An Expression of our Shared Knowledge

" But I don`t believe in hope without endeavour.``

**this is not an entry which necessarily makes sense**

.` 

 I realized I want to be an Expression of Shared Knowledge.

Is that possible?

No.

But I am pumped to try.

"The process of seeking equilibrium is what makes our life and society possible."

John Raulston Saul

"Why do we have trouble embracing our own genius? Our own Humanism? ...We would rather the illusion of certainty."

I am so optimistic.

And I am wary that people often think me happy because I am ignorant.

Or because I do not care to think of the unpleasantries.

but often, what others find unpleasant I do not

and what I know is hard or uncomfortable is a learning experience

because nothing is non momentous about life

nothing that does not move.
To me, nothing is meaningless.

My happiness would ebb less, were that the case.
And in being happy, I am not inert. I am in want of betterment.

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. " ~Dr. Alexis Carrel

Grow some moss

Were I a statue of contentedness.

I want to cultivate gardens before I grow moss.
I do not want to be inert. I don't believe in meaninglessness. Not moving. Not influencing.

I think one of the most meaningful decisions you can make is to try to not move. Not influence. Not claim your ability to respond. yOur responsibilities.

But, if everything is meaningfilled... And I don't believe it possible to fathom the complexities of life...

Should I be paralyzed because I do not understand? Even if I am in want of doing what my gut seems to know I need to do?

Should I get lost in the 'wilderness of opinion' (Wapola Sri Rahula "What the Buddha taught")

for fear of moving

and the perpetual consequences

What is the role of an actor in the world?

In society?
To ourselves?

``What passes for common sense becomes a panicked, determined obsessiveness. Anyone who looks up or around is marketed as irresponsible or a romantic... There is no need to treat common sense as a parody of itself. Better to embrace its natural complexity"

Saul speaks of not thinking of knowing in the same way we think of understanding.

 

(Plan: Bee was a great example of life as a social being. Collaborative. Messy. Not understanding what would happen but knowing that I trusted in it and the process itself. So complex, so many contributions and opinions so hard to manage so easy to appreciate and so joyous in its execution. The most natural acting of my life in many ways)

The role of an actor:

Someone who acts in the world.

As an actor, cares about the opinions and lives and accumulated actions of others.

Who plays with those on stage to create a plot

And knows what they care about themselves first?

If I think I see the scaffold, should I measure it out and hire some builders?
Boss people around?

Goodness, that is not me.
I fear being manipulated or mislead so much, that I would hate to ever mislead someone away from what they might truly want for themselves
And I work the least when I am told what to do precisely
and feel my agency is encroached upon wholly
and best with a messy scaffold wherein I can create.
I am not a boss.
Good gracious.
Whenever I have been called a leader? It is only because I often can recognize how and where other people are leading


often subtly and beautifully
and believing them to be better at a task than I might be
I do not trust myself as a grand director,
I take my direction from all directions
but I do trust myself as an appreciator
and am a great appreciator of novelty, and the unique and am perpetually amazed by how unmundane all things are. And by the glory of every single person and thing.
If anything, I want people to reframe people as actors. Redefine definitions.

"A definition is intended to clarify things, to free us for action... a definition can just as easily become a means of control, a profoundly reactionary force, a crutch for certainty and ideology."

People have painted themselves into little boxes, and denied themselves to their neighbours and vice versa. With fears of skeletons in their closets, they are too ashamed to call the exterminators.
I wish people understood themselves as social capitol. As meaningful actors on the grand stages of life.
armed specifically and beautifully to execute their delicious paths of action

But (now that I have digressed, again) :

Do I mind my flighty mind?

Could I wholly mind my flighty mind?
Only when it keeps me from acting. Or thwarts my attempts to be responsible and conscientious.
Or hurts those around me with my negligence
But the struggle itself keeps me on my toes

My creative and curious parts?

