A Sage will find himself “sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy,
dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and
happy.” — Epictetus
Serenity and tranquility have costs; the soul training required. Happiness is the benefit. Life is a performance art. How good is my current performance? Am I happy happy happy yet?
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.
We’re not affected by events, but rather our understanding of events. Once you realize this you realize you have control over by what and how you are affected.
The only good is moral good, or virtue, and the only evil is moral evil, or vice.
Happiness is found exclusively in ethical excellence, or virtue, and in doing what is right.
External things are neither excellence nor evil, they are indifferents.
The only things in our control are inner events such as our judgements, values, beliefs; these in turn direct desires, impulses, emotions; these in turn direct the art of living well.
Emotions arise from false beliefs that externals have value or judgements that I have been wronged, or that I should care about your ignorance.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Training of the human animial mind
The human animal mind is often untamed and untrained in many areas. We, as a culture, often do not want to tamper with the beliefs of others, for what ever reasons. Some of us needed tampering, or training, which is sadly not available. Once we realize this, and seek suitable help, it can be found, but it is not readily available. The Stoics once had such a system, but the christians and god concepts ended that. But it is back.
Training of desire control and impulse control is one such area. In relation to food....
It is not a event or object that effect us but rather what we think of that event.
Our mind, or soul, or self, are all equal concepts of the same thing. The Greeks and modern authors do not like to repeat words, so they have several for the same thing, so ye got a dozen words for one concept. Duh.
Nothing can enter the soul, what our senses report cannot heart us. Senses here may include our mind. We first form an impression, and to that, the untrained mind adds judgements. If we stop before those judgements, that is to say withhold judgement, long enough to analyze what our senses have observed, and consider our values, our reaction to the situation can change. We have control, complete control, over our judgements. We can chose our reaction through our judgements. We can change our values, thereby gain complete control over our opinions, our desires, and our impulses.
Once we realize that there is the space between the impression and a judgement, we can use our values to control our desires and impulses. It is a learned process, a teachable process, and the key to tranquility, virtue, joy, caution, and utility. In Stoic logic, utility trumps pretty.
Some thing are up to us and some things are not. Up to us are our judgements, our desires, our impulses, and away we go. Until we can recognize the space between event and judgements, we are untrained human animals. Those few seconds, and the time to relearn correct actions can produce tranquility, all else flows from that.
There is not reason to get mad at things or ignorant people. What ever they did or did not do, be, or whatever is not there fault. They do not know better, or are too distracted to care. We can extend this to unthinking human action, for they are untrained human animals, at least unskilled in that specific area of life. Food science, human food requirements, social responsibility, normal food environments, driving, parking, auto safety, traffic safety are big areas where much public work need to be done to teach the population to a much high skill level for public safety.
More later.
Training of desire control and impulse control is one such area. In relation to food....
It is not a event or object that effect us but rather what we think of that event.
Our mind, or soul, or self, are all equal concepts of the same thing. The Greeks and modern authors do not like to repeat words, so they have several for the same thing, so ye got a dozen words for one concept. Duh.
Nothing can enter the soul, what our senses report cannot heart us. Senses here may include our mind. We first form an impression, and to that, the untrained mind adds judgements. If we stop before those judgements, that is to say withhold judgement, long enough to analyze what our senses have observed, and consider our values, our reaction to the situation can change. We have control, complete control, over our judgements. We can chose our reaction through our judgements. We can change our values, thereby gain complete control over our opinions, our desires, and our impulses.
Once we realize that there is the space between the impression and a judgement, we can use our values to control our desires and impulses. It is a learned process, a teachable process, and the key to tranquility, virtue, joy, caution, and utility. In Stoic logic, utility trumps pretty.
Some thing are up to us and some things are not. Up to us are our judgements, our desires, our impulses, and away we go. Until we can recognize the space between event and judgements, we are untrained human animals. Those few seconds, and the time to relearn correct actions can produce tranquility, all else flows from that.
