Today, Monday, January 31, 2011, I publish in this blog seven sections of my treatise of faith and ethics, The Quest for Completion. I present these seven sections to my readers in the hope that further dialog may occur among we humans on our commonality, but most especially our mortality and the demands of that mortality upon our conduct while we live. RJH, the Author.
THE QUEST FOR COMPLETION
Index of Sections Published today:
Part 1. An Attribute of Human Life: Finitude
Part 2. Human Consciousness
Part 3. The Person in Residence
Part 4. Lightness of Being
Part 5. Youth and Adulthood
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility
Part 7. An Attribute of God
Special Note. A six page pamphlet of this treatise is available with color photographs by email request to the author at ricklaw5@msn.com. At this time upon receipt by U.S. Mail, I request of you a nominal fee for reproduction, shipping and handling which will be free will until further notice by the author on this blog or otherwise.
©2011 Richard J. Hilber. Reproduction of the content in these excerpts from The Quest for Completion limited to single copy for an individual is permitted but not for sale, resale, or distribution without further permission from the author.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Part 1. An Attribute of Human Life
Below is the first excerpt from The Quest for Completion.
An Attribute of Human Life - Our Finite Condition.
One has to admit that the stuff of which we are made existed even before our birth and persists in some form after our death. Beyond the physicality of matter, is there yet part of us which is infinite? The physical universe itself whether it expands or collapses, whether it has a beginning or an ending, is the only "place" we can physically look for our answer. I understand in the exercise of the human imagination there is no such limitation but try using your imagination which is not yet a figment of the physical universe we live in and continue to explore. I for one believe myself capable of the exercise of the creative mind subject to a rigorous discipline.
That which ends is finite. In our common experience that which lives and has life is finite. In the human condition I have a beginning, my birth, and thus the period of my non-existence ends. Likewise, I have an end, my death, and thus the period of my existence ends.
In my lifetime, I will experience and have experienced the end of finite relationships, parent-child, teacher-student, employer-employee, husband-wife, et cetera. One could conclude that the essence of the human condition is its limitation in time and space. While it is sometimes in jest that we say mememto mori, it is a reminder to make much of time before we go and an encouragement to seize the day (the jest part is the celebratory posture as opposed to the serious pursuit of a serious object for which pursuit our time on earth is indeed short).
A reasonable position about the non-physical or spiritual domain is that it can not matter since humans can not by definition experience something outside of the human condition and experience. Does a thinking person leave open the possibility of "non-existence" without limitation by time and space? It would seem not. Life as we know it is both defined and limited by time and space while the explanation of its existence at all is rooted in the practical and evolutionary realities of chemistry and physics.
To hit the nail on the head, our finitude is in human terms our mortality. When someone speaks to us of immortality of the human soul, it is spoken in terms of aspiration or hope for a "life" after death. This in spite of the conclusion that no mere mortal by definition can trump death. The revival of one who has died while it suggests a re-habitation of the body by the person wrongly presumed dead that person has actually not died. Why? Death can only be said to have occurred when the revival is no longer accomplished or to be accomplished.
Part of an enhanced state of our finite existence is our awareness of our finitude. However, this awareness, this human consciousness, leads inexorably to the contemplation of its opposite. The mere posit of the finite is the posit of the infinite.
In contemplating a time before I existed and after which I no longer shall exist, I think of the period of my non-existence as joinder with infinity, that which does not end and is outside of time and space. I do not mean this in terms of persistance or transformation into something else of the physical molecules of my body. Our humanity is in essence captured as I have said by this one quality, finitude. Regardless, in the germ of our nature as humans is the prospect of what is beyond the finite, beyond physicality.
So this is the jumping off point, the spiritual frontier.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Edited by RJH on Wednesday, December 31, 2008, Thursday, January 01, 2009, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
©2011 by Richard J. Hilber with all rights reserved.
An Attribute of Human Life - Our Finite Condition.
