Philosophy of Life — A search
(How my compass is set)
My desire tonight is that my unfamiliar views, described as uncommon on my blog, might be understood. That you may have a sense of where I am coming from as the expression goes.
I believe I would have to start .. Where do I start?
Just start… so let me describe my world and maybe we can find some agreement at least, hah! .. at the start. Everything external to me, that being the weather, the air, the sun, the people, the nature, the civilization, the newspaper world, this Life I am breathing in, I synthesize. Everyday I filter it afresh
and yes everyday it reaffirms and picks up where it left off, or to be more exact I pick up where I left off. This external world is both supportive as in the air, (not counting Smoke) the sun, the trees, good food which I will almost always find and friendly as in friends and family. Sounds idyllic right? It is in many ways. It is supportive and then there is the harsh and maddening. How do I deal with this knowledge that can be gained simply by using one’s senses that there is something fundamentally suffering/askew/ something sadly wrong with the society that I exist in.
You might say that this is simply my subjective interpretation of ‘reality’. That would be correct. If I am living in bucolic Oregon you might question how I could find anything wrong with the picture. We don’t have to play that notion out I am going to take a chance and hope that I still have most of my reading public still with me all 7 of you (if I am lucky!) We have turned Paradise into a Hell and how the Hell do we get back on the right track. Everyday, everyday this world reveals itself in it’s glory and it’s misery ( I know most of you don’t want to hear misery… can you be upbeat ?) Upbeat, yes I can. I can transcend but I cannot deny the fundamental reality, of life within a civilization that destroys Life.
So how do we/I keep my sanity believe that there is a path forward that leads us out of this sad spiral. I of course can only speak for myself. I know that we all have unspoken principles that guide us on and that the good news is the upwards spiral lives in all of us.
I am going to see if I can connect to my principles that pull me up and give me a framework to view life and will further explain my so-called uncommon views.
A love of Nature. You want to know my philosophy? Nature is probably the first place to start. Here’s what I have figured out or what I have gathered from all the other people who figured it out, or at least had clues before me. This experience of Life that we all come into wide-eyed and mind blown (well sort of if I can borrow a phrase from a few years back) is being alive in this web of biological life. We humans are set apart from almost all the other animals and vegetables, particularly wild life. So removed that we think we are something completely different. All life’s inputs in this modern world for so many people are simply created, or not so simply created by human design. This is the matrix of which so many children are raised. It can be seen to be a practical approach as that is the direction our civilization is taking us. Nature in civilized USA is something that you visit on a vacation perhaps, let’s drive to some distant location to pay our respects to Nature. Increasingly science is the framework of our perspective for educated or educating youth. Now Science and Nature work hand in hand, they are not opposing forces. Science is mankind’s collective learning process of uncovering the ‘wonders of nature’.
This practical approach however has it’s limits for as we make our way through the year 2020 with it’s symbolic reminder of good vision, our whole society is shaken with an unease, a distress that crosses all political thought. Where are we going? What lessons of the fundamental Nature have we lost track of? How wise is this path increasingly to believe that Science holds all the answers? What is wealth and how do we live with Liberty and also with Responsibility?
I met a teacher one day. He was a substitute teacher. He enjoyed it very much. He liked coming in to a situation where he knew he was going to be the bump in the daily routine. How was he going to handle it? He told me he started every day with his new class by chalking in a little circle in the middle of the big chalkboard. ‘Kids, this circle represents all the things we adults know, the rest of the board is what we don’t know. There is no such thing as a dumb question. Do not be afraid to ask a question, any question.’
There are questions that kids want answers to. Start here…
’Who are we and where are we going?’
The first, an identity question that a child might not really form in his or her mind because it is such a fundamental taken for granted ‘I am’ … I am Billy, Suzy, Mohammed, Rainbow etc… Though in a child as we move along to being an adult ( an honorary status called adult when you are old enough to take care of yourself and create more children ) the question never disappears, and our inner dialogue will continue to mull it over, refresh and ponder and then some more and be very grateful when we can find some activity or company that let’s us forget that introspective concern.
As children, who have now become adults or parents, many take care, pride and concern to pass on this identity that we have fashioned to the next generation. We are.. fill in the blanks… Left, Right, Progressive, Conservative, White, Black, Red White and Blue, Rebel against this, Rebel against that, God Fearing, Atheists, the Chosen and on and on and we all are doing our best to impart identity. Not only impart as in ‘Teach Your Children Well’ but still be that identity ourselves.
Am I thinking too hard? Here it is kids, We are Life itself. It is not about your ‘isms’ but your ‘Is’.
We are Life itself. The fundamental is what we need to reach inside ourselves and simply be
ourselves as Life. Maybe step outside ourselves and be Life Itself. When I get into that place either
by some act of grace, or just being awake with enough health to realize that once again, this is It.
Simply keeping this ‘framework’ of understanding alive so that in my tired, busy minded self I know
that this is it. I am not advocating a lifestyle that disregards education, science or intellectual curiosity. It is the opposite. I advocate for the continual refreshment that comes through learning and discovery, a learning that continues at every stage of life.
By my perspective I am part of an organism called humanity who is part of a larger organism called Life itself. I am at my desk, with my hat sitting by the computer, that says ‘Only You’.
My glasses are where they need to be, resting on my nose held by little plastic arms that sit on my ears, my American Flag T shirt on and my name is Guy W. Meyer, Jr with all of my completely unique experiences and perspective but the fundamental reality is I am this Nature, I am this Life and we are all part of this organism. This unity and that is an amazing event, a potentially Planet altering change of perspective. When people say or have said we are all one, it is not just an abstraction it is the fundamental truth. When I burn away the fog, the struggles and worries of who am I, it is then I step up and be part of an existing reality that is all powerful.
When we re-orient our identity like a person who has outgrown old clothes, too many holes, too tight, the potential of a new identity to begin the major healing transformation of our planet is here for all of us.
‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ This talk of a new-identity is nothing more than a recognition of what has always been here. We have been living with this ‘breakthrough’ discovery that has been discovered thousands of times before, and so many of us go there on occasion and like all the best things when you want to hold on it slips away. Let’s keep on keeping on, discovering it everyday until it becomes our everyday identity. It is open to us all, every step in our lives is important every day we can step out on to this Planet Earth.
I edited this remainder out but I’ll keep it here in case these thoughts have value.
* and unless parents have good insight, which many do, but even with some knowledge it is not easy to bring the fundamentals into the hearts and minds of children. Nature is more taught to be something that you visit on a vacation perhaps, let’s drive to some distant location to pay our respects to Nature. Increasingly science is the framework of our perspective for educated or educating youth. Now Science and Nature work hand in hand, they are not opposing forces. Science is mankind’s collective learning process of uncovering the ‘wonders of nature’.
