The Hunter-Gatherer ([info]faustin) wrote,
@ 2006-07-19 12:37:00
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My orientation remains
These are a few of my favorite questions. I believe, when your boots hit the ground, your answers to these questions matter.

***

Is life an exciting adventure to be welcomed?

Is happiness possible?

Can we, as humans, understand the world around us? Thus, can we effectively cope with its challenges?

Can human relations be healthy? Are they generally mutually beneficial?

Can we wake up in the morning, confident that there are other good people in the world, doing fascinating things, providing products and services that further our lives, our goals, our happiness, and should we thus embrace their freedom and productivity?

***

Finally, I tend to judge a writer, thinker, intellectual, by his answers to these questions.

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[info]radiantsun
2006-02-17 05:26 pm UTC (link)
What does it mean if you answered "yes" or "most of the time" to these questions?

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[info]radiantsun
2006-02-17 05:27 pm UTC (link)
Ok, there was 1 "sometimes but not necessarily"

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[info]songofapollo
2006-02-17 06:07 pm UTC (link)
These are extremely impressive examples of essentialization, something you are better at than anyone I know.

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(Anonymous)
2006-02-18 05:58 pm UTC (link)
Thank you, Joe. That's quite a compliment.

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[info]dj_rowan
2006-02-17 11:31 pm UTC (link)
the answer is one, simple, undeniable no.

judge away.

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[info]faustin
2006-02-18 09:02 am UTC (link)
Ah. Must be exhausting.

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[info]dj_rowan
2006-02-18 05:15 pm UTC (link)
very.

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2nd world or 1st world
[info]farsam
2006-02-19 01:33 am UTC (link)
...so do you experience Russia as 2nd or 1st world? this could be a fascinating opportunity to consider just "what" the difference actually is (from your direct experience)...

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[info]tink3959
2006-02-21 12:08 am UTC (link)
Your questions can be answered with a simple "yes". To explain how I arrived at "yes" will take up much space and time. In a nutshell: Yes because I will it so. My life is exciting because I want excitement. I'm happy because I want to be happy. I want to understand the world so I will open my 'self' to it.

What's your answer?

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[info]faustin
2006-02-21 01:05 pm UTC (link)
I think most people would feel my questions are loaded --- that it is obvious, from the phrasing, that I favor "yes" answers. And I do. But I would emphasize very different reasons from what you emphasized; I would focus on human nature, on the capacities for happiness, for integrity, for pride, and for our abilities to form accurate judgments and even live well by rational deliberation.

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[info]john_of_ny
2006-03-06 04:16 pm UTC (link)
Had to jump names due to Army OPSEC crap. Hope to keep you around, you're an interesting read.

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[info]coanteen
2006-03-17 03:53 am UTC (link)
i'd say yes, to most. yes for people who try at least, who strive for it. i can wake up in a funk, but usually can throw it off and focus on th epositives, on excitement.

but for the understanding question, i don't know. i think we do a good job adjusting without full understanding, and i'm not sure if understanding is needed for coping with challenges. certainly we should strive to understand, and as a people i think we do, but i doubt we'll come to a full understanding of our own genome in my lifetime, nevermind the world.
some things of course are more pressing than others. we should try to fully understand our crappy effect on climate and fix it before it wipes us all out, because i imagine coping with an ice age or a lack of ozone would be beyond most people's skills.

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Wow
[info]mudita
2006-03-30 01:20 am UTC (link)
I love the questions you've put forth, Kirez. You really distilled that perspective down to its essence.

If you have more to write on this subject, I'd love to read it.

I'll probably blog your questions at Mudita Journal before long.

In the interim, I've got a brand new custom site design over there, complete with a swashbuckling photo of the Kirezmeister atop Sandia Crest.

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More Questions
[info]mudita
2006-04-01 09:25 pm UTC (link)
UPDATE: I've posted some follow-up questions that I think you might find interesting.

