When Placing Too Much Value On Life Becomes A Source Of Existential Angst
December 20th 2006 18:25
How serious are you about your life? Is it important? Are you important? Is life sacred? Are you concerned about the psycho-social-political-economic-evangelical-educational-developmental issues of the day?
WHY DO YOU CARE?
How is it that you have come to value what it is you value? This is an interesting and often neglected question. With some scrutiny, many people have found that what they value has become somewhat of a ’lost referent.’ The focus and target of their reverence and passion is seemingly lost and disconnected from anything relevant to their lives today. This creates a dissonance that begins to look like stress and anxiety.
PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE
In many pre-modern cultures, where life seems more directly woven into the fabric of NATURE participants are engaged in the living of life on a day to day, if not moment to moment basis. While there may be rituals that speak to future-based issues and concerns, anecdotal accounts suggest that there is no real sense of worry that intoxicates individual lives.
Cultural anthropologists call this sense and way of being a Participation Mystique. Other animals do it, too. With no over-arching sense of meta-experience---of stepping out of the picture and observing self and process---absorption and participation in life TODAY is full and complete.
OBJECTIVITY vs. SUBJECTIVITY
To be objective is to be able to disengage from circumstance such that a dispassionate assessment of that circumstance can occur. In essence, being able to avoid bias and sway. Too much objectivity can lead to distance, aloofness, and not experiencing others as living creatures.
To be subjective is to be engaged and involved in feelings, opinion, passion, and other people. There may be a connection between subjectivity and the participation mystique, though too much subjectivity seems to take an individual out of simple absorption and participation in the moment. Subjectivity often complicates.
HOW PLACING TOO MUCH VALUE ON LIFE MAY CONTRIBUTE TO INCREASED EXISTENTIAL ANGST
Perhaps we humans, with our capacity for abstract thinking and meta-consciousness, are ‘set up’ to experience and endure EXISTENTIAL ANGST. Many a guru has preached the importance of living in the moment, stopping and smelling the roses, and being here now. Others have asked for blind allegiance to dogma, suggesting that purpose and meaning will come from a source other than within.
It is important for an individual to reassess what is important and VALUABLE. Then, the dance becomes bringing that value to life, today. Walking, talking, breathing, and being that value. Being mindful that each individual human has the propensity to over-think and over-feel, a commitment must be made to understand that what is done today is what moves us into tomorrow.
Being is in today, while having hope, faith, anticipation, apprehension, and belief is about tomorrow. Perhaps, stepping out of meta-mind will empower individuals to fully BE in today.
Perhaps BEING in today will remove the over-think and over-feel about the value of life, and subsequently diminish the existential angst that seems to run rampant this day and age.
deorre
WHY DO YOU CARE?
How is it that you have come to value what it is you value? This is an interesting and often neglected question. With some scrutiny, many people have found that what they value has become somewhat of a ’lost referent.’ The focus and target of their reverence and passion is seemingly lost and disconnected from anything relevant to their lives today. This creates a dissonance that begins to look like stress and anxiety.
PARTICIPATION MYSTIQUE
In many pre-modern cultures, where life seems more directly woven into the fabric of NATURE participants are engaged in the living of life on a day to day, if not moment to moment basis. While there may be rituals that speak to future-based issues and concerns, anecdotal accounts suggest that there is no real sense of worry that intoxicates individual lives.
Cultural anthropologists call this sense and way of being a Participation Mystique. Other animals do it, too. With no over-arching sense of meta-experience---of stepping out of the picture and observing self and process---absorption and participation in life TODAY is full and complete.
OBJECTIVITY vs. SUBJECTIVITY
To be objective is to be able to disengage from circumstance such that a dispassionate assessment of that circumstance can occur. In essence, being able to avoid bias and sway. Too much objectivity can lead to distance, aloofness, and not experiencing others as living creatures.
To be subjective is to be engaged and involved in feelings, opinion, passion, and other people. There may be a connection between subjectivity and the participation mystique, though too much subjectivity seems to take an individual out of simple absorption and participation in the moment. Subjectivity often complicates.
HOW PLACING TOO MUCH VALUE ON LIFE MAY CONTRIBUTE TO INCREASED EXISTENTIAL ANGST
Perhaps we humans, with our capacity for abstract thinking and meta-consciousness, are ‘set up’ to experience and endure EXISTENTIAL ANGST. Many a guru has preached the importance of living in the moment, stopping and smelling the roses, and being here now. Others have asked for blind allegiance to dogma, suggesting that purpose and meaning will come from a source other than within.
It is important for an individual to reassess what is important and VALUABLE. Then, the dance becomes bringing that value to life, today. Walking, talking, breathing, and being that value. Being mindful that each individual human has the propensity to over-think and over-feel, a commitment must be made to understand that what is done today is what moves us into tomorrow.
Being is in today, while having hope, faith, anticipation, apprehension, and belief is about tomorrow. Perhaps, stepping out of meta-mind will empower individuals to fully BE in today.
Perhaps BEING in today will remove the over-think and over-feel about the value of life, and subsequently diminish the existential angst that seems to run rampant this day and age.
deorre
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Comment by LaurenD
Our culture bombards us with messages of the importance of it all, from the intensity of first impressions to the constant nagging of living in a meritocracy.
I try to be the reed, to bend, to detach, then inevitably find myself furious over something on the news or right next to me. The reporters shriek that the sky is falling; the woman next to me at the shop slaps her child and calls him something degrading...
It seems to be about objectivity and detachment, with intelligent compassion and energy directed mindfully, positively.
But then sometimes I'm just tired and cranky and want to slap a newscaster and call her something degrading...
Thank you for making me think this morning.
LaurenD
Comment by Deorre
Stress Alive
Man Lessons
Thanks for reading.
Comment by Jessicca
Health 2 Know
Learning Something Everyday
Daily History
Malaysia Found
We just tend to think too much. And forgot what's life worth.
Merry Christmas!
Jessicca
Comment by Deorre
Stress Alive
Man Lessons
Now, thinking certainly can also be our ally. Balance, I say.
Happy Holiday to you too, Jessica.
Comment by Manda
Medicinal Nature
Comment by Deorre
Stress Alive
Man Lessons
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Or, to put it another way, when does overthinking become overthinking?
Or to put it another way... It does seem that the life in itself is the most satisfying, the most conducive to happiness, and that being in the moment, particularly in a sort of Buddhist way, is a good way to
avoid suffering.
But there's a lot of people who think that happiness (understood as some sort of state of consciousness -- eg a state of tranquillity, or a state of pleasurable engagement) is not that important (it takes a second seat to ethical problems, like feeding the hungry; or to other goals in life, like improving oneself or satisfying non-happiness-related desires).
But how to balance happiness (which is related to the in-itself) with all the other things one might want in life (which require thinking, and the for-itself)?
Comment by Deorre
Stress Alive
Man Lessons
Balance, as is often the case, seems indidual and the most likely course.
Comment by Lilla
Enviro Warrior
An Extra Ordinary Life
Dream Herald
thanks again for that...
Lilla...
Comment by Deorre
Stress Alive
Man Lessons