Aliens Landing?
I am making no promises, but my friend Clint's blog inspired me to post at least one more time. If I can approximate even slightly the perfect blend of insight, humor, and self-revelation I just read at his blog (which can be accessed via my links) I will be doing exactly what I always hoped to achieve: a continuation of a formative conversation with people important to my self-understanding even if in a fragmentary form.
Because I do not want my life to stop making sense, I need to at least have a "happy illusion" of immediate contact with people who have influenced me. I do plan on changing, and already have, but the notion of me "changing" implies that I was formerly something that I at least recognized as a whole and coherent self. Should I ever forget that, I fear I may lose something quite precious to my well-being.
The significance of this is simple: I believe that we are most vulnerable to disasters both private and professional when we live under the illuson that we are unconnected to the world in a definite manner already. It is a dangerous thing to believe that one can redefine the nature of their existence on earth in a mere instant of capricious reflection.
I am going to stop now so I have an excuse to continue later.
Because I do not want my life to stop making sense, I need to at least have a "happy illusion" of immediate contact with people who have influenced me. I do plan on changing, and already have, but the notion of me "changing" implies that I was formerly something that I at least recognized as a whole and coherent self. Should I ever forget that, I fear I may lose something quite precious to my well-being.
The significance of this is simple: I believe that we are most vulnerable to disasters both private and professional when we live under the illuson that we are unconnected to the world in a definite manner already. It is a dangerous thing to believe that one can redefine the nature of their existence on earth in a mere instant of capricious reflection.
I am going to stop now so I have an excuse to continue later.
posted by matt at 5:27 PM
2 Comments:
Yes! Amen! "It is a dangerous thing to believe that one can redefine the nature of their existence on earth in a mere instant of capricious reflection." But musn't we redefine ourselves? I fully agree that such a moment of reflection, if capricious, is a dangerous thing. Too often we fall into this trap. Even in society. Modernism says it's all about the individual, postmodernism says it's all about the community, and on and on we swing. We are living in a time where the individual has been utterly destroyed. The very fact that we blog with tens of thousands of others in the world means we, as individual bloggers, have been destroyed. We've dissolved into a great ocean of bloggery. Not even if anything I should ever write becomes published in a paperback book will I regain any sort of voice or independence on this earth. I am forced to communicate as an end in itself.
Kierkegaard wrote of choice - named, as he was, the father of existentialism. He stated that every individual, if s/he is to be an individual, must choose h/erself. There is a moment of choice in which a person chooses to live morally (with passion, commitment) rather than aesthetically (capriciously, never committing). At that point the self truly becomes the "self" it was meant to be. Kierkegaard was, however, a complete modernist. The individual self, alone in the universe, making it's decisions independent of others - this is the modernist ideal. We now know, per Matt's line "when we live under the illuson that we are unconnected to the world in a definite manner already", that this self does not live independent of what goes on around it, but is shaped and molded by the surroundings in which it exists. Even Kierkegaard stated that to believe we can shape the external circumstances of our lives is as obsurd as a newly made planet deciding what will cover it. It takes time and we just won't know what will happen.
My question is, is there any room for the self anymore at all? Can we still "choose thyself"(to borrow from Kierkegaard)? Is there any room for personal reflexion or choice, or do we simply ride the waves of circumstance?
Oh, and thanks for your kind words.
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