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[info]2_lya
2006-04-07 12:23 pm UTC (link)
Maybe I am an incurable optimist, but I’m sure that happiness is possible! Happiness is always near, and all our worries are only our wrong interpretation of situation. Be happy – is only our choice.

I’m a doctor, and I know that our life is unpredictable… You can enjoy good health today, but you never can tell what will be tomorrow! And that is the reason why I try to take everything out of my present and I don’t want to spend my life thinking about something, what can make me unhappy.
I made my choice, and I’m happy!

As regards other questions… Whether the world could be understood? It is unknowable and therefore our life is so exciting!

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[info]troyworks
2006-05-29 09:15 pm UTC (link)
>is life an exciting adventure.

This i'm learning is more about perception than reality, still working on a compelling fiction to overlay the events of ordinary life, that at a certain meta level are rather predictable.

>Happiness possible.
You'd have to clarify, there are context to be happy. One cannot control the world but one can control ones responses to the events. e.g. if One is has a terminal disease and is in constant physical pain, being happy is relatively less than if those events were removed. Cognitive reframing, beliefs and values is important to a consistent but reality occassionally forces lieing/blinding oneself to acheive happiness.

>Can human relations be healthy/beneficial
like a chain, the strength of human relations (and the benefit) is based on the weakness of the links, and the load of the task at hand (e.g. society). Given our primate natures, and finite resources, beneficial is the result computed from the sum interactions of the links over time. Healty is a bit like forest fires, sometimes things have to be destroyed to grow in the right direction.

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[info]fixnwrtr
2006-06-20 12:08 pm UTC (link)
Yes, life is an exciting adventure, as it should be. Good, bad, indifferent, life is what molds and informs us, makes us who we are. Take away one moment, one instance and you change who we are, who you are, who I am.

Happiness is possible. The question should be: why does happiness seem impossible? Happiness is the simple act of acceptance.

The world is a complex organism. Like any good virus or bacteria, we either learn to adapt to the organism or find a niche that will accept and nurture us or we find ourselves battling for our lives.

Being healthy is a subjective proposition. Do you mean healthy in the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual sense? Who determines the measurement for health? Even a schizophrenic can find balance within his own reality. Can human attain balance? Yes, but balance also is a relative proposition. One can be in balance with one's surroundings and "world" and out of balance with the wider world, but that does not mean they are unhealthy. Being in balance is being able to cope with whatever challenge is thrown at one and finding a way to integrate or bypass it.

Civilization and life provide a wide panorama of freedoms and productivity, some of which never touches one or needs to touch one. To deny another's freedom and/or productivity is to deny another's existence. There are good people in the world and there are people who could be considered not good but who determines which is which? Yes, there are those who share one's views and philosophies, but even those who do not have value just as a grain of sand stuck in an oyster's shell has value to someone when the oyster, reacting to protect its life, surrounding the dangerous grain of sand with nacre to create a pearl. To the oyster, the grain of sand is an irritant that could cause its death and its reaction instinctive. To some people the resultant pearl is something pretty to enjoy, something to use to adorn themselves or a loved one or someone powerful in exchange for goods and services, and to others a reason to lie, cheat, steal and/or kill, a commodity that provides and enhances wealth and standing. Each chooses that perspective that makes them happy (softening the effect of painful grain of sand, providing happiness and beauty, conferring status, wealth and/or power), embracing their version of freedom and producing an end result (productivity).

If we embrace freedom for ourselves, we must also embrace freedom for others to produce or not as they choose, or become despots/anarchists/gods.

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(Anonymous)
2006-07-30 01:30 am UTC (link)
:: Can human relations be healthy? Are they :: generally mutually beneficial? If they weren't generally mutually beneficial, then cities and towns would not exist; people would live separately rather than together.

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[info]michael_hardy
2006-07-30 01:37 am UTC (link)
:: Can human relations be healthy?
:: Are they generally mutually beneficial?


If they weren't generally mutually beneficial,
then cities and towns would not exist. People
would live separately rather than together.

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