Life thoughts

of course your world is your world

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“You marvel; remembering that of course your world is your world. Your subjective ontology (aka that which is objectively true for you). This is the orientation amidst the salience landscape of the inter-subjective meaning-ness we share. Some things shine bright to you in this world, some things feel apt, and some things resonate with a deep relational hum.”

Dr Jason Fox

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Aren’t you afraid?

‘Of what?’

‘Of losing yourself.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping for.’

—–

Maggie Stiefvater

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Simply because things, in reality, have expired doesn’t mean we willingly let them go. In fact. We tend to put them on expensive oxygen machines attempting to breath life back into them. We invest gobs of money on life support systems on things that are for all intents and purposes, dead, rather than investing all those resources (mental, physical, monetary, time) on what we see before us, i.e., the emerging, the alive and breathing stuff. In my pea like brain this happens because we have a crazy relationship with the concept of “want.”

Which leads me to what we (you) want.

We are in a weird world in which:

We seem to think if we don’t, or can’t, get everything we want, the world is going to crumble before our eyes
We seem to think if we don’t, or can’t, get everything we want, we have lost, i.e., somehow there was a pathway to getting 100% and the ‘others’ didn’t get it
We seem to think about public issues as personal issues, and vice versa, conflating some fairly horrible personal compromise advice and public good compromising.

While a and b are absurd mindsets, it I with c where we actively make ourselves miserable. We receive an onslaught of banal personal advice suggesting any compromise screws us individually, as in dreams, desires and some fairly unforgiving beliefs in ‘things.’ Its nuts. And unhealthy.

The suggestion is that if you “compromise with life, you kill your dreams and live your plan B, C and D.”

Once again. That’s nuts.

Rarely, if ever, does anyone get 100% of what they want. And let’s be clear. Rarely, if ever, 100% of what you want is actually the best for 100% of the people let alone, in the end, 100% good for you. Therein lies the challenge of compromise. Your 100% never represents the best for the 100%. Your world is your world. Period.

Which leads me to say we have corrupted the way we think about how collective debates and agreements work.

Simplistically, the corruption has occurred in individualism. Look. I am not suggesting every individual shouldn’t seek out what they want or even what they believe is best for them and what they believe. What I am suggesting that pursuit shouldn’t ignore what the other people in their community, city, state, province, country and maybe even the other 7,999,999,999 people in the world may want and need. That’s the layers of compromise. Yeah. That’s a lot of layers. Yeah. Maybe that’s why getting 100% of what you want is a bit of a fantasy. But in fantasyland there are people screaming ‘winners and losers’ ignoring the fact that, well, no one seems to be winning and shitload of people are thinking they are losing. We have corrupted compromise or at least corrupted the idea of conflict and conflict resolution.

“The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power; the weaker sort contribute folly, vanity, and idleness; of these I am one. It seems as if it were the season for vain things, when the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do but what signifies nothing is a kind of commendation.”

Montaigne

This corruption of compromise breeds a sense of everything changing, but in an invisible corrosive way. We only see the change in a low level slightly nagging a feel of unease and unhappiness. And because of that, mentally we shift our focus to what is visible and away from the invisible <that which creates the unease> and we fixate on what we think we know rather than unlearning/revising what we know. In other words, we get stuck in the fantasyland of what we want as being the ‘be all and end all.’

Once again. this is nuts.

We want lots of things and the odds of getting all these things is really really low. And you know what? Sometimes what we think we want is not actually what we need nor what we should want. Your world is your world.

Which leads me to integration, not compromise.

Technically speaking, what we need to be doing more of is not compromise, but integration. Integration is a Mary Parker Follett idea. In 1925 Follett argued that conflict, as a natural and inevitable part of life, does not necessarily have to lead to adverse outcomes. Rather, if approached with the right attitude a conflict can present an opportunity for positive or constructive development. Follett suggested there are three ways to respond to conflict:

Dominance
Compromise
Integration

Dominance means victory of one side over the other. This works in the short term, but is unproductive in the long run. Compromise means each party having to give up something for the sake of a meaningful reduction of friction. Far from ideal, compromise often leaves parties unsatisfied – having given up something of value. Integration means creatively incorporating the parties’ fundamental desires/interests into the solution, i.e., no one gets everything they want, but everyone gets a bit of what they need.”

Great life solutions integrate aspects of what everyone brings to the table and if we are really honest, the end product is probably a bit better than any individual solution going in. And isn’t that the way it is supposed to work? You don’t get everything you want, but you get a lot of what you need. Sometimes your world can become bigger than just your world.

Which leads me to the horizon of ‘better.’

Your world, while yours, is an emergent thing. What I mean by that is it is never still, never stagnant, and never something you can clearly see (albeit clarity can reside in contextual moments). The outlines can be a bit vague most of the time. Why?

“A horizon is a phenomenon of vision. One cannot look at the horizon; it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself. What limits vision is rather the incompleteness of that vision.

One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view. Every move an infinite player makes is toward the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every moment of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities.”

James Carse

Which leads me to say that we all know the world is often not kind yet we make our own world.

Not only has the world become a bit nastier it sometimes feels like if you are not nasty there is something wrong with you. You aren’t strong. You aren’t a leader. You aren’t confident. Well. That’s not only nuts it’s also a pretty unhealthy way of thinking about life.

As Milton said:

“The mind is its own place, and in itself,

Can make heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven”

Mindful living of life sometimes requires intense focus and dedication to make even the smallest of progress. That is tricky in today’s world with the perverse incentive on social media to constantly have an eye-catching update. Progress actually happens slowly (mostly uneventfully) through long-term dedication. If you think revolutionary change happens quickly, you are ignoring the decades of groundwork. Uhm. Kindness takes some groundwork too.

Which leads me to making your world just a bit kinder.

I will admit that kindness and niceness need to get a bit tougher (and, yes, I believe you can be tough and be kind and nice). What I mean by that is it seems like there is something unique to our era that encourages the tricksters and cheaters to not only have confidence, but be confidently nasty. They thrive in fantasylands of myths and tales willing the narratives to take the form of reality; even when they are not. And when you point out the magical thinking or fantasylands, they get nasty. I say that to make a point about increased nastiness and tough niceness. There is increased nastiness in the world because there is an increase in cheaters try to convince us of some alternative reality. They have to be nasty in order to shut down, well, reality. Well. Reality, of course, is your world and, of course, your world is your world. Ponder.