Bill Chetwynds writes:
Bill Chetwynd
Thoughts on “Existential Catechism”
I did read the blog and I offer some reflection in terms of questions which came to mind as I read it:
· Are we human beings on a spiritual journey or spiritual beings on a human journey?
· If we are spiritual beings on a human journey is the journey intended to teach us the lessons we need to learn to best understand the spiritual?
· Are we all in this together which means we must work together to reach our destination?
· If we become what we think about does the meaning of life simply translate into what we think about?
· Are we taught to be more aware of the importance of acceptance and recognition and thus we too often sacrifice the “right thing” for that which will gain us that acceptance and recognition?
· I do feel we have too much “brainwashing” going on in the world but the question becomes who is the person most responsible for the results, the brainwasher or the brainwashed?
· Do we, in fact, simply create our own reality and, if so, what are the lessons we need to learn to maximize the goodness of that reality?
· As I wrote in “Tower of Wisdom” I would pose the question – do all of the emotions we experience really break into just two, love and fear, and are we experiencing love more often than fear?
Some additional comments are as follows:
In terms of your list of helping acts it brings to mind a philosophy I have long held but do not always find easy to live up to in its fullest.
That philosophy is simple - we are all in this play together and the only way we can maximize the success of the play is by working together to get to the answers to the questions which the play presents. We can all make a difference by helping each other. Chapter 12 of “The Tower of Wisdom” talks to that point. (yes this is a posing of the question mentioned above)
Also, I wonder whether the two lists you present are not really the same. Perhaps so, if we are indeed not human beings on a spiritual journey, but spiritual beings on a human journey. Who knows?
In terms of knowing the direction we have set our lives toward, I do not always feel I know that and thus I must reflect on that direction and perhaps change it from time to time. One thing I have discovered is that we become what we think about, thus the concept of working together can change the world by taking away the darkness and letting there be light.
We spend too much time thinking about how we can gain acceptance and not enough time just reflecting on and doing the “right thing” as we perceive it. Thus I wonder if reflection dooms us to real success or if we determine that success through the perception of others vs ourselves and does that even matter?
I am a big fan of St. Francis of Assisi and agree that we must work with all three (hands, head, heart) but I truly that heart is the key to being an artist in this world.
These are just some random thoughts and questions and I will continue to read the piece over and over again to see what other thoughts it creates for me. It is a great piece and I thank you for sharing it.
Marc Olivere writes:
“Read your piece. Really enjoyed it. I like the beginning, how you find Wiki’s answer to the meaning of life as less than satisfying. Same with the catholic church.
“And in particular I like the St. Francis quote and his “answer” to spiritual fulfillment. Passion for work, mind body and heart lending itself toward art leading toward spiritual fulfillment (paraphrasing, of course)
“You may recall the Lee character in my first book starts out in search for the meaning of his life. Over the course of the last three chapters he thinks he discovers it is EST (I don’t know if you know or remember EST) Anyway, that quickly turns out not to be the case and yet, it was the “let down” of that failed discovery that does leads him to a resolution at the very end. And it’s in line with the St. Francis view.”
Sally Chetwynds writes:
SALLY CHETWYND
Hi, Dom,
Yours is quite an effort to extract concise ideas from some ponderous material. I am impressed.
My comments here are random, without taking the time to organize them. Some direct response, some subsequent noodling.
This reminds me of the lack of definition for "success" and "the pursuit of happiness." No one's definition for either of these is the same as anyone else's. Our life experiences, nature and nurture, social and cultural influences, etc., all make these definitions unique to each of us.
In a nutshell, I read this as a promotion of critical thinking, something that becomes rarer every day in our culture. We are not encouraged, to say the least, to dig into ourselves and reflect - most of us are too scared at what we'll find, hence we distract ourselves from this reality with constant buzz - social media, phones, television, radio - anything to keep us from the inevitable skull cramps we'll get from applying our brain cells to something other than fluff.
I might argue your statement that Gauguin's questions are easy - more likely that they are simple, but not necessarily easy. Well, the questions are easy in the sense that they are commonly asked, universal. The answers are not easy, or simple. They may simply be non-existent, or at least not universal. Maybe we each must seek our own individual and unique answers.
As a species, and perhaps particularly as a culture, we do obsess over making sure that our individuality and uniqueness make us distinctly different from each other. Personally, I think that is obvious, and I think that those who fret over it suffer from self-esteem problems and lack of confidence. In desperation to identify themselves, many of them resort to attention-getting actions, most of which annoy the rest of us. For an unruly child, even negative attention - punishment for transgressions - is preferable to no attention.
You say, "Our behavior is the wellspring from which meaning flows into our lives." I agree wholeheartedly. Certainly much of what Bill Chetwynd is working on relates directly to this idea. It will be interesting to see his responses to your essay, if he offers any. (Bill, what floor will this concept show up on? 😉)
That spiritual reward for "random acts of kindness" is quite real. God put us on this earth to serve, in His name. Jesus came to serve, not to destroy. His example of serving per God's will, even in the face of death, and the taking on of all of the sin of the world (past, present, and future) to the degree that He was so polluted by sin that His Father had to turn away from Him ("Oh, Father, why have You forsaken Me?") is the example that we are to emulate, in our own paltry way, serving the lowliest of God's creation. When we do something like helping the woman take the stroller down the stairs, we have forgotten ourselves and submitted to Him. We don't think about it in terms of "If I do this, God will give me that." It isn't a business transaction; if we think of it that way, we place ourselves on a par with or above God. When we forget about ourselves to the benefit of others, we are doing His will.
I tend to carry a positive outlook on life, and I have for my entire adult life. I became a born-again Christian (out of a Catholic upbringing) in 2011, and in retrospect I now see many, perhaps even most, aspects of my life that followed or paralleled deep Christian doctrine. I see that as blessings from God that I just wasn't aware of before. I perceived them as blessings, appreciating the good fortune I've had, but I didn't understand them as being from The Divine Source. I've long believed that I cannot change the world all by myself - the problems are far too monstrous - but if I work on my little corner, my example will prompt others to do the same. Sometimes all we need is encouragement. It's too easy to be negative and tear down others - for their actions, their ideas, their dreams - but what do I gain from it? A sour puss. And bad health.
Does life have any particularly worldly meaning? Maybe it does, but I've never delved deeply into philosophical studies for such an answer. I've been too busy making my way through life, with its ups and downs, with its blessings and tribulations, none of which make me any better or worse than anyone else. I've found that even in really bad situations, I can step outside of myself momentarily and reason that 1) I'll probably be able to laugh about this in a year or two, and/or 2) I need to soak all this up, for it will be useful someday to provide emotional or spiritual substance to some scene in a story I'll be writing. That's kind of weird, but as a writer, you likely know exactly what I'm saying.
I used to work with a man whom I have come to admire a lot, for two reasons - 1) Jim and his wife have been/are deliberate and intentional in maintaining their family unit, the parents sacrificing things or interests that they might like to pursue for personal reasons in order to foster a strong sense of family with their children. All of them, children and parents, remain my good friends. And 2) if the world were coming to an obvious end, Jim would find something joyous in the situation to laugh about. That's just plain infectious.
"...the evil-doers who not only reject the right way for themselves but tempt us from it." Oh, boy! Is this right on! If they can get us to fall in with them, they think they are justifying their actions, or at least deflect or dilute incrimination. It's another form of distraction.
If you have never read Wendell Berry's "The Art of the Commonplace," you would likely gobble it up as I did. This collection of essays, spanning the late 1960s to the early 2000s, show our American society's decline in terms of (first) divorcing ourselves from our agrarian roots; then divorcing ourselves from each other in terms of race (the dislocation of the African-American diaspora from the plantations to the slums/ghettos of northern cities); then divorcing ourselves from the work ethic, of finding joy in our work, no matter how menial; then divorcing ourselves from each other in the disruption of the family, men from women and the subsequent diminution of men's roles in their children's lives; then divorcing ourselves from ourselves, with the promotion of the homosexual movement; and now (just beyond the literal reach of Berry's essays, but prescient) divorcing ourselves from our biology (gender-confusion), which really destroys our understanding of identity. Berry has positive answers, but this trail is quite fascinating. In his introduction, he speaks of the work ethic, how we learn its value from our elders. He relates a marvelous little story about taking his granddaughter, age five, out onto his farmland in a horse-drawn cart to do some work one winter day. They do their work, engaging the little girl in honest labor, then head home. On the way home, when he believes that she is silent because she's tired, cold, probably bored silly and perhaps angry, she suddenly says to him, "Grampa, didn't we do good work today?"
I hope your essay provokes much thought and response. Such dialogue can only enlighten us all.
Thanks for sharing!
Sally