Amos

All true Eudaimonia but notice the dualism in your speach. If you must make the best of your life, you are not your life and your human need is to quench your pains of alienation from your true identity.

Amos

Eudaimonist

I need for you to clarify some things for me, because I'm not sure I understand you.

• What do you mean by alienation?
• What do you mean by dualism?
• What do you mean by saying one is not one's life? (What would one be if not one's life?)

Amos

Good questions and easy to answer from your previous post.

You wrote: "we have a human need to find and select a meaning and purpose in life."

To have a human need indicates that if we were not human we would have no need, which in turn infers that our humanity is the cause of our need. Our humanity is our human identity by which we are known to have meaning and purpose and in which we desire to exell and make the most of it since, as you suggest it is "short." This would leave the "we" identity without purpose and meaning and those with less humanity with less purpose and meaning.

So notice how you attach the self worth to our humanity (existence as human beings) while in fact our humanity is only a condition of being that belongs to and tells the world something about us as [animal] man to which this condition of being is attached.

The above is where my dualism is based on which can now be expressed with the ego identity and the animal man or true identity of man (as the animal man and thus without an ego).

You go on to say: "There is no God or afterlife. Life is short; don't waste it." My reacton to this would be " There is a God and an afterlife. Life is long; make the best of it."

In my view God is man as a solitary individual and thus without an ego to be enslaved to. Man as God is therefore without desire and man finds his God identity in his animal man identity or his own soul. Not quite, really, because as God, man will have managed to place his ego idenity in service of his True or God idenity so that reason will prevail.

"Life is long" because the soul of man is eternal and incarnate upon us from previous generations ("the bird that builts its nest is hatched therein").

We are alienated from our own true identity if we are enslaved to our ego identity and to the extend we deny our existence as eternal creatures (God) do we therefore live outside of ourselves.

"One is not one's life" means that if you have a life you are not your life. Your life certainly is yours but it is not the total you but coditional upon you (wherefore you can change it).

Remember that I agreed with you but wanted to point out that there is more to life than just to enjoy life because it is short. To live life to the fullest one must enter eternity and live life in the fullness of your own soul. Of course this is possible
and is the reason why life has a purpose because our own conscious mind has sight of this celestial sea of consciousness.

Amos

Eudaimonist

Thanks, Amos. I don't fully understand your response (I usually have difficulty interpreting your posts), but I think I understand a little better where you are coming from.

I think we as human beings have a first and second nature, but this distinction doesn't create anything that ~I~ would regard as a dualism. Man is always a unitary entity, not a bifurcated one.

The most familiar example of first and second nature is a child learning to ride a bicycle. The child starts off with the ability to get on the bike, enough coordination to ride perhaps a yard, and the potential (the ability) to develop increased coordination with practice. This is first nature. As the child practices riding the bicycle, he rides for greater and greater distances, to the point where he can ride as long as endurance allows. He has developed a skill he did not have previously. This skill is second nature. But both first and second nature are aspects of human nature.

Something similar is true with respect to the development of character, and the related issue of the eudaimonistic endeavor to harmonize reason, emotion, and impulses, so that one may achieve the graceful living that a rational, virtuous, and wholehearted approach to life makes possible. We start unfinished -- a diamond in the rough -- with our first nature, and like the diamond this first nature contains the promise of the second. We have the ability to develop virtue and a unified approach to life through purpose and effort. We also may shirk this quest and settle for a torn life, tugged in different directions by conflicting impulses.

I don't think a person's daimon -- her potential for graceful, integrated living -- is something divine, supernatural, or external to herself. It is very much a part of human nature, in terms of potentiality when unachieved, and in terms of actuality when achieved. Our lives are characterized by a pattern of growth and development, which may be more or less successful in any particular case. This development is smooth -- I don't think we can sharply distinguish between first and second nature except when we abstract the issue for the purpose of reflection. What I'm getting at is that we don't replace first nature with second nature; through action we refine and integrate our complete nature. We are always singular entities.

I have the feeling we may be talking past each other due to the differences in our backgrounds and interests. But I hope my post was informational, at least.

Amos

Thanks Eudaimonia, I understand you post very well and fully agree with you that we must shape our own diamond into the mold we want it to be and polish into a sparkling jewel [as if] with our own hands (I like you imagery here which is also found in "A Streetcar Named Desire").

I am suggesting that when we complete this task we my find that life becomes boring, which, in my opinion, points at another dimension in life and to arrive there we must abandon our own diamond and go for the unknown dimension on the other side of reason . . . which is the source of our inspiration that helped us refine and polish our own life in the first place.

Amos

Eudaimonist

Thanks, this post is crystal clear.