One has to admit that the stuff of which we are made existed even before our birth and persists in some form after our death. Beyond the physicality of matter, is there yet part of us which is infinite? The physical universe itself whether it expands or collapses, whether it has a beginning or an ending, is the only "place" we can physically look for our answer. I understand in the exercise of the human imagination there is no such limitation but try using your imagination which is not yet a figment of the physical universe we live in and continue to explore. I for one believe myself capable of the exercise of the creative mind subject to a rigorous discipline.
That which ends is finite. In our common experience that which lives and has life is finite. In the human condition I have a beginning, my birth, and thus the period of my non-existence ends. Likewise, I have an end, my death, and thus the period of my existence ends.
In my lifetime, I will experience and have experienced the end of finite relationships, parent-child, teacher-student, employer-employee, husband-wife, et cetera. One could conclude that the essence of the human condition is its limitation in time and space. While it is sometimes in jest that we say mememto mori, it is a reminder to make much of time before we go and an encouragement to seize the day (the jest part is the celebratory posture as opposed to the serious pursuit of a serious object for which pursuit our time on earth is indeed short).
A reasonable position about the non-physical or spiritual domain is that it can not matter since humans can not by definition experience something outside of the human condition and experience. Does a thinking person leave open the possibility of "non-existence" without limitation by time and space? It would seem not. Life as we know it is both defined and limited by time and space while the explanation of its existence at all is rooted in the practical and evolutionary realities of chemistry and physics.
To hit the nail on the head, our finitude is in human terms our mortality. When someone speaks to us of immortality of the human soul, it is spoken in terms of aspiration or hope for a "life" after death. This in spite of the conclusion that no mere mortal by definition can trump death. The revival of one who has died while it suggests a re-habitation of the body by the person wrongly presumed dead that person has actually not died. Why? Death can only be said to have occurred when the revival is no longer accomplished or to be accomplished.
Part of an enhanced state of our finite existence is our awareness of our finitude. However, this awareness, this human consciousness, leads inexorably to the contemplation of its opposite. The mere posit of the finite is the posit of the infinite.
In contemplating a time before I existed and after which I no longer shall exist, I think of the period of my non-existence as joinder with infinity, that which does not end and is outside of time and space. I do not mean this in terms of persistance or transformation into something else of the physical molecules of my body. Our humanity is in essence captured as I have said by this one quality, finitude. Regardless, in the germ of our nature as humans is the prospect of what is beyond the finite, beyond physicality.
So this is the jumping off point, the spiritual frontier.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Edited by RJH on Wednesday, December 31, 2008, Thursday, January 01, 2009, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
©2011 by Richard J. Hilber with all rights reserved.
Part 2. Human Consciousness
Below is the second excerpt fromThe Quest for Completion.
Human Consciousness.
Purchasing an apple requires determination of a price which satisfies the grower and gatherer of that fruit which is brought to me for my consumption. I desire no apple merchant more than another and simply yearn for benefits of the eaten apple. Often we walk away from the interaction with another and realize we do not care for our partner in the interaction. We have learned with whom we would do business. It is the same principle, procurement of necessaries and from whomever provides the desired outcome.
My being is not mere being, but being enhanced by the awareness of my surroundings, consciousness. I have an awareness of my locality. I have to physically move to achieve a different locale. As I go about obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, I exercise powers of locomotion and even acquire such skill or skills as each task I perform can be performed in a manner more productive of an end result. I doubt very much lacking a need and some degree of consciousness of a need that I would develop at all.
Because I am insufficient in myself, to obtain sufficiency I have to act. In having to act, I move beyond myself. In having to move beyond myself, I have an awareness of my incompleteness which incompleteness obtains completeness by interacting with my locality. Where ever I go there I am and for whatever purpose completes me. Complete in myself, I would want for nothing, and having no needs which can be met by interaction with my locality, I might just as well be unconscious.
In one area alone, I am consternated by my quest for completion and that is in how another completes me. I mean this at first sexually in the sense that my mother and father in conjoining brought me about and in participating in that union of bodies there was an attempt at unity of purpose and intent.
I assume each of us seeks completeness in joinder to another. Just as there is sexual joinder, there is spiritual joinder, or common cause whether it be in building a barn or a house or in raising a child to adulthood.
