Tag: acceptance

A Ramble Through Little

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I was doing so well living the life of oblivious bliss. No news for ten days, suddenly the world felt like a beautiful place. When you have no idea what is going on outside of the bubble you live in on a daily basis then things can very easily start to appear relatively calm. It helps that the bubble is a small seaside village and despite peoples best attempts at creating them, there are few genuine regular issues worth being demoralised over. That doesn’t mean things don’t happen but certainly little worthy of national attention let alone global and geopolitical. Saying that in places like this all you have to do is scrape below the surface and you’ll find something worth getting carried away with. It does explain the propensity for gossip in places like this though.

It’s interesting to see how we respond to moments of drama. I know I could live in a small village and life would be relatively stress free, likely it would be safe and although there wouldn’t be many people around I would know enough of them to not experience loneliness. Living in a city is far more exciting, there are things to do, places and people to see and there would be enough action to absorb you attention as required. Life though would probably be more intense and potentially more stressful, also in my experience far more lonely than any small village I’ve ever lived in. I’ve never quite understood that, and suspect the lonely feeling in cities is something born out of not being brought up in one and knowing how really to exist within them.

Perhaps a balance between the two. Always a balance. Always a fence to sit on. A sleepy but interesting and cultured city beside the sea. That’s the dream. I imagine if that existed so many people would have moved there in search of it they would destroy it in the process. It’s like being a tourist and wanting to visit the idyllic spots and being oblivious to the fact your presence helps in destroying any sense of idyllic you once had. We just can win. But we should never give up. What kind of life would that be. Too busy, too noisy but never settle. Or does that just miss the point for acceptance and appreciating what you have. Perhaps that’s for another time when I fancy another little ramble. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again.

A Ramble On Death

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I was watching a video this morning on Facebook, on what I can’t remember; a telling indictment of the zombie social media turns us into. I do remember at one point some footage came on of men in the First World War. It was coloured footage which I always find really fascinating because it makes old film real and relatable in a way black and white can’t be. The Great War was from a time past and those involved have all died now. I haven’t checked it but I seriously doubt there is anyone left. You know you’re looking at dead people, they’re younger than I am now, but there time has been and now they’re dead.

I’m not obsessed with death, it doesn’t fascinate me in some morbid way and I once used to dismiss it in that way people do when they’re young and like to pretend they don’t give a shit about anything. That doesn’t mean either that I’m about to tell you all I’m scared of death but I am trying to understand it. I am trying to understand it because it plays a huge part in our behaviours as a species. We’re aware consciously of our own existence and as a result our own deaths too. Are we alone in this awareness? One day all this is just not going to be there.

This idea of nothingness is hard to comprehend. Imagine you go to sleep and that feeling of deep sleep is what you will be experiencing for eternity, except you don’t experience deep sleep consciously, arguably we don’t even exist in those moments. How then can we imagine not existing. We try to imagine something we have little empirical understanding of and it’s impossible. This is almost scarier than death itself, which kind of isn’t scary at all.

These soldiers were living in their time. This is the thought that inspired me to start this ramble on death. Why do we fear getting old and dying. These people, that was there time and they lived it, they got old and were replaced by other people living their experience of time. This is my time now and I need to live it because one day I will have to let it go and I want to do it with a smile on my face, content. Not content that I lived life to the max or whatever slogan you can come up with, but just content in the knowledge that now my time is up and it’s time for others to take over. There are plenty out there who are like that and plenty who can’t let go. It’s fear ultimately. Fear of stepping into an unknown time in life, closer to the ultimate unknown. I’m just curious, if I’m lucky to live that long of course. And also, in a way, if we’re to understand death do we first need to understand life? Certainly there’s an order to these thing and maybe with some kind of understanding comes a form of acceptance. It’s especially interesting because, in a way, there are no answers and what’s more powerful than that.

Maybe And Probably Not

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How do we really know. Fixed absolute ideas of how things were. What if one clue to histories truth was lost and now we determinedly believe an inaccurate story. We miss one piece of the jigsaw, now we cannot see what once was. What if all we need is this one piece to confirm what many suspect but none can prove, do we dismiss entirely the possibility that this may in fact be the true story and not the one we think we know. When do we learn to question. Who do we trust to ask the right questions. What if we already have the piece but refuse to believe what it is showing us, at some point we need to accept, but do we ever do this as final. Should we.

And then our ideas in general. Our beliefs range far and wide. Think of all the philosophers out there disagreeing with each other. They can’t all be right but seemingly each one is. Each set of eyes view their own truth. In that case what is right. Do we have objective truths, how about one truth. Did that truth change when a new piece of the jigsaw is added and what happens when some accept it and the others turn away. If the greatest minds cannot agree, what hope are we.