There is not reason to get mad at things or ignorant people. What ever they did or did not do, be, or whatever is not there fault. They do not know better, or are too distracted to care. We can extend this to unthinking human action, for they are untrained human animals, at least unskilled in that specific area of life. Food science, human food requirements, social responsibility, normal food environments, driving, parking, auto safety, traffic safety are big areas where much public work need to be done to teach the population to a much high skill level for public safety.
More later.
Friday, March 7, 2014
a belief system based on logic?
Stoicism is a logic based belief system based on logic and reason from first principals more or less. So what are the principles it is based on?
1. Humans are social animals, but not herd like. Each individual is an individual rational or has a rational part, but we are dependent on the remainder of our community for survival. Division of labor, and complexity of the necessary trades, for complex survival, make this essentially true. The insurance company depends on the criminal, as do the police, lawyers, and the court and prison system. It not criminal, the improper actions of others, violation of arbitrary safety rules, or revenue generation rules (eg. slow speed limits on main street, Beaumont, with the ever present photo radar).
To make this work, we all must get along through a unwritten social contract. But then comes traffic, and at aggressive drivers, psychopathic, and sociopaths... 1/2 SD of the population, 1 in 7. Now what?
2. The ultimate human goal is happiness, tranquility and no mental suffering; not fame, fortune, or some other ego thing. This is up one on Buddhism, there is a thought system to end suffering. When we are through all this, we have covered all the ground Buddhism covers, but have not need to meditate to reach the same conclusions that you may reach through meditation. If you which to meditate on this, please do so. These can be reached through a belief system, living in a virtuous manner, living in concordance with nature, human nature, and our personal nature, and adopting a ration process to our thinking process.
In effect we go from being a wild untrained human to a trained human, trained to think in a logical systematic manner in respect to thinking, feeling, behaving, or if you prefer, social, philosophically, psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Ever move, decision, judgement, desire, impulse, opinion will need to be reviewed, going forward knowing that we are right.
It yields such a freedom and power, yet is humble, wise, appropriate and liberating.
More later.
1. Humans are social animals, but not herd like. Each individual is an individual rational or has a rational part, but we are dependent on the remainder of our community for survival. Division of labor, and complexity of the necessary trades, for complex survival, make this essentially true. The insurance company depends on the criminal, as do the police, lawyers, and the court and prison system. It not criminal, the improper actions of others, violation of arbitrary safety rules, or revenue generation rules (eg. slow speed limits on main street, Beaumont, with the ever present photo radar).
To make this work, we all must get along through a unwritten social contract. But then comes traffic, and at aggressive drivers, psychopathic, and sociopaths... 1/2 SD of the population, 1 in 7. Now what?
2. The ultimate human goal is happiness, tranquility and no mental suffering; not fame, fortune, or some other ego thing. This is up one on Buddhism, there is a thought system to end suffering. When we are through all this, we have covered all the ground Buddhism covers, but have not need to meditate to reach the same conclusions that you may reach through meditation. If you which to meditate on this, please do so. These can be reached through a belief system, living in a virtuous manner, living in concordance with nature, human nature, and our personal nature, and adopting a ration process to our thinking process.
In effect we go from being a wild untrained human to a trained human, trained to think in a logical systematic manner in respect to thinking, feeling, behaving, or if you prefer, social, philosophically, psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Ever move, decision, judgement, desire, impulse, opinion will need to be reviewed, going forward knowing that we are right.
It yields such a freedom and power, yet is humble, wise, appropriate and liberating.
More later.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Stoicism - a potential solution to desire
Quote form Stoicism by John Sellars
"We have built up a large number of bad habits that we must overcome if we are to make genuine philosophical progress. That is why we can acknowledge one course of action to be the best, and yet follow another. The task for this second stage, then, is to habituate the soul so that one's consciously chosen philosophical beliefs can shape one's unconscious habits, and so determine one's everyday behavior. This process is often presented in terms of habituation and digestion."