I cannot anymore, because they are my greatest gift

Do I mind my happiness?
Sometimes, I fear it makes me insensitive--to others and to my own self.
I worry I am unfeeling because I feel so content
but it is a blessing always
(in fact, I feel quite like an arse when I complain about my happiness)


 So why mute myself?


The messiness and my blurring of lines?

My optimism?
My romanticism?
This is how I see.

This is my arsenal of knowledge.
My acting style
My personal Reality
I combine me with what I think everyone might want
for the world
and what might be best for all
Who and what is on the stage

and then act.
I gave up my life to become who I am today. Was it worth it?

Certainly.

How could I mourn my own existence if I know it a blessing?
Because there have been times when I have mourned life
And thought better of it.
 

"“I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with”

Do I enjoy being distracted by things in the same manner as Plato?

Should I paint a blurry canvas and let the lovely things come out? In the same colours as my grandest dreams?

Borrow from the knowledge which surrounds me? Be distracted by that which draws me in to learn from it?

Goodness yes.

``The Curious thing is that no one can name a single manager or administrator of the Renaissance. Yet there were lots of them... Yet we can all name Picasso. And  not because the artists are celebrities. In general they are far less in the public eye than a well-paid CEO.
...It seems that memory does work. It retains what is central and filters our what is tertiary or marginal. Leonardo (da Vinci) remains because he is an expression of our shared knowledge. The manager does not. He has a role but remains marginal to society`s sense of itself, even to the manager`s own sense of himself...``

you cannot deny your calling

if you know, you know

I never want to feel like a manager.

I often think of this Henry Ford quote, when I think of all things leaderly:
"The question, 'Who ought to be boss?' is like asking, 'Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor."
I have been okay with lending direction, with 'leading' or bossing
because I don't erase myself or other people in doing it
I suppose, that means I am okay it it
even if I am uncomfortable with it as a prospect.
But, as I said earlier: Discomfort is the best sign of learning.

And I am terrified of Ideology

and fear feeling as though I know, as though I am done looking.
As though I am grown up.

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”-Kahil Gibran

I want to be an expression of shared identity, shared knowledge

I don`t mean that I want to be remembered, or da Vinci for that matter

I want to help be

that blur which makes us us

I want to help popularize common sense.
``If understanding is impossible, than knowing is imperative``(Primo Levi)

and be cozy in not understanding

But in want of knowing

and allowing myself to know the things I do know.

Bring my private voice to the public sphere.

`What I am suggesting is the essentially non-linear nature of common sense. You might say that it is the witness of society`s existence.`

To know I am not hiding. At let others know they need not hide

or fear being seen

“Be content to seem what you really are”
Marcus Aurelius

I think the greatest sin of them all, is to try to hide.
For in hiding what you think is your worst you will often hide your best
and if your worst remains in hiding
then you cannot make the best of it
and if you only think you hide it
and it is obvious to all those around you
you are a fool.
who will never feel comforted in knowing they are truly known.

An amorous hedonist

wary of formalizing and yet always craving structure and sense

cheezy often

user of semiotics

analogy

legend

fable

therefore a mutt of pasts and presents and all neighbours of her existence

furiously borrowing from everyone around her and everything around her

trying to cite her sources

wary of her own untruths

and curious about yours
all collects as many blurred lines as possible
to try to reassemble The Grand Mosaic

who outsources to be sure
"Is this what it looks like?"

but will never hide her opinion

and cannot tell you where the voice inside her comes from except to say 

"me"

and you and you and you

 and you and you and you

A person who seeks personal serenity

By helping people be better people

by being themselves

by making this a better place.

Not inert.

Not understanding

Not paralyzed

No expert

But knowing she wants better.

and that she loves it.
And those around her.
And the place she is lucky enough to call home
Her grounds for exploration and limits and boundlessness

perpetual serendipity and symmetry

That doesn't sound bad to me at all.

But, if it sounds bad to yee I would love to know.
'Cause I need you to be better and build better.
Humans are social creatures.
And beautiful ones at that.

Equilibrium1

 What is a person to society and vice versa? 

