Today I have realised something about myself, which as really come to light in this brave new world of unemployment. I need targets. I need constraints on my time.
When I was working I would always find a way of meeting my work targets and fit in the requirements of my day to day life. However, without the constraints on my time I am finding that I am fitting in less than what I would have done when I was working.
Allowing for an eight hour day at work (including lunch time) and a good eight hours sleep at night, I had eight hours for life. Eight hours to fit in what I needed to do, what I wanted to do. Now I have sixteen hours a day to do what I want, and I am finding that I am doing little with my time.
I was always looking forward forward to having a break from the nine to five after I was made redundant. The idea was to spend this break between jobs to do some of the stuff that I wanted, to concentrate on me. However, I am finding that with all the extra time that I have I am not doing so. I am now approaching the end of month two and I have not done half the things that I wanted to do.
I am reading but not as much as I could. My daily TV watching is just backing up, when I used to be on top of it. I have not been as active over the last couple of weeks, compared to how I was when I first became unemployed. I have written nothing, even though the aim was to do so.
I have realised that I am basically just adrift, wandering like the proverbial cloud. What I need again is constraints upon my time. I need to force myself to do the things that I wanted to do with my time whilst I was between jobs.
And this is what I need to now distill back into my life. I need to set myself targets. I need to focus more on what I wanted to do.
Firstly, I need to become more active again. I had done so well previously with getting rid of some weight but this as now stopped. I need to get back to doing a few hours worth of walking again. I need to get myself out and about earlier than I have been doing. I need to push myself into being more active.
Secondly, I need to pick up the speed on the reading. I am now going to alternate between fiction and non-fiction/academic books. During the day whilst I am out I am going to read a non-fiction book, and one hour every night before bed I am going to read a fiction book.
Thirdly, I need to focus on clearing that backlog of comics that I have to read. I am probably about a month and a half behind. I need to get back on top of this so that I am back to reading the weeks comic buy in the week that I buy them.
Fourthly, I need to start writing. I had an idea for a series of short stories before I finished work. I need to focus on trying to get these stories down on paper (well, computer screen anyway). This might be one of the hardest things to do. I am going to aim to have written the first of the stories within the next two weeks. Hopefully after the first one is done the others will come a lot easier.
Fifthly, I need to really focus on getting the flat sorted. I am not happy with the layout of the rooms and will needed to spend some time moving things around until I am happy. I think this will be best done after my travel pass as run out. Maybe a week of solid focus on this front will get it sorted.
Sixthly, I need to get the TV backlog sorted and stop putting off watching things. This definitely includes the new Prisoner which I need to get up the enthusiasm to watch. By the end of next week this will be done.
So, that is the plan. Six things to do. Six things to put constraints on my time. Six things to focus on. Six things to achieve.
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Tuesday 24 November 2009
The Aesthetic Duty
To fully understand the Aesthetic Duty it is important to understand what Beauty is, since understanding this leads to the central reason for the Aesthetic Duty.
Beauty is, above everything else, undefinable. What is beautiful to me may not be to the next person. Our relationship with beauty is very much a subjective thing. The important thing is why. Why do you find something beautiful when the next person does not?
Take a work of art as an example. It is possible to break it down into subject matter, the use of colour and shade, the way that the brush stroke captures a scene. It is possible to de-construct the final piece into its constituent parts. But in doing this we do not get to understand why something is beautiful to us. We also do not understand why it is beautiful to us but to someone else it is not.
There is no absolute Form of beauty, in the Platonic sense. There is not some overarching Form from which all beauty is distilled particular examples of. If this was the case then everyone would find the same things beautiful.
Beauty is very much a subjective thing, a very individual reaction to something. No matter the rationale that we place on it, the reaction is personal to ourselves.
The reason for the individualistic reaction to something is because the reaction in question is very much an emotional one. When we find something beautiful we are actually having an emotional response to the thing in question - whether it be a person, an occasion, a work of art.
Emotions are very much a private thing, something which is personal to us. We may share similar emotional responses with other people, but the actual emotional response is very much individual and personal. No two people will have the same exact emotional response to something. We may have a similar broad-category emotional response (like being happy) but the actual response will be different.
When we say something is beautiful we are having a positive emotional response to something, as opposed to a negative/ugly response.
