should anyone venture over to mike's journal and read the comments on his post from 10/15, mike posted a series of short statements and thoughts. unless i'm mistaken, a few of them were thoughts of his relating to some previous philsophical/religious conversations we had. i've always been interested in eastern thought and religion, namely buddhism and taoism, and it comes up in our conversations pretty often, especially since i'm taking a religions course this semester taught by ad buddhist. the best part is that his thoughts on the matter couldn't be any more inverse to mine. i really enjoy disagreeing with people. especially when they're as bright a person as mike is cause i'm sure to have my own ideas challenged, something i wish happened more often. especially in class.
so rather than just reply in mike's comments section, i thought i'd open the conversation a bit, invite some other folks in to disagree with me. there's no dramatic history here... no name calling, no craziness... a nice change for this journal. just a fun discussion on philosophy and the like.
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mike: I believe that overthinking and overanalyzation is not a curse but a talent that should be encouraged.
response: but what about instinct? how often does overthinking/analyzing something lead to a different viewpoint than what we first felt? not very. more than anything, i find it's just a waste of time. life is short. why spend all our time trying to figure things out as if there were some kind of ultimate knowledge or Truth just out of our grasp. living requires an exhange between ourselves and the world around us. not only that, it requires attention to that exchange; something we can't give to it when we're busy thinking about ourselves; trying to figure things out. so really, who's better off? the person who tries to understand the world, or the person that just learns to love it?
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mike: Simplification is a copout
response: a copout of what? our western, goal-oriented, slothful, greedy lifestyle? show me a man who spent his life rushing here and there fullfilling one desire after another; a degree, a great career, wife and kids, and i'll show you dissatisfaction. i pose a question: with all our advances in science, technology, psychology, communication, and everything that goes with it, do you think people are any happier? any less? i can tell you one thing for certain... they're a lot fatter.
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mike: "stop thinking" is a cry for ignorance - which is bliss - so at times I will avoid subjects and topics but hey I realize it so I'm halfway to getting that worked out.
response: i really strongly disagree mike's main point here. namely "stop thinking" is a cry for ignorance. when we stop thinking, we start feeling. Our brains disconnect us from the world. It's our nature to try to organize, structure, label, and categorize things. thinking is our attempt at dealing with the chaos of our infinitely detailed, infinitely unknowable world. our emotion connects us to that chaos because our emotion is unpredictable and uncontrollable (provided that you agree with me when i say supression is not control). We could spend our whole lives swimming up-stream and end up very tired and not very far from where we started or we can relax, float on our backs, enjoy the scenery, and see where things take us.
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mike: desire causes suffering, but desire also causes progress.I desire progress because it is my instinct. I cannot reason why progress is my goal - I just "know" that it will bring me more to work with - more to think about - more to enjoy - more to fight against - more more more
response: but will any amount of progress make someone happy? anyhow, i'm not so sure progress is anyone's instinct. it's most likely a behavior learned in early childhood as a response to the positive reinforcement we got for improving in any way, shape, or form. furthermore, i'm not so sure i agree that desire causes progress. in many cases, i think it's the exact opposite. hell, scroll down this page for a few examples how crazy miserable it can make people. desire is only constructive when we're destroying it. otherwise it drives us mad. and watch how quickly that which you desire, once attained, diminishes. watch how quickly that recently fulfilled desire gets replaced. fulfilled desire fuels even greater desire. unfulfilled desire fuels dissatisfaction and suffering.
but to accept and destroy desire or to turn it into something positive, like a passive joy, is to reach an emotional and mental equilibrium in the presence of things we hate and the absence of things we love. why do you think the buddha is sculpted/drawn/painted with a smile? that is beyond progress. there is only enjoyment from that point on and our happiness becomes a huge curve of which the derivative at any point along it is all we want or need in that instant in space and time: nothing.
and while all this makes absolute and perfect sense to me, i find myself unable to make the necessary steps/sacrafices to start heading in that direction. i'm not really sure if that makes me a hypocrite, per se, and if that's something even worth noting. i'm only 22, afterall. but i guess that's what living and growing old is all about.
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ok, yeah. that was fun. i hope mike doesn't think i'm trying to cut him up or anything. i hope a lot of people have a lot to say. please forgive any misspellings or grammar errors. and i think my train of thought started to falter towards the end there. ah well. it's late and i've no time to proofread. time for bed.
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