Soul

So this comes from The PBA and, in the light of my recent experience with a Goddess of my understanding, i'm reproducing it along with my reply, because it made me think. The original post was by PaulEdward Snyder and to check it you can follow the title link or go to: PaulEdward Snyder's blog. The full text of PaulEdward's post can now be found 'Off The Main Page'.

Much of which post I sort of agree with, but not wholly, so i replied thusly:

I think that's too simplistic.
From my own experience, it is possible to apprehend one's environment and those others in it as unpredictable variables and still choose not to compete in consumption, leaving almost everything to chance, whilst knowing chance will inevitably affect the outcome of one's actions anyway. Having said that, it is a lonely perspective and one which may well have contributed to my having spent years consuming drugs. No longer however, life is precious to me these days, too precious to destroy through inordinate fear of pain.

There are other variations and surely ones I haven't thought of. I'm suspicious of any doctrine which has, at it's core, a dichotamy. Life has taught me that, in as close to objective reality as my subjective experience of it can get, there is no "on the one hand this, on the other: that" however, as well as biology, insecurity makes people attempt to see life in this way. We have two hands, we look out at the world and are comforted by the notion that "in this hand which I see before me is one thing, in my other: the sole rest of the dilemma" therefore i can "hold" this problem, it is not beyond "my grasp".

Of course, this is not true. Most situations in life have to do with other people who are, as you rightly point out, very complex and ultimately, just as we are to ourselves, unknowable, merely approximately predictable. Those others are similarly affected by still more people and there are also a whole raft of other possibilities involved. This train of thought multiplies the variables exponentially, not even a millipede would have enough limbs to "grasp" them all. However, as Aristotle pointed out,

• "All men by nature desire knowledge."

Which statement would tend to suggest that we must somehow plot a course through these variables, engage with our experience and extract meaning from it. Certainly, survival without knowledge would be difficult, but not impossible, or else how would creatures without much, if any, conscious thought survive?

I think the truth is more complicated again, because we don't have a conscious will to survive and thus a 'natural' thirst for knowledge, but rather a disinclination to repeat actions that seem to cause us pain, unless there is some greater factor of fear involved. I would also disagree with your notion of the soul, for me my soul is that quiet part of myself which has always been there, regardless of what my knowledge, feelings or others' opinion tell me, it says there need not be a point to life in order for it to be worthwhile. That in fact, if there is a point it is ineffable, life is all the more beautiful for that and, despite many people's best efforts, will continue. It holds a compass which, should I choose to take note of where it points, will steer me toward what is best, not just for me either. The sad truth is that this is often incompatible with modern civilisation and perhaps why so few of us choose to look there, because having to comply with that which one knows is wrong is surely one of the most overwhelming sources of pain.

• "To know that you do not know is the best.
• To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."
• Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
• Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

So that then is true faith, to realise that one will never understand, but to crack on anyway and be at peace with that. Personally, I wish I could keep that notion firmly fixed in my mind at all times, but no... I get sucked into the whirlpool of striving and before I know it, my choices are being limited, my fear of undesirable outcomes has me making poor decisions based on a desperate need to mistakenly apply Ockham's Razor. It's not until I've cut myself with it and that hurts enough that I then remember, not me... I don't have an answer to everything nor need I. Then I'll be quiet, then I hear my soul and whether I survive or not seems of little consequence, but seemingly at odds with my instincts, that is when I make my best decisions.