This is the process of dyeing the soul a new color. We must come to desire what is correct. I must come to desire to not eat beyond plan.
"We have built up a large number of bad habits that we must overcome if we are to make genuine philosophical progress. That is why we can acknowledge one course of action to be the best, and yet follow another. The task for this second stage, then, is to habituate the soul so that one's consciously chosen philosophical beliefs can shape one's unconscious habits, and so determine one's everyday behavior. This process is often presented in terms of habituation and digestion."
This is the process of dyeing the soul a new color. We must come to desire what is correct. I must come to desire to not eat beyond plan.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
MA XII 26
If you are annoyed at something,
it is because you have forgotten:
When you fret at any circumstance,
you have forgotten a number of things.
You have forgotten that all comes about in accordance with the nature of the Whole;
that any wrong done lies with the other;
further, that everything which happens was always so in the past, will be the same again in the further, and is happened now across the world;
that a human being has close kinship with the whole human race - not a bond of blood or seed, but a community of mind.
And you have forgotten this too,
that every man's mind is god and has flowed from that source:
that nothing is our own property, but even our child,
our body, our soul have come from that source;
that all is as thinking makes it so;
that each of us lives only the present moment, and the present moment is all we lose.
Between these interpretations, there are two glaring discrepancies, but both are within stoic view. That is, what is beyond our control is none of our concern, and if we live virtuously, any wrong in a relationship, must therefore lie with the other. This is what cause virtue to be so powerful at producing joy. But which or both?
The second are similarly both stoic like: there are three primary disciplines; judgement or assent, desire, and impulse. Judgement, our values, is the primary place for problem, often in our impressions. But also our thinking frequently makes it so in opinion.
The third item, is a wordy version of the congregation: as it is, as it was, as it will be. We also note that natural processes also follow this logic. The stoics may not have realized we are also descended from common ancestry, but the hold nature, natural forces and reason as god.
But what do I know?
it is because you have forgotten:
- that everything happens in accordance with universal Nature;
- that whatever fault was committed is not your concern;
- and, moreover, that everything that happens has always happened thus and will always happen thus, and is, at his very moment, happening thus elsewhere;
- that the intellect of each person is God, and that it flowed down here from above;
- and that nothing belongs to any of us in the strict sense, but that our child, our body and our soul comes from above;
- and that everything is a judgement - value;
- and the only thing each of us lives and loses is the present.
When you fret at any circumstance,
you have forgotten a number of things.
You have forgotten that all comes about in accordance with the nature of the Whole;
that any wrong done lies with the other;
further, that everything which happens was always so in the past, will be the same again in the further, and is happened now across the world;
that a human being has close kinship with the whole human race - not a bond of blood or seed, but a community of mind.
And you have forgotten this too,
that every man's mind is god and has flowed from that source:
that nothing is our own property, but even our child,
our body, our soul have come from that source;
that all is as thinking makes it so;
that each of us lives only the present moment, and the present moment is all we lose.
Between these interpretations, there are two glaring discrepancies, but both are within stoic view. That is, what is beyond our control is none of our concern, and if we live virtuously, any wrong in a relationship, must therefore lie with the other. This is what cause virtue to be so powerful at producing joy. But which or both?
The second are similarly both stoic like: there are three primary disciplines; judgement or assent, desire, and impulse. Judgement, our values, is the primary place for problem, often in our impressions. But also our thinking frequently makes it so in opinion.
The third item, is a wordy version of the congregation: as it is, as it was, as it will be. We also note that natural processes also follow this logic. The stoics may not have realized we are also descended from common ancestry, but the hold nature, natural forces and reason as god.
But what do I know?
Sunday, February 2, 2014
a bit of poetry
http://newstoa.info/article99.html
a bit on meditation
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/more-mindfulness-less-meditation
a bit on meditation
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/more-mindfulness-less-meditation
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