Ever taken a blank sheet of paper and tried to draw something on it? What happened? Did you draw something which you liked, or maybe drew something you hated, or did you just not do anything and stare at the blank sheet?
Life is so much like the simple act of drawing. You have every other day in which your actions can create something great, or something which you regret or yet you can be like most people in the world and just stare at the day and show some passive reactions (notice the RE..), a lot of times it can even cross the border of meaning and seem like the blank sheet of paper is drawing us.
It takes some courage to draw on the blank sheet, just like the courage needed to make things happen everyday. It needs persistence to erase the ugly sketches from the paper, just like the persistence needed after every mistake in life, hope makes you draw again, hope makes you take the action one more time. Fear of screwing up enables you to stare at the sheet for hours, just like what this fear does to you everyday ... and maybe most important than all, the more you draw, the better you become at drawing.
The distance in the space of meanings between a blank sheet of paper and one with a nice sketch is millions of miles ... so can be the difference between a normal "yet another passive reactive-deterministic-conservative" day and one where you chose to make decisions, chose to change something, chose to break the symmetry and take responsibility.
4 comments:
When I was reading through your post It was as if I was watching some episodes from my own life, but hopefully not much of it is like this ;)
Yes you're right, and I think it is difficult to live an active life, and if we're not careful life will act upon us instead which is so called a "reactive" life. One thing that could help us avoiding such situations is to have a plan for our life. There are three major questions that every person should ask himself to live a good life:
1 - Where am I coming from?
2 - Where am I right now?
3 - Where I want to go?
All together the above questions might help us sketching a plan for ourselves, which is of course not an easy task.
This is also very much related to Ethics, and virtue which is a practical science as Aristotle argues, and of course the ultimate goal.
Having found the illness the second major step is to cure it. what do you propose for overcoming such unwanted behaviors?
As I was reading through your post it was as if I was watching some episodes from my own life, but hopefully not much of it is like this;)
Yes, you're right, and I think it is difficult to live an active life, and if we're not careful life would act upon us which is so called a "reactive" life. One thing that might help us to avoid such situations is to have a plan. There are actually three major question that every person should ask himself if he wants to live a happy life.
1 - Where am I coming from?
2 - Where am I right now?
3 - Where I want to go?
The above questions might help us to sketch a plan for our lives, which I believe is not an easy task.
I also think all the discussion is also related to Ethics, and how to find the virtue, and happiness, because living an active life could bring us happiness and if practiced in long term it would be an ethical behavior, but this could not be gained by theory, and indeed it is gained through practice. Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics argues that Ethics is a practical science. Now the question is what are those best practices?
Having found the illness the second major step is to cure it. what do you propose for overcoming such unwanted behaviors?
Cure... hmm.. that would be tough but simple answers would be for us to reduce the activities that hypnotize us and block us from thinking about the questions you mentioned. I know a few such activities at least : watching TV or surfing the web aimlessly.
This could be a small first step. The rest would be practices that would wash away fear, laziness and the will to not have any responsibilities and maybe most important than all, believing in the dreams and possibilities.
These are easy to write but hard to follow.
today i was staring at a peace of paper trying to start a sketch, but after a while i ended up with a few separate lines and no drawing at all, after that i was shocked , i though my mind was empty! hope my life wont. i agree with the mapping function you have stated but again; another hard task!!!
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