"That 'when we walk, we know that we are walking, when we stand we know that we are standing.' It is that consciousness that permits a form of progress.'

 I have been hanging out with a beautiful man who seems to have a hard time understanding himself as a contributor to society, or as a good person for that matter because he thinks himself entirely self-centred. Doing everything to serve himself.
Because he is too busy trying to make the best of who he is to be distracted with the greater good.
Isn't that, often, the best thing you can do for the greater good?
But you still need to feel momentum and fire---
and humans as closed systems, or isolated individuals
are not not the best fostered creatures for themselves or the rest.
It is an exhausting practice.

I read an old journal of mine recently where I wrote (in grade nine):
Life goal:
Be a net gain for The Universe.

I think sometimes we often get stuck like this. Either wary that we need to do more more more outside of ourselves that we forget to work on what we like about ourselves.
Or we grow wary that focusing on greater goods will erase us or misdirect what we really want and therefore isolate ourselves from feeling real satisfaction.

 But I still strive for Greatness.
 I just never want to get lost in it. To miss out because I focus on gaining.
But without it, we often don't really know our own direction or cannot be really motivated to claim it. We cannot feel purpose in such a pronounced way, we seek personal perfection instead of knowing what is good enough to help the world and ourselves is often good enough to fuel us for a long long time.

"The problem seems to be that our talents and characteristics drive us more than we drive them. We encourage or develop them or deny and frustrate them. Either way, we are serving what exists within us-- a form of personal reality or personal certainty..."


And to me, being a good person in incredibly self-centred and self serving. Is it not? I mean, if you focus on empty ends and never get affirming feedback you can never actually wholly capitalize on your own life or plug into you offer the world and vice versa

"...There is nothing odd or strange about this; nothing wrong. As I've said, we need these certainties. They are our primary reality. And society needs these contributions from us. It is good to be a successful salesman or writer. the wings need to hold firm on the planes we build for others to fly in. We need to be sung to."

I more or less said this to him:
"Any sense of power or powerlessness we have revolves around whether we believe we have the qualities with which we can have some effect on our destinies and on that of our society--no one great life-directing quality, but a whole range of them, all of equal importance, each with different roles. these permit us to change ourselves from passive beings to humans."

I think it is mildly demeaning that you say you are motivated solely by self-interests. Especially since you could not exist without society. Humans are born dependent on such things, on greater society otherwise(like other mammals) we would be born stronger, more mobile and independent. Also, that insulting thought is the root of many things socially painful-- the assumption that those ads, that consuming that being self-centred, all-consuming soulless gluttons is some sort of answer. How you typify your own wants, might be different, but your seeking without any thought of higher purpose or grander purpose than yourself is just as vacant in its destination as what a mach3 razor presents itself as offering your destiny unless you tap into all that you are giving... and recognizing yourself as a giver, or part of that which surrounds yee and made you you.pretending as though it appears as a closed system, though I am fairly certain you rationally think otherwise, is a foreign tale to me.

How can you follow through on your logic this way?
You have Aidos and Dike my dear, otherwise you would not survive. Know that you use them, and use them knowingly! Or at least feel not that you are a fraud, or fooling. Because it is but you yourself who is made a fool by habituating such a practice. You are more than just skill and self. You are quality and virtue. You are the quite lovable, nurturing, contributing you.

 So plug in!

Something talked about in Equilibrium is Plato's idea of Zeus telling Hermes to give human kind Aidos and Dike.
I want to talk about that more next time.

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So, for a long time people had told me I was quoting John Raulston Saul and I would retort "I have never read JRS" and that would be the end of that. I am mid-read of Equilibrium, my first book in a long long while, and I am perpetually surprised by how much it echoes my mind. Now I am wary to keep reading, because in the future I may be quoting JRS when I mean to be just being myself. Dang.

This entry was heavily quoting and referencing the first pages of On Equilibrium 

The reason this post is titled "Equilibrium1" is because I assume I shall touch back on what reading has done to my mind.

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