Friday, November 02, 2007

What Are We Doing?

As more and more baby boomers advance into retirement, they will become increasingly aware of the need to reverse the deterioration process they have come to accept as the natural aging process -- of which some parts are undeniably immutable. Hair and hair color does change -- and one has to decide how much one wishes to counter that process. For a few, that is the focal point of their efforts -- and seems to affect their whole appearance and perspective most dramatically -- but simply remaining “young,” may not be the optimal fulfillment of the possibilities of human potential.

Optimizing maturity, may not be the same, as simply remaining young -- but there may be a possibility yet undiscovered, of optimizing maturity. This is the real frontier, than simply remaining young, immature, and juvenile over the entirety of one’s existence -- as the best testament of one’s ultimate fitness (fulfillment). That model is not even seen in populations of wild animals -- where among the gorillas, the silverback male, will dominate that social group and organization -- that is never allowed simply to the most youthful, boastful and reckless.

Such dominant individuals, are actually engaged much less than the average in proving their fitness than the average -- and those picked on most constantly at the bottom of the pecking order. In every species, fights and displays occur most often at the bottom, which is what makes life so tenuous and insecure for such individuals. The most secure, are the most relaxed, and so their resources allow them to build up the reserves for the timely battles of greatest consequence.

Thus life and perspective, is very different at the bottom than at the top -- in this inverse manner. Anyone who has spent any time around strong and competent individuals note that such persons are rarely given to boastful displays -- because the manner of their confidence goes beyond that need, especially among peers with similarly high capabilities.

Those are the “winners” in life and society -- that pretty much says it all, as the sum of that well-being one hopes to achieve sometime in their lives. Some think that is unachievable and only an unattainable goal -- and because of that orientation, are doomed to lives of striving in frustration because they never arrive at that point of contentment and fulfillment -- but only know incessant, unceasing and increasing longing, which is to become very neurotic, obsessive and compulsive personalities -- as though that was any kind of maturity of human potential.

In that manner, the more one does, merely creates the need for more that needs to be done -- which is a stupid, popular psychology and misunderstanding of human motivation and achievement. It is a self-fulfilling, self-projection of eternal failure -- which one persists at until one simply has no more energy to give it, and realizes, in that vanity and futility, one has wasted all one’s energies -- in designing a pursuit, in which one could never win, and never accept themselves as they were -- without a desire to change themselves into something better, which is a horrible existence to condemn oneself to.

The problem of aging is this desire to remain young -- instead of discovering the best one can be at any age.

3 Comments:

At November 02, 2007 1:25 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

That's the great frontier -- creating the life that was not possible before. Instead, people are hanging on to the old visions of how life has been for generations and centuries -- even incorporating the gladiatorial training to prepare themselves for a brutal existence and death -- as the fitness ideal. In that manner of thinking, of course history merely repeats itself -- and there is this endless struggle to remain young, which is the deteriorating force.

Remaining constant in a world of change, is the major part of "aging," of those hanging on to the past as their best years, rather than being fully engaged in each present moment of actualization.

In the past, the training of memory, was the most important work of the brain and the exclusive task of education, because memory and storage was in short supply, largely because it was hoarded to maintain an advantage. Now, memory and storage, are not facilities individuals have to cultivate for themselves -- and so the entirety of the brain is free to respond fully to the present challenge as the summation of all that is.

Some realized that the value of information was not that it was hoarded and used to manipulate others, but that information became more valuable because it was accessible and appreciated by others. This kind of self-interest than became built into the system and culture.

Unfortunately, the institutional minds -- that is, people who were successful under the old system and rules, became its greatest victims -- even though many still remain in positions of power and status. However, their mentality is that of "competing" endlessly with every other, including their closest associates -- which is a constant drain on energy.

The new being, regards the entirety of consciousness and society as one's own -- including that millions of years of evolution and prototypes have come before him -- as proof of what works and what doesn't. One just has to be open to that information -- rather than cultivating the resistance against it.

