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SHAKEN, STIRRED OR DISTILLED
Friday June 17, 2016
I was up anyway …
Something to get up really early for; that done, at 4:15, what to do?
I started this column – soon a thought trickle became a spillway/waterfall – culmination of thoughts stewing on my back-burner awhile together with some recent triggers. In particular, a friend reached out for some understanding – an ear, a shoulder, some support, some counsel. That happen every day for many people.
Why is that?
This sent me on some tangential exploration, not down a rabbit hole … but a bit of wandering that resulted in this piece:
Why me? Why do I care? Not a close friend, not someone I know deeply – but as we’ve talked I recognize many things I understand, identify with and agree with from my own experiences. Some I disagree with. Some I care about, some don’t matter at all …
We understand ‘free Willie’ but do we understand free will?
Why do you care, or not, about anything?
Why are you passive about this thing (or idea, policy, law, issue, trend) and why does that other thing (or action, movement, idea) make you sit up and take notice?
I’m not stirred by what you are. Or maybe I am.
Some, maybe, but not many.
Not all.
And likely you aren’t stirred by the next person, moved by their views or shaken by their actions. Or maybe you are. Why is that? I don’t mean ‘why do you buy a particular intellectual argument’, but rather why do you have any desire at all to feel one side or the other, take one side or the other – have a point of view. Or zeal to speak for it, have a point of view and sit silent, or have no point of view at all?
Isn’t about our own survival – roof overhead, food in our belly or feeling fulfilled.
What we do, what we care about, seems to me – to be rooted in whether we care about someone else’s roof, someone else’s belly, someone else’s fulfillment – not liberal v. conservative, religious philosophy v. no philosophy.
Seems learned, more than it is natural.
For most, it probably feels ‘factory installed’ because it’s influence has been with us as long as our memory goes back ...
Is that in our DNA? Or an environmental influence determining who we are based on who parented us, where we lived, where and how we were raised, educated?
Forget everyone, forget trends and group-think, group behavior, forget clubs, societies, organized religion or politics, forget armies, forget resistance movements, forget social media – this isn’t about what your faux-friends or real-followers believe, whether or not they like you or care about (or agree with) what you’ve said or done. Or written, or spoken about.
Do you know? Do you care? About … you!
I can’t help wondering why anyone feels that need, urge or passion to fix something, fix someone, fix some circumstance. I’ve felt it, seen other feel it – read about it, but I don’t understand WHY?
I don’t believe we are here – any designated one of us, or all of us, for the purpose of solving any particular problem, righting any particular wrong. Throughout history that mantle has been taken on by many – by individuals, by groups, organizations and causes.
Why is that?
We have in our history – but probably not in our DNA, the need/want/desire to identify with and champion a cause. No particular cause, because they vary so widely – the ones we care about, the ones we couldn’t care less about. Any issue, it seems, where opposing viewpoints are possible. We are mostly ‘not spectators’. Whether or not we are active or activists, whether or not we contribute a word or a dollar or a thumbs-up or down, we engage in thought about things. About our fellow citizens, neighbours, co-workers, family members.
How much time does it take?
Usually too much?
How many times do we have to repeat mistakes?
Usually too many?
My purpose, or yours, might be the same – but I doubt it?
So why is voting, thinking, speaking – or taking more demonstrative action for or against something, pushing our own or joining someone else’s agenda – why is that important?
Are we distilled, condensed, and recirculated – just as the air we breathe and water we consume not been recycled forever – a finite volume just being moved around the earth-ball over billions of years, so we intelligent beings and our artificial-intelligence creations, just figuring it out as we go along?
Is it part of life we cannot avoid?
Is it part of life that is a choice?
Is it a circumstance thrust upon us against our will?
In other words, do we have free will?
Have we ever?
Or just illusion of it?
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk with Gusta: 10C/50F, another nice day (prelude to a predicted rainy weekend), Gusta feeling perkier, a short trot was invigorating – morning sunshine and calm, warm feelings …
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