Category: Philosophy

Something I learned from Thomas Moore

2/23/2017

When Linda and I lived in Vancouver, I walked through a blizzard of cherry petals one fine evening to the old Christ Church Cathedral downtown, a stone building that seemed to have pushed up out of the ground amongst all those skyscrapers. Christ Church is an Anglical cathedral, which, to agnostic me, is next thing to being Catholic, full of all kinds of Christian voodoo. I tiptoed in just as people were settling down and quietly took a seat at the back, a bit wary of being captured and dragged off into some dark corner.

I wasn’t attending a ritual, luckily, but a lecture by Dr. Thomas Moore, about whom I was curious. For one, he was a professor of religion AND psychology, meaning he should know a few things from outside of religion that I could relate to. Also, he had written a famous book called Care of the Soul. A year or so earlier, I had flipped through the book in a bookstore, attracted by the curious idea of “soul”, as opposed to the possibly-more-religious term “spirit”. What could that distinction be? And could the idea of soul be some kind of a doorway for an agnostic like me? My idea of soul had always been simply that it was a reverential term for our feeling of who we are, our consciousness. But maybe here in this ancient setting, from this bright guy, this psychologist who had spent twelve years as a Catholic monk, I could find some connection between that secular idea and the Christian one.

Well, I didn’t. Not exactly. But what I did walk away with was something maybe even more meaningful to me. Moore said, “The soul is who we really are, not who we try to be.”

And so, to live a soulful life, all we have to do is stop trying to be someone we’re not. Does that sound easy?

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Linda Eva Williams I like the image of the building having been being pushed out of the ground - like a flower in a crack of pavement, or a mushroom in the woods. I think I already asked you: why on earth did you leave Vancouver (though London, which nobody I know has visited, also sounds like a nice city? But leave Vancouver??
Like · Reply · 12 January at 21:31

Stan Burfield Well, Linda's relatives all live around here, including her four grandchildren. And it was costing us more than we could afford to fly here every year for Christmas. Way more. So here we are.
Like · Reply · 12 January at 21:36 · Edited

Linda Eva Williams Too bad, if you had purchased a house. Real estate is unaffordable now, I need not tell you. But I can understand the pull of family.
Like · Reply · 12 January at 21:39

Stan Burfield Yeah, we could never afford a house in Vancouver. But anyway, if we had bought a house, we would still both be working paying for it, or at least the upkeep etc.
Like · Reply · 12 January at 21:54

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...or we don't.

2/20/2017

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Linda and I were both feeling down as we stood on the balcony looking out at the city. We talked about maybe going out somewhere tomorrow. It might cheer us up. "It's as if we were all dropped down here out of the sky," she said, "with just our brains and our hands and nothing else. We either make things happen for ourselves or we don't." Yes. That's it. We looked out there. The city was humming away.

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A word can't refer to the essence of something

1/3/2017

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Here's a little thought my lateral, non-literal friend Donald Brackett sparked in me just now. It has to do with the meaning of things.

Normally a thing may have a meaning for a person, but, upon serious consideration, it's pretty obvious that the meaning is solely a symbol for it, an idea that is attached inside our minds to that real, external something. But the thing itself has no relation, no direct connection, to the symbol in our minds. So it seems that it can't actually BE its meaning, no matter how much it may seem to be when we look at it.

However, if we really drill into reality to the point where we actually get beyond our view of it somehow--if we get down to the essence of something-- then the relationship between it and its meaning appears very different: We can then only see IT, itself, or refer to it with itself as its own symbol. Thus, any use of symbolic language is actually not referring to an essence, but only to an idea, maybe to an idea of the essence, but still just to an idea.

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Donald Brackett very elegantly expressed.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 24 December 2016 at 19:24

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I wonder

8/29/2016

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I’m old enough now that I’ve become bored with the person I’ve always been. I’ve used it up. And I no longer need it because I’ve retired from the world of work interactions it’s been such a part of. It’s time, then, to look for a new thing before time runs out.

