Bettering Ourselves

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I've had alot of thoughts swirling around my head lately. Economics, philosophy, history, science, politics, sociology, beliefs, anthropology. It's getting to be so much, that it's threatening to short circuit me. I keep seeing the interconnectivity of it all, the fragile threads that holds together mankind. I have always believed that it is in our capacity to better ourselves if we choose to, to be more than just who we are. I don't believe in forcing my opinions on others but I do believe in asking questions. So I ask you this:

If you were writing a framework, a constitution if you will, for how mankind can better themselves, what would you include?

As an idea, something I've always felt was true - although it's just an example - is that people have the freedom to pursue their own course as long as their course doesn't impinge on the freedom of others i.e. Live Free and let others Live Free. That comes back to why I don't believe in forcing my opinions on others...

Any how, any ideas? I'm genuinely serious about this, it's important for me to figure this out.

Live and let live. It is the way to get the most for the least amount of effort and energy. Trying to "run the world" is an exercise in futility. It cannot be done. It always leads to death, destruction, misery and squalor.

ruveyn

I genuinely believe that both good and evil are communicable. Think of all the hurt and pain that exists in the world. One hurt informs another and then another and so on and so forth until people fall like dominoes.

But the same is true for goodness. Hope spreads like wildfire, it infects spirits, it flows like water and can fill every abyss till they spill over. You just have to open yourself to it.

It is our undying capacity to dream, to struggle, to hope and survive, those are the qualities that will determine whether or not we have a future.

It would begin with realization of our great need for each other ... and then we could begin discussing how that need might best be met. Such experience already exists within "Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, but I cannot see mankind ever arriving at a common point of need.

Oh that's great - our common need for each other. I believe that to be true. That's why places like Wrong Planet exist in the first place. The truth to me can be found in part in existentialism - that we are both an individual and every other - at the same time.

Over history people have build fences and barriers. They've drawn lines on a map - this is us, this is them. They made boundaries of the sexes, races, classes, ages - boundaries that define an 'us' from them. Fear of the other, whilst it unites a group, it divides the whole. Our better future may lie beyond those lines. One group - everything.

Reagan commented on how quickly our trivial division would vanish in the face of an alien threat [that is another us vs them, but let's no get too pedantic ] Such an event would be a common point of need as you suggest. But I think that potent ideas find a physical form. If you speak in a room of shouting people, if what you say has potency, then the people passing will hear you. Ideas start with a single thought and become world encompassing creations.

I tell you what I like about the 12 steps:
* Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
* Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

But atonement isn't everything. Every day we must strive to avoid the pitfalls of the past through the virtue of choices. I recently saw a screening of Invictus about Nelson Mandela and read that Morgan Freeman was against Black History Month - his perspective was - there was no White History Month and that the best way to overcome racism was to move beyond it. I think there's truth in that - regardless of what the 'boundary' is.

The greatest goodness is minding one's own business and interacting voluntarily only when such interactions benefit both parties. Doing Good however well intended almost always turns out badly.

Let each man sit under his vine and let none make him afraid.

ruveyhn

Sure, and all of that is about addressing the matter of our common need for each other, and with this as a result:

"The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries ..."

"... release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship [we share together], and so will you." (pages 17 and 152)

Neat stuff.

Well as I said, I don't believe in forcing things on people. People should be free to choose their best destiny. If people want to choose to live in isolation that's their free decision.

It's hard to know when interactions benefit both parties - because it's near impossible to know what the other is thinking (something Aspies should understand easily). However when I think of a voluntary interaction - say the act of charity - one giving to another - I ask myself 'why does the giver give?'. What does the volunteer get out of it? Surely there's multiple possibilities, but I myself belief the best motivation is simply that it need to be done. That some people may need help and that I am willing to be there for them if they want it.

Just because something is out there in the world doesn't mean people are forced to take it. It is both a personal choice to give and to receive. That is fundamentally the heart of communication.

I've been told the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Surely there's another road to hell paved with bad intentions. So all roads lead to the abyssmal? Is it destiny that all dreams turn to nightmares? The fate has predetermined the outcome of all our decisions and we are merely puppets on a string?

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

In a way I agree with ruveyn. However I would disagree with the idea that good intentions almost always turn out badly. Sure there are cases of this happening - but I would argue that either the intention was replaced to something lesser or circumstances didn't enable a positive result. This doesn't mean that there is a futility in good intentions.

Imagine if everyone was entirely focused on the needs of others. If a woman gives $20 to a homeless man out of her intention to assist him, it is possible the homeless man's pride could cause him to reject the charity. However, if the homeless man's intentions were likewise focused on benefiting others he may think to accept the donation to make the woman feel happier about herself, to encourage the woman to continue her generosity towards others, and that he might be able to share the $20 with other homeless people.

