Tuesday, April 17, 2018

The Purpose of Life is to Get Better

From time to time, everybody loses their way -- but the categorical imperative of every life, is to get better -- all the days of one's life, and when they no longer do that, their prognosis in life is not favorable, and diminishes daily.  That purpose and clarity, is what distinguishes the quality of lives under all conditions -- at every age and stage of life.  When people lose that edge and drive to get better, they fall behind and are less competitive against all the challenges they will face -- even if they are self-imposed.  And for many in modern life, that is often what they are up against -- the handicaps and disabilities of their own making.

In former times, the competition in life was provided largely by others -- or the conditions of their environment -- but in a time when those are greatly self-chosen, those limitations are largely of one's own making and choosing, rather than the inevitable for all.  That is the reality we finally realize are the limits of our lives.  But many choose badly, or fail to acknowledge that what they accept as the immutable and unchangeable conditions and premises of their lives, are in fact, their own choices and abdications from those choicees -- that result in their bad outcomes and predicaments -- that continue if they continue as they have been.

There is nothing inevitable about that.  Life could be very different -- very easily and immediately -- just in choosing to make it so.  It should not be difficult to convince anyone of that -- but it invariably is -- because of their conditioning that life is so -- and many well-meaning but wholly misguided, will insist that those lives must continue as they are -- rather than changing everything, so as to remain viable, and even become formidable once more.

That is not the world most have prepared for -- but fall into the predictable pattern, because it is easy to exploit -- for another's benefit.  That is the world of exploitation, and at best, mutual exploitation -- until one will have no part of it anymore, and breaks directly into the light.  However, the forces and institutions of the status quo, will not allow one to go so easily -- even if they could.  It is for that reason, they invested years of conditioning -- to maintain that "state."

So those "breaking free," generally have to pioneer their own ways -- just in living their lives differently, intelligently -- and not in the failing ways that are well-documented and reported -- as to how life must be, for everyone else.  The successful paradigms are not reported or even "noticed" because they have no opportunities for exploitation by others.  The benefits go greatly to the one exercising their lives in that way -- and are self-employed in that way.  They are their own bosses, and best customers.

Such people are "retired" from the conventional world in that way -- but obviously more engaged, active and involved than people have ever been before -- in wholly integrated lives, rather than the fragmented and conflicted lives of the past, in which the best that could be hoped for, was to continue to live as they have always done so before -- but no longer breaking new ground in the development of their lives.  That model cannot sustain lifelong improvement -- because that is not even a possibility to their way of thinking.

One hundred years ago, that was not possible for most to become "fit" to build up their bodies in the way it has become commonplace to see these days.  What changed?  It was largely in thinking that it could be so -- and so easily accomplished -- especially when one could easily access all the information that institutions largely managed for their own advantage and benefit up to then.  That's how the world has changed -- but the defenders of the status quo, are the last to let everyone know.

A few still insist, that information is exclusively their job and jurisdiction -- while the multitudes go rushing past them -- to obtain the benefits that those few think are their job to mete out only to those signing up for "their" programs -- while undermining the confidence in every other, and particularly the notion, that one could competently do anything for themselves -- because they haven't been duly certified and licensed to do so -- by their confederates.

And so they proclaim triumphantly, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," and "history always repeats itself" -- as though they were the great and inviolable truths of human progress.  People do improve -- and that changes everything.

Sunday, April 01, 2018

An Independent Life (Putting It All Together)

The most disturbing thing of people feeling a lost of control over their own lives and destiny, is the increasing reliance on "other people" to fulfill their basic (daily) needs.  So increasingly, they feel their lives are beyond their own control -- and all they feel they can control, is the remote for their television and entertainment.  They may even feel privileged and "progressive" to have reached such an advanced state of "interconnectedness" -- that they fail to realize they have become entirely helpless in living their own lives -- and are even advised to become even more so.

It is good business for those who provide their "services" -- for those who no longer can provide many of these things for themselves -- and increasingly lack the competence and confidence to do so -- which seems quite a perversion of how we think life should be for the best.  Early in life, they thought nothing less for themselves -- until increasingly reaching a point sometime in their lives when they experienced a definitive turning point -- and felt resigned to the kindness and mercy of others -- who could not resist the power of feeling others totally dependent and indebted to them for their continued existence.

That is the modern version of power -- just as these of an earlier time relished their power of life and death in the most brutal ways that now have become so subtle and insidious.  If we can make a whole category of people helpless, we have an unlimited source of customers for our own services -- and they never change so that they don't need us anymore.  They are our personal "cash cows."

One is simply the "pass through" -- for others getting paid (rich), while they never get better -- but only increasingly worse, and dependent on even more costly services.  That certainly distinguishes life at the bottom -- where those are regarded as expendable and disposable, and openly prey and exploit the most vulnerable, and not merely gullible.  In that scheme, the most "successful" regard themselves as the ultimate exploiter -- at the top of the the pyramid -- outsmarting all the others.

But real success is getting beyond all that dependency and co-dependency to become an "independent" person (mind) -- not thinking in such terms, but providing as much for oneself so others never need to consider doing so for them.  Such a life these days, seems almost unthinkable -- so reliant have many become on information and input provided for them -- disturbing the stillness and tranquility of their own minds in deference to the most intrusive and persistent.

Just as "scarcity" has been replaced by "abundance" in a generation, many have not made the shift to adjusting their strategies and orientation when the rules of the game have changed so drastically -- and the danger is no longer underconsumption, but overconsumption -- even to one's own destruction.  Thus, obesity and excess are the markers of advanced decline -- and the minimalist lifestyle of only what one actually needs, seems ingenious.

That is the new paradigm for this age -- and not that of the previous generation's -- of acquiring and accumulating as much as one can -- even if it risks burying them, as hoarders are wont to do.  Such people feel they are "dependent" on their possessions for their well-being and prosperity -- even as it "owns" them and dictates their lives.  As such, their whole lives can be seen as an "obsessive compulsive disorder," having little to do with meeting "actual" needs, and have become ritualized to where no deeper insight is possible.

Of course that is mental illness -- that many increasingly fail to recognize, or are taught not to see -- as all delusions are encouraged, as though that was a public good. That increases the "GDP"  -- the greater dependence.  It's good to be able to disconnect from the grid of predetermined choices and fates -- and write out one's own.  But one has to ensure that they haven't lost those capabilities -- in exercising them from time to time -- if not oftener.  That's how one knows they are still capable of doing these things for themselves -- and not have these memories and experiences merely planted in their heads -- as though they thought of these things themselves.  Or did they? -- and how will they know the difference?