So I wonder…

If I were to completely, utterly stop myself somehow, then start again from zero, where would I end up? If I were to look for a new beginning, specifically and only for myself, and look for it by myself, what could I find? I mean, If I were to ignore all answers from elsewhere--from religions, mythology, wise people--could I find anything on my own? Because I know now, after all these decades of trying, that I can’t take the beliefs of others seriously enough to wear them myself. I can only seriously believe myself and my own discoveries. They’re the only ones that to me consist of more than just words and abstract ideas.

So I’ll begin here and see where I end. I might at least make a baby step.

First. One thing I know about myself is that I’ve been soaked in good and bad. Since I was a child, it has poured on me like rain. Its clouds have never parted. I have feared punishment of one kind or another, and desired praise of one kind or another, continuously, all my life. Good-and-bad is the person I have always been. Do I exist other than as that shell, perhaps inside it? Or is the shell empty?

I do know that good and bad themselves are illusions, because the eyes of science have let me step out of my wet self to see the rest of the world naked. I know that world exists. Looking back on myself, I know that even I exist without good and bad. There is a dry me, an inner me who might be able to truly see the dry world, not just imagine it. If only I could step in there, wholly. In where there is no evaluating, no judging, only acceptance of everything. If that’s what a dry self is, then my dry self would just exist with everything else. Including that world of fear and reward and punishment. That’s who I would like to be because I would then embody truth.

How different would I be? Is good and bad, reward and punishment, the need to please others, such an overwhelming part of me that without it I would be completely different? Certainly, I would be a lot different from my nearly lifelong self that had been built from shyness, from that world of fear. But would I see reality in a completely different way? Like night and day? I have always felt that my sight was deadened, blocked somehow. Maybe this is the reason why.
But would a change like this actually be possible for me? In reality? I can see that it should be possible. And I know that I could pretend to myself to be that person. And I would certainly like to just exist with everything, including with myself.

It may be possible but very difficult to bring about. Instincts may force me to remain as I always have. And habit. And a long-trained unconscious mind. And if I consist so deeply and fully of good-and-bad, and if all the other people in the society I live in are constructed the same, then to exist outside of it might require me to be a hermit.

But when I think of all our interactions, of what they’re like, it doesn't feel like being a hermit would be absolutely necessary. If it isn’t necessary, then might it be possible that all of us are closer to being this pure person than I suspect. Might it be possible that the pure being of others is always alive in there, and living with their good-and-bad self? That the two, working together, are flexible and more accepting of another pure person than I would expect? And therefore, might it be possible that I am one of those people, always seeing everything through both sets of eyes? In which case, could it be that I wouldn't have to become a completely different person? I don’t know. I’m just wondering.

PS: After posting this, in the comments below it, Aldous Richards astounded me with what must be the answer to my question.

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While walking home from the store with cherries...

7/15/2016

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I like to think of myself as a Canadian. It's a nice thought. But it's just an idea. This city, however, is something real.

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Stan Burfield Ummm. I can't stop eating them. The huge ones. They're sooooo good. And they're the cheapest right now: $1.75/lb. at Harry's No Frills on Commissioner and Wharncliffe. I get two big bag fulls, and have them eaten within three days. I'm a fruitaholic.
Like · Reply · 3 · 13 July at 17:41 · Edited

Tina Pickard I will get some tonight, you have convinced me , ummmm love cherries.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 13 July at 17:39

Tina Pickard I hope you don't eat too many
Like · Reply · 13 July at 17:41

Stan Burfield I always do, but at least they're healthy.
Like · Reply · 13 July at 17:41

Tina Pickard And they are seasonal, just like all the summer and fall vegetables and fruits, I get sores from eating to many tomatoes.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 13 July at 17:42
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Karen Troxler Better stock up on Immodium lol!
Like · Reply · 13 July at 19:55

Meredith Moeckel Karen, I am curious why you say this----I've never heard this about cherries, but then I don't eat them that often. After reading Stan's post, I think that I will get some tomorrow!!! :)
Like · Reply · 13 July at 22:57

