237. Responding From Awareness

When I finish reading a provocative text, I might feel an urge to respond it with a text of my own. I want to communicate my response in words, just as the original text reached me through language. To do this, I interpret the text through the lens of my existing normative understanding and then I craft a new text that better fits with that understanding.

I might claim success if I construct a response so powerful that it logically defeats the argument of the original text. I might even feel a certain happiness in my ability to do this well. But by prioritizing my own text, I also cut myself off from the possibility of learning from the original text.

236. Our Shared Reality

When I see a beautiful sunset, I can point it out to you and know you will also enjoy it. Not only does the sunset exist for both of us, we’re also likely to judge its beauty in a similar way. But we don’t always make the same judgments. I might enjoy eating spicy food, while you do not. Here, I judge the taste of a spicy dish to be pleasant, while you judge it otherwise.

235. The Limits Of Language

I’m standing before a great work of art, an unquestionable masterpiece. I cannot recall the name of the painting or the artist. I could read the small card beside the frame to get this information but it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is my experience of the artwork — the whole complex of perception and thought and feeling that constitutes what it is to see this painting.

That it is me seeing it cannot be ignored. For it is my own unique set of past experiences that shapes my present experience. No one will ever share this exact experience with me. Even the person standing next to me right now is not experiencing this painting in the same way, for my past experiences are not theirs and vice versa.

234. Two Illusions

We want to know how the world works because such knowledge is practically useful. When we know how things work we become more capable of manipulating the world to meet our material needs. The unquestionable power of knowing how each part works logically leads us to a desire to know how the whole works. So we start looking for a system that can coherently bring all of the parts together. The system we desire is a narrative connecting past, present, and future through a complex array of causal links.

233. Never Settle Down

She knows she’ll eventually have to settle. She knows this because it’s what always happens. Her thoughts get so far ahead of her that she imagines herself having a future so perfect and beautiful and true before considering whether any of it is realistic. There are so many things she wants, simply because her ideals are so lofty.

She knows she won’t achieve everything and she’ll have to settle for something less. How much less she does not know, but she’s hoping for at least something better than what she has at present. And she knows she’s not the only one who’ll have to settle. Her friends also have dreams they probably won’t fully attain. They too will have to accept whatever small good they can reach.

232. The Spectacle Consumes Us

The spectacle consumes our attention. We see major events happening around us and we cannot look away. The events themselves might not impact us directly, but we know they will eventually produce problems for our community and our future.

We are unable to stop ourselves from watching every change in the emerging situation and every action taken in response to it. We feel we must focus on these things, for it is here that the problem seems to be located. We believe power originates at the top, and we think any possible solution must also be implemented at the top. Our sociopolitical structures reflect this understanding, and they frequently demonstrate how the decisions of a single person with power can have an enormous impact.

231. Liberation From Suffering

To become free of suffering, I first need to see how it originates. But this is not as straightforward as it might seem. I cannot simply understand rationally what it means for suffering to arise, in the words of my language. I have to investigate my own experience of suffering and observe how that unique experience arises from its sources.

These sources are the intentions we call by the names of desire, aversion, and belief. I must see the suffering that arises, for example, from a specific desire. When I can see how my attachment to that particular desire causes a particular kind of suffering, for example, stress, then I’m beginning to see it fully.

230. Change Is Primary

As we experience the world, we naturally get used to it. What was once novel becomes commonplace. What was once unknown becomes predictable. We adapt our actions to our new understanding and we develop habits that allow us to navigate the world with greater ease.

Eventually, we might come to feel we’ve experienced everything and there is no longer any novelty left in the world. We might then begin to live mostly in our memories, the only place where joy still exists for us. We might even become so profoundly bored that we start to tire of life itself.

229. Relationship Harmony

To have a relationship with another person is always a challenge. It is necessarily so because you have your desires, aversions, and beliefs and the other person has theirs. While there is often significant overlap, there will also be many differences. Perhaps they want something that you do not want, or you believe something that they do not believe. When these differences come to the surface there will be tension between you.