How do we know the truth about scientific explanations or medicines. Both may be true at this time but new truths are constantly discovered and newer truths again. Always missing the point as the only truth being the inaccuracy of the old and therefore the latest too. How many letters behind my name are required before I can credibly speak these words. We never accept anything as final says the scientist or doctor before professing an absolute belief that they are right and you are wrong. They have facts but can they ever be true.

How do we really know that what we believe in politics. What if we are wrong. Are we strong enough, and arguably are we smart enough, to take a step back from what we believe and think we believe, see these beliefs for what they really are and readdress them. Can we do this objectively or will we be forever tarnished by the inaccuracies of existence. In these subjective times that have existed for eternity, we will never know as they run for another infinite millennia.

How do we advance society and people, and what really is the best approach to running a community. What if we’re wrong? No one person is the same yet we box the pack away into the very same space the world over. Who are we to tell others they are doing it wrong when we have never checked to see if we’re doing it right. Are we doing it right. Am I doing it right. I don’t even know what right is. I definitely don’t know their right.

As religion pokes it’s empty head around the corner we decide to not even entertain.

But to all I say maybe and probably not. Let’s start from there.

Mental Strife

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“And woe behold, is todays mind but one bereft of even those most basic of ideas” said me now, not someone from an age past, only partly quotable in what the modern age has done to language. Basically I can’t really think of anything to write about…bereft of ideas as a wise man once said. Perhaps I should wait until later in the day when maybe the mind is more keen to do battle with the creative limits it’s own development has boxed it into. Exactly the reason for choosing this moment of struggle to put out a piece, the challenge of finding light in the darkness, the very creative representation of the Guru in translation. For do we not learn what is true in times of strife, when adversity forces us through the self-imposed limits of our ability to find solutions within ourself? The answers are forever within. Alone in life we embrace this struggle of discovery until we are left with nothing but the hollowed out carcass of illusionary past moments and past lives. The frame of conditions we believed were once the existence that held together the fragility of consciousness, of all that we could see and understand before our eyes now nothing but dust as it exposes itself in the light of truth. But what of truth in this great journey of understanding, for what if mine is yours and yours is mine, are not all universal the understandings we seek? Delving deeper into this morass of darkness and confusion that comes before the light, thrashing and screaming as we see only the untruth before our eyes in all it’s ugly vain glory. Until the moment of acceptance comes before our minds eye, will we forever miss the beauty in the darkness of our delusion. The acceptance that comes when we understand we can no longer blame this darkness for stopping us breathing, but our own inabilities to inhale the truth that now fills our lungs. In and out we breath, the oxygen of light that simply began with us pushing out from the shackles we accepted, that grew while we floundered but which now lay smashed upon the ground. The hammer of liberty breaking the bonds of ignorance held in place through such safe existence. Grown fat through illiterate teachings, shepherds of prosperity forcing us to regurgitate their own vomit. To discover the chains had no lock when all is too late and all is lost. For we learn it is easier to dig our own graves, stepping into the reassuring darkness. Better this murky existence than merely pushing ourselves in times of mental stupor.

Amor Fati

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Having just watched a six minute School of Life video on youtube about Nietzsche and his concept of Amor Fati I find myself slightly confused. Much of what I hear of Nietzsche confuses me, much of what I read of him I agree with but usually forget, and some of which I disagree with but suspect may actually be correct, just a little harsh for my sensitivities to accept. He seemed to be complicated and misunderstood, and I’m sure I remember him saying something along the lines of inferior minds will misunderstand him and terrible things will be done in his name. Certainly my mind is inferior to his or may I say different. I doubt I’ll be such a groundbreaking philosopher as he was, the man was arguably the best, or most significant. And how to define inferior, for at least I can talk to women. Yeah fuck you Nietzsche with your superior mind and your constant rejections. It’s the small victories which keep our egos believing. I remember working as an extra on Game of Thrones and seeing the actor who played the handsome hero John Snow wearing platform shoes and having to stand on a box to make him appear slightly taller, my tall man ego won that skirmish. Unfortunately I may have been the only one playing.

Amor Fati means a love of ones fate and it has distasteful fatalist overtones, which I don’t necessarily feel comfortable believing or accepting. We may debatably live in a mildly predetermined world but the future only exists as much as the present allows. The premise of Amor Fati is that you love what has already passed or that you at least accept it. A refusal to regret what has gone before and not look back, this he believes to be a virtue. Perhaps this is him refusing to accept the hardships of his life, the rejections, the mental illnesses, and on a hypothetical note had his life been wonderful and jolly these ideas may never have come to him. In that case, for creating the environment to have these ideas, all that went before him had to happen. What is not to love about that. Believing in determinism or fatalism is not a requisite of acceptance. While we are all guilty of looking back longingly or regretfully, how we deal with adversity is what is of most importance. There is always something to learn from every moment if we so choose, the good or the bad, and how lucky we are to have adversity in our lives to give us that opportunity for development. If that is to love ones fate then amor fati me.