And this is the key to the Aesthetic Duty. Positive emotions are better than negative ones. When we have positive emotions we feel good, as opposed to feeling bad from negative emotions.
It is better to feel good than it is to feel bad. Positive emotions can put a spring in our step, can make our world seem brighter, can give us a positive outlook upon life.
If this is the effect of positive responses to things then it follows that it is important to surround yourself with beauty. Whether it is things, people, places, sounds, smells is unimportant. The important thing is that we are exposed to things that give us positive responses.
Surrounding ourselves with beautiful things means surrounding ourselves with things that give us positive emotions, which in turn make us feel good within.
Sometimes we must be exposed to negative emotions. An everyday example could be our working life. Presuming that we do not get a positive reaction from our working life, then it is important to try and turn it into one. This might be something which we enjoy about our work. It might be something which we can add to the working day which helps us endure the negative. Whatever it is, if we can identify the positive response we can help combat the negative.
The Aesthetic Duty is, therefore, to surround our lives with beautiful things, the things can give us positive emotional responses, which will make us feel good within. It is too easy to put up with the negatives and the things that make us feel bad within. In embracing the beautiful things we can combat this. We can strive to survive the negatives and live a life full of good things. Where possible we need to remove the negative, ugly things in our lives and replace them with beautiful things. Where we cannot do this we must try and find the hidden beauty within it so to try and make the ugly experience as beautiful as possible.
In removing the ugly things from our lives we can start to live a life where we feel good within, rather than having to put up with lives were we feel bad.
Beauty is, above everything else, undefinable. What is beautiful to me may not be to the next person. Our relationship with beauty is very much a subjective thing. The important thing is why. Why do you find something beautiful when the next person does not?
Take a work of art as an example. It is possible to break it down into subject matter, the use of colour and shade, the way that the brush stroke captures a scene. It is possible to de-construct the final piece into its constituent parts. But in doing this we do not get to understand why something is beautiful to us. We also do not understand why it is beautiful to us but to someone else it is not.
There is no absolute Form of beauty, in the Platonic sense. There is not some overarching Form from which all beauty is distilled particular examples of. If this was the case then everyone would find the same things beautiful.
Beauty is very much a subjective thing, a very individual reaction to something. No matter the rationale that we place on it, the reaction is personal to ourselves.
The reason for the individualistic reaction to something is because the reaction in question is very much an emotional one. When we find something beautiful we are actually having an emotional response to the thing in question - whether it be a person, an occasion, a work of art.
Emotions are very much a private thing, something which is personal to us. We may share similar emotional responses with other people, but the actual emotional response is very much individual and personal. No two people will have the same exact emotional response to something. We may have a similar broad-category emotional response (like being happy) but the actual response will be different.
When we say something is beautiful we are having a positive emotional response to something, as opposed to a negative/ugly response.
And this is the key to the Aesthetic Duty. Positive emotions are better than negative ones. When we have positive emotions we feel good, as opposed to feeling bad from negative emotions.
It is better to feel good than it is to feel bad. Positive emotions can put a spring in our step, can make our world seem brighter, can give us a positive outlook upon life.
If this is the effect of positive responses to things then it follows that it is important to surround yourself with beauty. Whether it is things, people, places, sounds, smells is unimportant. The important thing is that we are exposed to things that give us positive responses.
Surrounding ourselves with beautiful things means surrounding ourselves with things that give us positive emotions, which in turn make us feel good within.
Sometimes we must be exposed to negative emotions. An everyday example could be our working life. Presuming that we do not get a positive reaction from our working life, then it is important to try and turn it into one. This might be something which we enjoy about our work. It might be something which we can add to the working day which helps us endure the negative. Whatever it is, if we can identify the positive response we can help combat the negative.
The Aesthetic Duty is, therefore, to surround our lives with beautiful things, the things can give us positive emotional responses, which will make us feel good within. It is too easy to put up with the negatives and the things that make us feel bad within. In embracing the beautiful things we can combat this. We can strive to survive the negatives and live a life full of good things. Where possible we need to remove the negative, ugly things in our lives and replace them with beautiful things. Where we cannot do this we must try and find the hidden beauty within it so to try and make the ugly experience as beautiful as possible.
In removing the ugly things from our lives we can start to live a life where we feel good within, rather than having to put up with lives were we feel bad.
