Paine

#3 Imaginative Reflection/Empathy:

Furthermore, before acting, we can project in our mind how our actual action may affect others. We can seek to understand the feelings of other individuals and understand why they are different in their views and behaviors.

#4 Creativity:

Even when a human is aware, can trust his conscience, uses reason, and engages in empathy—even then everything isn’t solved.

Sometimes much creative thinking needs to take place in order to figure out how to implement good ideas, especially in situations with conundrums and in dilemmas.

#5 Free Choice (opposite of determinism)

Lastly, then we can use all of these qualities to act. Finally!

Of course, usually, we won’t have enough time to do each of these steps for most daily choices. But if we practice these skills regularly, then a shortened method can take place even when hasty decisions and actions have to be made in the moment.

For instance, if I am at the grocery store standing in front of the meat and fish cold bin trying to decide between salmon or crab for supper, and another person walks up and grabs the last filet of salmon, I can respond ethically rather than instinctively or impulsively.

Then if the lines are long at the cash registers, rather than tapping my fingers impatiently, thinking how this is going to make me late for my next appointment, I can be aware in the present, think empathetically about others in the line and the clerk, and smile, even carry on a 30 second positive chat.

The wonder of human consciousness, reason, and alternative choice.

In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Toward a Skeptical Worldview of Hope—God as Becoming

Being and/or Becoming, that is the question…
(to misquote the Bard).

What is the term “God” at a basic level but the Good with an additional exclaimed, “OH!”

Who is/was/will-be/does/becomes?

Before launching into the second part of this series on God, which will deal with philosophers’ reasoning about God such as that of Professor Charles Hartshorne’s analytical speculation on the nature of Ultimate Reality, here's a few introductory notes.
(IF you don’t want to be bored with the important introduction, skip DOWN to SECTION #2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE.)

INTRODUCTION

I suppose it goes without saying (but I will type it;-) that we finite educated primates have taken on a seemingly impossible task, sort of like one human swallowing the wide ocean whole--hook, line, and sinker;-)

We who only have a lifespan of about 70-80 years in developed countries show observation, ingenuity, creativity, and complicated thinking. But usually it also includes much hubris.

Think of various religious spokespersons now who claim the founders of their religion knew in detail what God was doing before the Big Bang, yet they excuse their founding leaders for horrific ethics-- burning people at the stake, enslaving millions, and so forth--claiming that the thinkers were only believing, behaving and doing like most other humans in their time period! The prime example, of course, is the intellectual Reformed religion and its founders John Calvin, John Knox, Martin Luther, and Hudrych Zwingli.

Who are we to think that we can understand and explain Reality, let alone Ultimate Reality? Heck, the existence of Homo sapiens has only occurred in the last second of the finite existence of one minuscule planet in a very small solar system on the edge of one of billions of galaxies. Let’s not even speculate on the multi-verse.

“Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them. It’s not our fault—the spans of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it’s almost impossible to get a handle on it. If the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second. And if human history itself spans 24 hours from one midnight to the next, 14 minutes represents the time since Christ.”
Tim Urban
TIME By Wait But Why
http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Time-G-e1419172691756.png

Human insight and understanding are on a long trajectory from basic self and natural awareness of early humans to the present when scientists understand enough of astronomy, complex math, an innovative technology to send a probe all the way to the dwarf planet Pluto, a journey which took almost 10 years.

“The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about Pluto and turned it upside down,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It's why we explore -- to satisfy our innate curiosity and answer deeper questions about how we got here and what lies beyond the next horizon."
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/four-months-after-pluto-flyby-nasa-s-new-horizons-yields-wealth-of-discovery

FAR BEYOND THAT—is the comprehending and understanding of the ultimate nature of existence.
What happens in the essence of reality?
What took place before the Big Bang of the universe?
What will happen after humans become extinct?
After our cosmos ceases to exist?

Or for that matter who can explain exhaustively the nature of the Cosmos right now? Cosmologists are working on the seemingly infinite task. We don’t yet understand dark matter or dark energy and so much else.

But humans are in a process of becoming. As mentioned before, think how far Homo sapiens have come since they first discovered fire, math, abstract thought, and reasoned speculation.

Since we humans are a self-aware, conscious, rational, ethical species, even though we understand so little, we need to think about meaning and purpose in order not to lapse back into only instinctive responses in our brief journey of living. Every day, every moment we make choices--

Let us THINK!

A skeptic...is a person who questions everything, including her own conclusions, all the time. She craves knowledge and understanding, so she loves bumping into people and ideas that challenge her assumptions. A skeptic views disagreements as opportunities to refine her knowledge and understand more today than she did last night.
Paul Mahan
https://medium.com/@ungewissen/religious-people-are-wrong-about-skeptics-1f502ebffe83

--
“speculation (n.)
late 14c., "intelligent contemplation, consideration; act of looking," from Old French speculacion "close observation, rapt attention," and directly from Late Latin speculationem (nominative speculatio) "contemplation, observation," noun of action from Latin speculatus, past participle of speculari "observe," from specere "to look at, view" (see scope (n.1)).
Online Etymology Dictionary

skeptic: related to skeptesthai "to reflect, look, view"
Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found. [Miguel de Unamuno, "Essays and Soliloquies," 1924]
“The extended sense of "one with a doubting attitude" first recorded 1610s.”

“Meaning "pursuit of the truth by means of thinking" is from mid-15c. Disparaging sense of "mere conjecture" is recorded from 1570s.”
OED
--

SECTION 2: CHARLES HARTSHORNE

First, the essential nut of God without even the shell:

Second, Charles Hartshorne answers Epicurus' striking questions with his own complex philosophy of God reduced to a poster:

And that's only the beginning:-)

TO BE CONTINUED--




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Fish, Water, and Whatever...

First, a few quotes from David Foster Wallace’s fish story of water:

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?”

And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

“…learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.”

[Without awareness within, your only freedom will be] “The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation…”

“in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”

“The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way?”

“But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently… [maybe the] lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line…been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department…”
Quotes from the 2005 Kenyon University Commencement Address by David Foster Wallace

Unfortunately, tragically, Wallace couldn't or wouldn't take his own advice in the end. For 20 years, he had been taking medicine for chronic depression. When there was a medical difficulty, he stopped taking the medication, and shortly thereafter, he hanged himself. Only 3 years after delivering this powerful speech on how one needs to be present and aware and giving, not controlled by inner or outer forces. Tragic.

The question is:
Am I (are you) living aware and seeking to understand others in the midst of daily irritants and serious trials, even tragic events?

Or are we like the two young fish?

Wallace’s wise words remind me of a passage in Scripture:

“…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8

Otherwise,

there’s the other fish story…

Two fish are swimming along not thinkingly aware (When do fish ever think aware, or humans for that matter? Read a little biology and a little human history).

Suddenly, the first fish crashes into an immovable object—and gills, “Dam!”

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox