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posted by: graceshaker (reply) post date: 02.06.06 (9:34 am) i think you may enjoy soren kierkegaards book 'fear and trembling'. posted by: surrogate (reply) post date: 02.06.06 (4:07 pm) Of the five you listed, intention is wild card, always. You can always be loving even if you don't or can't love. Gentleness is a behavioral choice as are dedication and empathy. Intention (and I'm assuming "good" intentions are what you mean here) is the tit in the wringer of life. It' so fluidly etherial and easily manipulated by those other four, that I think it's hard to keep a finger on it, especially in times of stress. The "one" that seems to be missing from the list might be the one that's giving you all the grief. (keeping) Promises When time, circumstances and knowledge cause our feelings to change, are the promises we made to ourselves and others based on what we then thought we knew, to be allowed to dictate our future? And at that new place to which we've just arrived, are the breaking of past promises a sign of bad intentions or good? I think (and I do mean just 'think') that if you act lovingly and empathetically, showing gentleness and love, that you have to go with assuming that you still have good intentions, even if you must break old promises. Integrity? Not something we get to ascribe to ourselves. Hope? Always. And, of course the upshot of all this? The nasty little joy sucker we end up fighting with even when we oughtn't? Guilt. Fuck guilt. posted by: TaBooTenente (reply) post date: 02.06.06 (5:57 pm) surrogate, some time ago, dedication was fidelity, but it felt too much like the blind version of integrity. dedication seemed like an honest version of humility--dedication to something larger than myself. intention: there is a hebrew word that is sort of a mixture of the words intention, spirit, focus, and faith: kavana. i've thought about kavana for a long time. it's a zen-like word, but with an identity attached. in some ways, it pre-exists the others that ive listed. but you're right: an incomplete grasp on kavana is easily corrupted. and it doesn't belong on a list of Rules. the others, at some point, seemed to be distinct from each other: empathy, gentleness, love. i thought empathy implied both the awareness of Other, and also a universal condition of struggle. i thought gentleness implied both humility and perspective. i thought love was the right-minded emotion that made all other goodnesses possible. promise keeping and guilt are so intertwined, it's like yinyang. two sides of the same thing. faith is a more true incarnation of promise keeping, but when i first considered faith as a Rule, i began to believe that kavana was the true, human incarnation of faith. faith? in jerusalem for the first time, standing before the western wall, i was shocked by how much emotion i felt. i'm not an atheist, but my spiritual beliefs have only a long causal relationship with the jewish tradition to which i was born. but there was something, and i wont lie: i wont say i know what it was; and i wont say it was nothing. it was something. perhaps it came all from me. but at the moment, at least, that didnt matter. and then there was a young hasid, a man in his late teens, maybe, praying his ritual prayers, memorized--though he still held his prayer book. he was looking everywhere, eyes focusing on everything, but there was no concentration. i thought: he is addicted to his ritual; this isnt an act of faith. so felt superior, of course. i knew what i felt was something real, right? i wasn't pretending it was something it wasn't, right? afterward, i knew i had experienced nothing but the wish to experience something--just as i had wished to feel superior to the distracted young man. i wasn't. and all rituals are in some ways acts of faith. was he praying with kavana? what does it say about my own intention, that i should wonder about his intention? and that attitude shouldn't be a rule. guilt and promise-keeping--you are right. both only serve to prevent us from growing--at least when they become rules, or addictions, or blinders on our vision. empathy, gentleness, love--all, i think, are parts of compassion, which is endlessly large, and never forgets either the Self or the Other. something to work to achieve: a lifelong expression of compassion-- but to get there, i need to be honest with myself and others that it is a journey, not a rule. and i need hope because life sucks, sometimes. what else can you do? there is nothing worse than hope's alternative. today, i made myself hope, and through hope i found the courage to be honest. things are bad. but they aren't as bad as they were. thank you, surrogate. taboo posted by: TaBooTenente (reply) post date: 02.06.06 (6:01 pm) grace, i'm ashamed to say that i took a class as an undergraduate, that included 'fear and trembling'--i didnt read it. so much for dedication and intention. usually, it's the book i missed that i should have read. it's on the list, now. thanks, grace. taboo |
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