Ta. Beer pool football and golf usually see to that!
the biggest problem with humans is...
- Thread starter fela fan
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Ta. Beer pool football and golf usually see to that!
This is part of the conundrum. We are social animals. But i still stand by my theory which perhaps has not come out fully yet. I'm talking about the need for relationships to make meaning of our lives blocking freedom.
I suggest that if we can make meaning of our own lives without the need for anybody else, then we can achieve the freedom that for millenia man has always talked about, and yearned for. The reason i'm interested in this is that my observations in life lead me to conclude that we talk about wanting freedom, yet somehow, subconsciously, we seem to veer away from it. If i'm right, then identifying the cause that blocks us from achieving what we want will be really rather good news!
I'm not saying we live in a vacuum with nobody else to relate to, no friends, and so on. Just because one might drop the need for other people, it does not equate to dropping other people.
I basically say that the freedom that humans have sought throughout our history of philosophising can only come to an individual when they learn to be that individual by no longer depending on relationships in their life. First and foremost they must develop the relationship with themselves. Then all other relationships that come to them will operate in a different quality.
I guess my own concept of freedom is based on having no needs in life.
Well, they'd be relationships yes. And if an anthropologist is saying such stuff they're in need of a new job pronto.
My point is not about the relationships themselves, rather that if we are to get freedom we have to drop the need for relationships.
Of course we could veer between the two! If i'm need of others, i don't have my freedom. If i enter a patch of my life where i feel robust and don't actually need anybody in my life, then i have freedom, even though those people will still be there in my life.
For freedom does require strength and responsibility for sure.
Intact! And even more so with your example here...
He acted out of non-freedom. He needed relationships. He couldn't get them. His actions were not of a free person. His need for relationships, and his inability to satisfy those needs were taken out in an horrific manner on other people.
A man living in freedom would not even contemplate such behaviour. Freedom carries responsibility towards other human beings. If i have full freedom i will be not only not a danger to others, but in fact i will be a very useful and worthwhile member of society. I have no need for others, i will therefore impose myself on nobody.
Your example is the opposite of this. So thanks mate, you're helping me make myself clear to myself, and i hope that others might be persuaded by what i'm saying. If not, then... no worries!
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
No you haven't. You're talking shit as usual.
chainsaw cat
Tea. Biccies. Happy now?
... they're so ............ what's the word?
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Human.
Yes i have. As usual you can't read properly. Why is it that you're such a shit reader? Is english your first language or what?
In fact, you're a real fucking stupid cunt. All you do is stalk. You have no effort to debate the topic, all you want to do is feed your obsession.
Ah, another wanker who thinks it important to inform the forum that he has got someone on ignore. If you've got me on ignore, fine, but why the need to tell everybody this bit of news? Eh? You're pathetic man, fucking pathetic. Why do you have to tell folk about your ignore situations? If you want to ignore me, fine, but why do you feel the need to let everybody know?
What a total cunt you are!
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
If you accept no help from others, you will be way too busy looking after yourself to be of use to anybody else. You will be doubly useless to other people because you will have denied yourself the chance to learn from others' experience.
FWIW I also have no real idea what your point is.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
that they are fucked up in the head
SpookyFrank
Don't swallow the cap
is that around $10? the cheque is in the mail
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Why would you not accept help from others? That would be crazy. My point and my thread is wrapped up in the word 'need'.
scallyfanboy
The Prisoner
I think I'll chirp in with the sex drive being a big problem, the amount of time and money people waste on finding sex is shocking.
Trufflepig
Believes it's not butter!
It seems natural to talk of one striving for autonomy, but falling into co-dependence. I suggest people mostly live in one of these strategies. The skill is to understand the utilities of each, and move between them as circumstances change. The rewards of co-dependence are obvious and socially rewarded. The rewards of autonomy are more personal, harder to define, possibly unconciously felt as a threat by the tribe.
Thinking of freedom as a subjective experience - ultimately we do not want total freedom, but for those who have tasted more freedom AND autonomy than most, the limits on that freedom and autonomy are more visible.
Meaning for me comes from taking responsibility for oneself AND responsibility for others. I suggest many problems emerge when these responsibilities are in conflict. The OPs desire to unify these desires seems pretty sensible to me.
Thinking of freedom as a subjective experience - ultimately we do not want total freedom, but for those who have tasted more freedom AND autonomy than most, the limits on that freedom and autonomy are more visible.
Meaning for me comes from taking responsibility for oneself AND responsibility for others. I suggest many problems emerge when these responsibilities are in conflict. The OPs desire to unify these desires seems pretty sensible to me.
I enjoyed reading this post. Two things though:
can we have co-independence (you mentioned co-dependence)?
and
i agree totally for taking responsibility for one's actions and life, but according to my thinking on the subject thus far, taking responsibility for other people is a limitation on one's freedom, and removes freedom from those people at the same time. I recognise this the conundrum posed by having children, but i was only really talking about adult relationships from the beginning.
But for sure, responsibility and freedom are closely related.
Our greatest joys, as well as our greatest pains, are dealt to us by others.
People, gah! Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em!
What about: can live with 'em, can live without 'em??
I agree about the pains being dealt to us by others, but not sure the greatest joys come from others. Before i go on though, assuming you're right, if you had the choice, would you forgo these greatest joys if in doing so you no longer received the pains?
However, i can get great joy from watching sunsets or sunrises, and from many aspects of nature. In addition i can get great joy from watching or interacting with dogs or cats or monkeys, or whatever other animal that won't eat me.
I also get great joy from being creative while on my own, and i have learned the great joys of swinging on a hammock in my bungalow on a beach with a spliff every couple of hours...
Perhaps one of the keys to gaining greater and greater freedom in one's life is learning to get joy from being alone (i mean no other humans). Not all the time of course, but just that when one is alone, one can create one's own joys in life.
I'm looking for a refined version of buddhism, where we lose the suffering (which to me is dependence on others or other things), but keep the joy, and in the meantime taste the sweetness of freedom.
Not to mention actually looking for it, and often with no success!
However, i think sexual energy is the first (and lowest) of three energies available to humans. Humans can, and have learnt to, rise above this energy field.
But as you hint, succumbing to the need for sex does, mostly, require others. Others are needed, and therefore one cannot feel free while on that search for sex.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I saw a good quote the other day, summing up human beings by saying: for the most part their hearts are in the right place, but the fact is their brains don't work properly.
That's interesting in several ways!
It might indicate that the mind overrides the heart to the detriment of both individuals and society...
And is it the mind or the heart that yearns for that perfect partner...?
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