I don't see why a flourishing life would become boring. I suppose it is possible, but it hardly seems necessary. Such boredom would suggest a natural lack of some sort -- of stimulating friendship, love, community, symbolism, aspirations, hobbies, or whatnot.

I also don't see why boredom would be evidence of a "dimension on the other side of reason" -- unless we are merely talking of the natural inner "dimensions" of aspirations, reverence, awe, dreams, or other unusual or altered states of consciousness. I don't have any problem with people exploring such things -- they could possibly be an important part of their life's mission -- I just don't see them as supernatural. Our natural unconscious mind gives us plenty to explore.

As I wrote, the achievement of eudaimonia entails the inner alignment and integration of mental phenomena -- in particular the broad categories of reason, emotions, and impulses. This is a highly individualized process, and may involve the discovery of meanings to make sense of those inner dimensions I mentioned above, and to integrate them into a fulfilling life. And so our dreams and aspirations -- the "calling" of our daimon -- may lead us to a line of work that makes life feel all worthwhile. Our feeling of reverence for sacred symbols, or awe at looking at the night sky, or contemplation of the great achievements of Man may fuel our hearts in the pursuit of our most profoundly important goals. Etc.

I suppose the difference between us is that you wish to place a mystical and supernatural spin on these pursuits, where I view them as totally natural. To each his own, I suppose.

Eudaimonist

Are Amos and I losing all the other non-Abrahamic posters here? Or are you following this discussion. I'm curious.

Amos

Very true, to each our own and if you wish reach your stage of enlightenment along the royal path of inquisition you will not only be a happy man but you will also be a busy man for the rest of your days.

In my suggestion that there is another dimension in life on the other side of reason I was referring to the inner dimension of life which whom we were co-creators all along while in pursuit of happiness. The realization that there is another dimension in life does not come until midlife after we have exhausted our own faculty of reason. This exhaustion leads to boredom and is why William Woodsworth wrote in "Intimations of Immortality: "to me alone there came a thought of grief, a timely uttering gave this thought relief." It is a melancholic period in life and the onset of menopause which is archetypal to man and therefore not unusual.

This first nature with whom we were co-creators is indeed our unconscious mind and therefore non-rational. When we come to the realization that it is real we may wish to come to a complete understanding of it and this is where my mystical pursuit begins. In this we are encouraged to switch identity and become resident of our subconscious mind from where we go through life by intuition with reason as second nature on standby. So there an identity shift involved to which the pivotal speach was made by Mark Anthony in "Julius Ceasar" (III.i.182-210).

Amos

[ September 15, 2001: Message edited by: Amos ]

Eudaimonist

Amos, you raise a good issue. I thought you were talking about the middle years of one's life, not old age. As you are probably aware, there are different stages of psychological development. This issue is covered well in David Norton's Personal Destinies, where he outlines four broad stages and their implications for ethics. These are:

• childhood
• adolescence
• maturation
• old age

I normally talk about the implications of the maturation phase without commenting on the others, since eudaimonia as it is usually understood best attends to maturation. Also, because I have not yet reached old age, and can't relate.

I understand that there are significant psychological differences between the phases of maturation and old age, and if this transition is the point at which the "boredom" you mention sets in, then you have raised an excellent point.

No doubt much of what I have written does not apply in a clear and direct way to old age. Old age requires a new pattern of life, for the previous pattern of maturation no longer serves its purpose quite so well, and perhaps you are right that the new pattern is more intuitive than boldly rational. I don't think this requires a mystical view of life or a belief in an afterlife, though I can see how many people might opt for these. Must intuition automatically entail mysticism? I don't think so, though I can't say so from the personal experience of old age.

[ September 16, 2001: Message edited by: Eudaimonia ]

Amos

Well I am not old but I am past midlife. The effeminate "a" ending of Eudaimonia makes reference to a certain ripeness of maturation, as you suggest, and signifies that we are no longer a slave to our senses.

Intuition is void of mysticism and is Pure Reason after the journey of life is complete, which is when the alpha finds its end in the omega, or, when we arrive at the place we first started and know it as if for the first time. Until then, mysticism can be part of anything and hence we make distinctions between 'mystics' and 'real mystics.'

Intuition is Pure Reason when the two hemispheres of our mind have become one and thus our non rational mind is in charge of our destiny while reason prevails. The old Adam identity is just along for the ride but is needed for his apple to interject convention into our stream of words. So now we can say that the adams-apple is the voice box where convention is induced to glossolalia . . . wherefore some of its language is out of this world.

Reviewing the above you can now see why old men should not have dreams and is therefore called an evil age in the Bible.

Amos