Stan Burfield What's immodium for, Karen?
Like · Reply · 13 July at 23:09

Stan Burfield Oh, looked it up. Diarrhea! Ha ha. You would think so, but it doesn;t seem to affect me that way for some reason.
Like · Reply · 13 July at 23:10
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Meredith Moeckel Stan...I am wondering what walking home from the store enjoying eating cherries has to do w/ being a Canadian, or about your city 'being real'? No need to answer my curious questions!! :)
Like · Reply · 13 July at 23:02

Stan Burfield Well, the cherries and me walking, and the sidewalk are all real. The country is just an idea. Anybody who lives here can see the city. Nobody can see Canada. Not that ideas aren't powerful. Because of this idea in millions of people's heads, we have political systems instituted, and money collected and spent. Some guys are in the middle east fighting in deadly wars because of it. But the thing itself is just an idea.

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In a world that is neither Heaven nor Hell, hope drives everything.

6/10/2016

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Stan Burfield If a person's hope is destroyed, so is their motivation to live.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 15:45
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Barbara Green There's gotta be more to this story.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 17:03

Stan Burfield Well, my sister and I were talking on the phone. Her life is very difficult, and we were talking about mine and others' as well. Suddenly I burst out with, "This world is definitely not Heaven," and from there, of course, we went to denying that it was Hell either. We settled for it being a place where if you had the normal amount of luck and a little ability to control your environment (the normal amount) then you should be able, in Canada, to have a few enjoyable, maybe even happy, times now and then. Then I went for a walk to the grocery store and on the way saw a sign for 6/49 tickets, and Hope jumped out at me. Of course, it's the motivator that drives everyone to carve out those little bits of enjoyment in this grungy space between Heaven and Hell.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:12

Stan Burfield Hope keeps you moving away from hell towards heaven.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:16

Barbara Green Stan Burfield So hell would be loss of hope ... probably true if you consider that people do desperate things -- murder, rape, war -- only when hope of something better has utterly gone. And some engage in war because they hope to either preserve or create a better outcome for themselves or their families. So in that case maybe hope can also lead to hell. You know what they say about good intentions ...
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:21

Barbara Green However ... that's just sophistry. Here's the thing. The thing that Is, is Hope. The feared thing, Hell, is the result not of some existent evil, but only of the lack of the positive thing. I ws talking to the kids recently about how most (not all) evil seems not to be anything in itself, but rather the lack of the good created, existent thing. The way shadow/dark is nothing in itself, only blocked light.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:22

Barbara Green I don't fully believe that your intention/imagination creates reality. However, where you direct your attention certainly does influence your direction, and whether you have the motive power to go anywhere at all, that's clear. Lack of hope = depression, which robs you of the motive and the power to act at all.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:25

Stan Burfield Yes. I agree everywhere except for what Hell is. Certainly it can be created by evil people, and is in a lot of situation, but mostly I think it's just circumstance. Being born in a very poor, crowded slum means that even a lot of hope will be unlikely to bring much happiness or enjoyment to most of the residents there. Similarly, there are many circumstances in Canada that amount to Hell.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:32

Barbara Green Yes, Some of it is as you say, an Is, a condition. And yet there are people -- think of Mendela, wrongly imprisoned, beaten, his own movement including his wife evolving into something bitter, and he chooses to remain free. I don't mean to minimize anyone's pain or difficulties (though I can hardly help doing that, having had a very easy existence). But there is something to the aphorism that pain is inevitable, but suffering is not.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:42

Stan Burfield Just reread what you said about evil above, and it's pretty much what I said, sorry.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:50

Barbara Green Nothing to apologize for! (Except that we can't help it -- just having a concurrent fb conversation with an American friend about Canadians' over-politeness.)
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:51

Stan Burfield Ha ha. It's hard to overlay the world of politeness on the world of hope.
Like · Reply · 7 June at 19:56

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Something I learned from Thomas Moore

...or we don't.

A word can't refer to the essence of something

I wonder

While walking home from the store with cherries...

In a world that is neither Heaven nor Hell, hope drives everything.

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