 
At November 06, 2007 12:12 AM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

One of the obvious reasons people are in such poor condition, is because there are greater financial incentives to be that way, than if they aren't. Many people have little else going for them but their own victimhood -- which can be livelihood by which they must "prove" their inability to function well.

Thoughtful and well-functioning people are the most disruptive because they are not so easily exploited and corrupted. To exploit human vulnerabilities is a great source of pride for many unscrupulous and ruthless people, who are convinced that is what everybody else in the world is there for -- to be exploited and corrupted by them for their own benefit and advantage.

Fortunately, that mentality is dying out in a world of abundance except for that which is contrived by indoctrination and propaganda. But by and large, most of the information (infomercials) offer a world vision of greater ease and efficiency -- save for the activities of conditioning which are also beginning to move in this direction also.

Still, there are many offering spartan regimens as though they are a prescription for quick results -- rather than the intriguing fad that will last until the next. Many people, are conditioned to fitness activities as their form of entertainment -- of "keeping busy."

Ninety percent of most activity including work, is for entertainment purposes rather than true productivity. Many even think the ninety perfect that is the entertainment, is their job -- rather than the ten perfect of actual productivity.

In many union jobs, workers often complain most about those provisions they demanded be put in the contract as their rights and strengths -- rather than that it has eliminated the most engaging and creative aspects of that job and made it mechanical and alienating, because there is no allowance for individual variability and expression -- which is the true fulfillment of any work.

Eliminating that essential component, there is nothing more than mindless drudgery that one hopes to condition oneself to endure -- as really the model of many conditioning programs. That is the reason they are so alienating, as well as ineffective.

When one is fully engaged, there is no sense of "having to" do something one does not enjoy doing -- or just does because it is the only thing that makes sense. That's true conditioning.

One shouldn't have to constantly fight the temptation to touch a hot stove. Once one learns that experience, it doesn't take constant effort and preoccupation not to put one's hand on a hot stove.

That's what intelligent conditioning are like. One wouldn't think of doing anything else. So this constant preoccupation and struggle to keep in top form, is the lack of the proper understanding of what they are doing -- as well as an indication that that which they are doing, doesn't make sense.

But one can intellectually convince oneself that it does -- until it is clear, that one is only fooling themselves, and then seeks the next faddish big thing.

The truth is always in the last place one looks-- because when one finds it, the search ceases. That is the truth of any matter.

 
At November 06, 2007 12:36 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

I notice the reporters are staking out turf as the new health authorities now that they realize that the old authorities don't know more than they do -- and certainly can't write or talk about it any better than they can.

One can either be the foremost authority on a subject matter, or just the best writer/speaker on that subject -- but when those two personae converge in one, then one can witness the discovery of the known/unknown as it's happening, which is really rare in the old mediated (mainstream) media world.

The major qualification for being in the media, is that drive for attention very few creative and thoughtful people have -- because they are truly interested in what they do, and other people's opinions don't interfere with their inquiries.

The new, highly-competitive world of information is a pretty rough place -- especially for those used to their sinecures of protection from any serious challenges to their knowledge and authority, which unless tested in the most rigorous environments of the most perceptive minds, will quickly fall behind into irrelevance and obsolescence.

They can protect their turf as much as they want, but nobody is interested in fighting that battle with them any more. Everybody just quietly goes away -- denying they ever believed what everybody now knows to be obviously false.

The false in conditioning activities, was reducing it to a simple quantitative and therefore measurable random (mindless) activity, as though that was enough to achieve an appearance and performance of distinction.

That is a critical misunderstanding of liberal studies -- which thinks that if a million monkeys bang on typewriters, one will eventually the complete works of Shakespeare -- when only an orderly mind, predisposes and can produce greater order. So life is definitively not a random phenomenon but is the very act of greater non-randomness, order, predictability and control over one's environment.

So the idea that there is a greater mind and intelligence at work than their own, is the first order of understanding, that without it, nothing comprehensible, meaningful or purposeful can ever be achieved.

Once that understanding is clear, effort takes care of itself. Until that understanding is achieved, one will strive futilely and in frustration, to change what is and must be.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home