Philosophy
has helped me to see many things in a different light.
Thinking philosophical thoughts, often takes one outside the boundaries of the
current paradigm.
But what use
is this?
For one thing, when you challenge a belief or view that you yourself currently
hold on to, it can result in a pause in conviction.
Why would we
want to pause our convictions? Surely our beliefs are based on experience,
which is real and true?
Let’s ask the famous 19th century philosopher, Nietzsche.
“And from you too they require a Yes
or a No.
And woe to you if you want to set your chair between For and Against.
Do not be jealous, lover of truth, because of these inflexible and oppressive
men! Truth has never yet clung to the arm of an inflexible man.
The experience of all deep wells is slow: they must wait long until they know what
has fallen into their depths.” - Friedrich Nietzsche.
Basically
Nietzsche is saying here, that to rush to a conviction is to risk missing the
truth. The longer we consider things, the greater the chance we will come to
the right conclusions.
“The experience of all deep wells is slow: they must wait long until they know what
has fallen into their depths.”
The greater the chance we will know WHAT
we are “looking” at.
Also mentioned in the full quote above, is the idea of being flexible in our
thinking.
“Truth has never yet clung to the arm of an inflexible man.”
Sometimes we need to bend to reason or risk losing our footing and falling from
grace.
Or as others have put it in the past, “There’s no point in flogging a dead
horse”.
I just remembered, as an aside, the act of witnessing a man flogging an
unfortunate horse, is exactly what pushed Nietzsche himself to madness.
Anyway, I think I have gone a small way, to justifying the notion of
challenging our beliefs and taking our time in choosing which way to lean. Or
if to lean any way at all!
Duality
When I write
of duality here, I am referring to the Chinese philosophical notion of duality
or dualism, the concept of Yin and Yang.
Yin and Yang can be considered as two complimentary parts of a dynamic system, where
the whole is greater than the individual parts.
Over the
years, in dealing with conflicts, I have considered them only based on how they
made me feel. A lot of the time I had a negative view of conflicts. I thought
if something brought me negative feelings, it was bad. If it brought me
positive feelings it was good.
This may seem to make sense on the surface. But let’s look a little deeper.
When we are young and building references to the world around us, it helps us
to navigate better when we associate things like hurting ourselves as “bad”,
something to avoid for our safety.
When we have an encounter with a bully, we understand after, that avoiding this
conflict can keep us safe.
This again seems to make sense on the surface.
Now to apply some duality to these situations.
What would happen to that child had they no experience with hurting themselves?
They might cause themselves more pain at a later stage right?
I have a clear memory of my mother asking me as a young child to check if she
left the cooker on. Having no experience with cookers, I walked into the
kitchen and put my hand up to check if it was on.
It was....
I can say now with confidence, I have never burned my hand since! Oh I’ve hurt
my hands yes, even seriously enough to spend time in hospital. But I have never
burned them again. And of course, I can still clearly remember that horrible
moment and the rest of the day with my hand in a cup of cold water.
Here is another personal anecdote, somewhat related to bullying.
Just last Christmas, I was walking through the city, on my way home from a late
night finishing a college project.
I have a habit of taking the same route going along various streets.
As I looked to cross the road to the other side of the street, I noticed a
group of five guys in their early twenties, who appeared to be drunk and rowdy.
But I am a stubborn fellow and decided to cross the road and take my usual route.
This brought me in direct contact with this group and they didn’t really
appreciate a lone man disrespecting their presence, by not being afraid and
avoiding them.
The result was that after I passed them, the most aggressive of the group ran
up from behind me and attempted to knock me out clean.
Thankfully I heard this and started to duck my head and shoulders, which meant
I took the full force of the punch straight to my nose, instead of my chin.
Anyway, long story short, upon realising that I was still standing and looking
straight at them, they backed off and I stepped away to see
how bad the damage was.
My nose was broken and pumping blood.
Right after that I managed to get a lift to a friends place, who was expecting
me to visit that night.
It didn’t take me long at all to rationalize the whole thing.
My stance was that this was actually a good thing.
I survived the encounter first of all.
I now know what it feels like to have my
nose broken (something I have always feared). I learned that my habits and stubbornness
can get me into situations I could just as easily avoid... by being flexible.
I learned that if I am to be in a dangerous situation again, I should try to
make sure I am under a CCTV camera. I learned quite a lot from that overall. The result
is that now I am more aware.
I don’t fear this happening again because I fully
accept that it was a series of events, that I took part in, to lead me to that
meeting. Sometimes we just don’t consider these things, until we experience
them first hand.
I was lucky. Another time it could have been a group with weapons and more
intent than a drunken “young fella”.
In the past, I would have felt anger and hate towards that group.
I would have felt sorry for myself. And I am pretty sure I would have been a
lot more nervous walking the streets.
With my updated perception though, I was fine, you could almost say relieved
and grateful for the experience. I was not even afraid at any time during the encounter.
This positive frame of mind allowed me to brush it off and shake any irrational
fears that might have come along with that encounter.
Here’s another quote to sum up this idea of embracing the negative.
“What does
not kill us makes us stronger”- Friedrich Nietzsche
A funny reply I have read to this is,
“Sometimes what didn’t kill you probably should have”.
Conclusions
How we perceive
any “thing”, can dictate the impact it has on us.
With a strong sense of duality and a good imagination, you cannot be hurt
mentally or emotionally, as much as one who has a singular stance. You allow
yourself options. When you practise this exercise of switching the bad for the
good and even the good for the bad! You become skilled at choosing your emotions
and fears through rational thought at any given time you remember to do this.
With practice you may find it automatic. A sense of brushing off as you pause for those few milliseconds before emotions kick in and all thinking and rationale goes out the proverbial window.
You can rationalize anything good or bad, to be it’s counterpart.
And I hope you will take up that challenge in your daily life.
It may be argued that this is a dangerous philosophy, when people can choose
what is positive and negative using their own rational thought.
And I will try to cover that at some later stage , if I get a chance.
Until then, I trust you to remember that all actions have an opposite and equal
reaction.
Or more
simply put...... Karma can be a bitch.
