The way that I think:
Been hanging around this planet for many years now. It concerns me that I have formed no firm idea of ‘what is going on’ in this life. So, what do I think if I put my mind to it? Mostly I think that it is all to complex to be explicable and that metaphysics is not a particularly profitable pastime. The bigger questions always have to yield to the smaller ones eventually. By this I mean how can you ask ‘what is the meaning of life?’ if you do not first discover how you should live life? How can you discover that unless you know how you can live life? So the first questions always become: how shall I seek shelter? How shall I eat today?
This Maslovian view will always be decried by non material thinkers. If you dig deep enough (not even very deep at times) you will often find that such people have already dealt with the lower order of questioning. They may have material supporters who provide for them and look after the minutiae of their lives. They may have an established source of passive income which frees them from fiscal concerns. There may be many freeing factors but what you can be sure of is that these adepts have already worked on and moved on from basic material thoughts. So I think that it is fine to move on to the ‘what is going on?’ type of thought. (Even when you can accept that there will be no answer) but - unless you have already reached material freedom you will have to continue to conduct work at this lower Maslovian level throughout you progress in life.
I say progress ‘in’ life rather than ‘through’ life simply because you are in it. You are embodied in it now. You are not passing through something. You are in something which will pass but that is not the same thing at all. If you make the mistake of thinking that you are passing through life then you will become consumed by thoughts of ‘progress’ and, worse, you will compare your ‘progress’ with the other beings that you observe around you. If on the other hand you can accept that life will pass and is passing then you will be able to begin to live it.
Acceptance of this passing removes one of the really big questions immediately. What is death? The way that I think has often been directed by this question and it has largely been a series of blind alleys, one way streets and no exit roads. I have tried to think the question out of existence by regarding it as unimportant or not relevant. That is fallacious thinking. It is important. It keeps on returning to lines of thought. So, whilst it may be a meaningless question it must still be accorded some respectable place in human thought. It may not be a worthy question but it is an important question nonetheless. I would like to dispose of it directly in several ways first and then return to the more sensible starting point of ‘how can I?’ rather than ‘how should I?’ Philosophy and its subject psychology - helpless as they often are -may help us here a little bit. Psychologically there is no death. One of my teachers used to say ’you live forever - and then you die’. He lived forever and is now dead. It is like trying to imagine the edge of the universe.
If you can imagine the end then there must be something beyond it even if there is nothing. That ’nothing’ must in turn be ’something. The easiest way out is to say ‘ I can not know about that’ Agnostic prevarication provides as much comfort as theistic faith can - but neither extreme helps in the way that we think. Each line of reasoning requires an equal amount of blindness to make it work.
Here I stick my neck out for the first time: Life after death is a human conceit. Psychology would assist us if it could by saying that while an individual can certainly understand the idea of personal death it is impossible for an individual to visualise their own death without a visualisation of their own presence at that death. Try it.
You are dead. What is it like? You will only be limited in this exercise by your limits of imagination. Only one thing is certain. You will ’see’ your own death……
My way of thinking now prefers the assistance of a philosophical rewind. This line of thought says -’if you want to know what being dead is like then remember back to the years before you were born’. What was that like? Somewhere in there is an answer more meaningful that either ‘I can not know’ or ‘In faith, I do know’
It also puts death in its proper frame of reference which is almost nothing - other than a facile distraction. Another teacher once said; ‘life is important. Death - the little bit at the end is not even worthy of consideration - only of acceptance.’
This is not to say that a constant awareness of death is unimportant. We know that we will die and this just makes life or existence much more worthy of consideration.
The way that I think only makes a consideration of death important as a mirror to life.
Death provides life with some currency. Likewise the other big question of ‘why am I here’ should be totally overshadowed by the construct of ‘I am here’. That is the wonder. I do not wish to imply by this that life is wonderful or that being here is wonderful. (Both of these statements may be true but they are not relevant here).
The wonder is in the being. Life is just life - being embodied in it is the true wonder.
My thoughts lead me to believe that we should wake each day or each time with a renewed sense of wonder and enjoyment in life.