If everyone's thoughts were focused on benefiting others it wouldn't matter if we were alone or with others - there would be a harmony that is not possible whilst there is a war between the interests of self and others. We would no longer have to worry about our own self-interests because we would know that others are concerned for us instead. And vice versa. The current system of each person serving their own purposes results in the world that we currently have.

It's great to hear other people's thoughts on this stuff. It gets it out of mine...

I can understand why people focus on their own interests. It's the thing they know above all others and it's the one that has rewarded them above all others. If you can't rely on yourself, then who can you rely on?

But there's just something that seems a bit survivalist about it though. I get this interpretation of it that in that mindset the point of living is to survive and to ensure your own happiness.

I suppose there's a meaning-of-life question in there (now we're getting into the heavy lifting). Do you make the purpose of your life your own happiness? Is it only about maximising happiness and minimising pain. If the point of life is to merely avoid the harsh realities of life, surely we could have ended all the trouble a long time ago and just stopped future human creations. Then none would know pain at all.

But I digress... for I believe that whether you are born in terrible poverty or indulgent affluence, the odds of you being born at all are so unlikely that for it to happen at all is amazing. When the sun is eclipsed by the moon, people are entranced by it.

Your life is even rarer than that.

Whatever our circumstances and hardships may be, shouldn't we try to be more than our circumstances, for how else do we hope to ever be free of them?

You use terms that are so all inclusive and vague as to be totally meaningless

Well when I said 'whatever our circumstances', I meant it as to say - any circumstance possible - if that's what you mean by all inclusive, so I can understand why you would say that as term is all inclusive - but I don't believe that makes it totally meaningless as you suggest, as if there's no worth in it at all.

So this leads to me to ask this question, in all sincerity and wanting to understand - in your belief, under what circumstances SHOULDN'T we try to be more than just the product of chance?

When do you believe that bettering ourselves is worthless?

Yeah I think that there is more to life than 'surviving' - more to only caring for ourselves and those we are close to. Even if nothing else exists beyond this life, there is a freedom that occurs when we rely on the happiness of others to fulfill our own happiness. Yes it also involves some sort of pain when we're open to the pain of others as well (because let's face it - there's a lot of suffering in the world). But even that pain has a freedom about it because it's not focused solely on our own pain.

This notion of putting the needs of others before our own doesn't require others to put us before themselves if we are to sense this freedom. Even if we choose to be alone (and I know I do) - the thought process is something that we can practise whatever our circumstances and it frees us from the miseries of thinking about our own life - the things we want and can't have, the things we don't want but are forced to have.

IMO it doesn't matter how wealthy, intelligent or talented we might be. To better our lives absolutely requires a kind attitude. Even if kind actions are not possible - it's the kind intentions that count. But that's just me.

Thanks for sharing that, I appreciate it alot. Over the course of this year I've been studying storytelling and a major part of character development is identifying the need and want. A person wants something, for whatever reason and due to 'the forces of fate throwing them the ultimate challenge' they are forced to pursue it. But deeper than that, there is a need, something inside the person that needs to change, that the journey itself must address - a subconscious need. Whenever I watch movies, the ones that really feel resolved, are the ones where the subconscious need is resolved and usually in the process, the thing that they wanted - fame, fortune, glory et al - all those trivial wants are left behind.

I believe that people are imperfect creatures. Whether you believe in Darwin (that we are merely on a rung of the process of evolving) or religion (made imperfect by either design or poor actions) - whatever it may be - so if we merely give in to our imperfections and flaws, aren't we missing out on the journey?

Yeah there's a reason those movies are called 'feel-good' movies and that's because the character supposedly discovers what really counts in life. They discard their own desires for the purposes of another. Unfortunately some of these movies seem to send a limiting message about some sort of delusional love between themselves and another character and I find myself thinking 'No! Keep to your passion! Forget the guy!' (Because really - what percentage of relationships actually last for a lifetime?)

And yeah, whether we believe in making more humane decisions for the purposes of a god, for a life after death, or if it's merely just to die peacefully at the conclusion of this life - it is something very worthwhile IMO.

There's a great 1948 film called The Red Shoes which is about a dancer torn between her love for a man and love for her dance. It's really really intense the way she goes about making her decision. What stuck in my mind was the advice given to her that marriage would make her more complacent and would therefore cause her dancing to lose its necessary passion. It's a full-on dilemma and the movie did not hold back in dramatics. It's a long time ago when I saw it and it still has an effect on my life

EDIT: Sorry this post is a little askew, My brain's fairly jumbled at the moment. But I found what you said about character intentions/purposes interesting. And I probably missed your point about those movies. So - sorry about that!

I simply do not understand what you mean by bettering ourselves. Everybody here on this site is interested in the world and trying to understand other people's point of view and tell their own. I don't know if that "betters" anybody but iit indicates a curiosity about the world. Everyday new things happen and we each deal with it in the best way we know how and that's what it means to be alive. Sme of us are lucky and have good things happen and some of us have disasters and that's about it. It just means we're alive.