Sunday 22 November 2009
Return from the rabbit hole
So we have embraced the only Truth that all we can know is that we think, and in doing so we have fallen down the nihilist rabbit hole. How can we function if we can know nothing else but this single truth?
The only way back out of the rabbit hole is through trust. If we continue to deny everything as an illusion then there is no return. We are stuck in a situation where all we can really know is that we think since everything else our senses provide us with can be denied.
We must take, in essence and for lack of better terminology, a leap of faith. We have to trust what our senses tell us. If something looks like a rock, feels like a rock, and smells like a rock then we got to be able to trust that it actually is a rock.
This same level of trust in our senses is what allows us to function in Society. All we can know is our own thoughts and what our senses present us with. We cannot know the thoughts of another. In this way, the Other is closed to us.
But if we cannot know the thoughts of the Other then what can we know of them? This comes from what our senses present us with, what we can deduct from the information gathers. We may not know what the Other is thinking but from their actions we can deduct.
This requires trust. Trust that the actions of the Other, that what the Other is presenting to our senses, is what they are thinking. We deduce from our senses and the information gathered.
But this can only function if the trust is there. We trust the Other to act in a way that is consistent with their thoughts. If the Other acts contrary to these thoughts, and we discover that they are acting contrary to their thoughts, then the trust goes.
When the trust goes, when we start to doubt the Other, then the basis of Civil Society starts to break down. It breaks down because we are left in a situation where only our thoughts can be trusted. We cannot rely on our senses to deduct since their is no trust in the Other. The Other may well be deliberately deceiving our senses. The Other could be trying to make us doubt what we know.
Without the trust that the Other is acting in up-most good faith toward us, that the Other is being honest in the information that they provide us with, we cannot interact with them. We must always remain of the opinion that they are not being honest with us, we cannot have any trust that their actions and their thoughts are in synch.
Just as we must trust our senses so too we must be able to trust the Other. But when we cannot trust the Other then they truly become closed to us, they become unknowable.
To return from the rabbit hole of nihilism we must have trust, because without trust it is impossible to function within the world in general, and within society specifically. With trust in our senses we can honestly hope to deduce true information about the world around us. But we can only deduce correctly if the information presented by the sense is indeed honest information.
We must have trust in our senses, and trust in the Other, because without either we will never leave the nice rabbit hole of our own thought.
The only way back out of the rabbit hole is through trust. If we continue to deny everything as an illusion then there is no return. We are stuck in a situation where all we can really know is that we think since everything else our senses provide us with can be denied.
We must take, in essence and for lack of better terminology, a leap of faith. We have to trust what our senses tell us. If something looks like a rock, feels like a rock, and smells like a rock then we got to be able to trust that it actually is a rock.
This same level of trust in our senses is what allows us to function in Society. All we can know is our own thoughts and what our senses present us with. We cannot know the thoughts of another. In this way, the Other is closed to us.
But if we cannot know the thoughts of the Other then what can we know of them? This comes from what our senses present us with, what we can deduct from the information gathers. We may not know what the Other is thinking but from their actions we can deduct.
This requires trust. Trust that the actions of the Other, that what the Other is presenting to our senses, is what they are thinking. We deduce from our senses and the information gathered.
But this can only function if the trust is there. We trust the Other to act in a way that is consistent with their thoughts. If the Other acts contrary to these thoughts, and we discover that they are acting contrary to their thoughts, then the trust goes.
When the trust goes, when we start to doubt the Other, then the basis of Civil Society starts to break down. It breaks down because we are left in a situation where only our thoughts can be trusted. We cannot rely on our senses to deduct since their is no trust in the Other. The Other may well be deliberately deceiving our senses. The Other could be trying to make us doubt what we know.
Without the trust that the Other is acting in up-most good faith toward us, that the Other is being honest in the information that they provide us with, we cannot interact with them. We must always remain of the opinion that they are not being honest with us, we cannot have any trust that their actions and their thoughts are in synch.
Just as we must trust our senses so too we must be able to trust the Other. But when we cannot trust the Other then they truly become closed to us, they become unknowable.
To return from the rabbit hole of nihilism we must have trust, because without trust it is impossible to function within the world in general, and within society specifically. With trust in our senses we can honestly hope to deduce true information about the world around us. But we can only deduce correctly if the information presented by the sense is indeed honest information.
We must have trust in our senses, and trust in the Other, because without either we will never leave the nice rabbit hole of our own thought.
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