Especially in sexual joinder, there is the subtle relationship potential of doing the right thing by our mate. The potential in our human sexuality is in caring for another (beyond satisfaction of the mere urge to physically or spiritually join one another). I'd say the quest for completeness only goes on even in the most stable lasting unions. Our incompleteness is our condition and no one event or for that matter person can ever complete us, at least not if by person you mean fellow human being.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
Human Consciousness.
Purchasing an apple requires determination of a price which satisfies the grower and gatherer of that fruit which is brought to me for my consumption. I desire no apple merchant more than another and simply yearn for benefits of the eaten apple. Often we walk away from the interaction with another and realize we do not care for our partner in the interaction. We have learned with whom we would do business. It is the same principle, procurement of necessaries and from whomever provides the desired outcome.
My being is not mere being, but being enhanced by the awareness of my surroundings, consciousness. I have an awareness of my locality. I have to physically move to achieve a different locale. As I go about obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, I exercise powers of locomotion and even acquire such skill or skills as each task I perform can be performed in a manner more productive of an end result. I doubt very much lacking a need and some degree of consciousness of a need that I would develop at all.
Because I am insufficient in myself, to obtain sufficiency I have to act. In having to act, I move beyond myself. In having to move beyond myself, I have an awareness of my incompleteness which incompleteness obtains completeness by interacting with my locality. Where ever I go there I am and for whatever purpose completes me. Complete in myself, I would want for nothing, and having no needs which can be met by interaction with my locality, I might just as well be unconscious.
In one area alone, I am consternated by my quest for completion and that is in how another completes me. I mean this at first sexually in the sense that my mother and father in conjoining brought me about and in participating in that union of bodies there was an attempt at unity of purpose and intent.
I assume each of us seeks completeness in joinder to another. Just as there is sexual joinder, there is spiritual joinder, or common cause whether it be in building a barn or a house or in raising a child to adulthood.
Especially in sexual joinder, there is the subtle relationship potential of doing the right thing by our mate. The potential in our human sexuality is in caring for another (beyond satisfaction of the mere urge to physically or spiritually join one another). I'd say the quest for completeness only goes on even in the most stable lasting unions. Our incompleteness is our condition and no one event or for that matter person can ever complete us, at least not if by person you mean fellow human being.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
Part 3. The Person in Residence
Below is a third excerpt from The Quest for Completion.
The Person in Residence in the Body.
The human body can be said to host the person in residence. I do not mean nonsense here since the human body that concerns this discourse is the living human body. However, the human body is not a dwelling in the sense that a house is a dwelling. The owner occupant of a house can have invitees who in coming into the house accept the hospitality of the invitor owner/occupant. However, it can more accurately be said that the human body in its respirations gives rise to the person that comes to occupy it. There is in every human body the potential resident, the person. Initially, this resident is not an invitee as the body has no say in the matter of which person comes to occupy it.
The multiple-personality disorder posits that in residence are not just one person but several persons. The healing of this disorder if healing there be is in dis-inviting persons from the body and asking them to leave, or not. I am not sure who does the asking to stay or to go. I believe that in coming to know who does the asking, the true person in residence is coming to the fore and accepting possession of the body.
The expression being comfortable in one's own skin is helpful. The human body does host the person in residence and that person may have to disinvite either persons or versions of persons that are ultimately anathema to the person in possession and control of the body. In saying I want to become and am in the process of becoming is to say I am not yet fully realized as a person. In this sense the human body does give rise to the person that I am to become.
However, the nature of the person is at issue as that person exercises dominion over its body and the conduct of the actions the body takes.
I believe this taking hold of self-government is the wisdom of responsible conduct. Mental health is not a given but it is the result of exercising responsible conduct. Non compos mentis is not a status I aspire to. In abdicating the responsibilty of self-government, the person is unseated ultimately. Insanity is the result. I choose sanity and more directly I choose to take responsibilty. I do not mean this judgementally of those who are driven insane by the exertions upon the psyche of events beyond the control of the individual (ex. torture).
Early on I abhorred the taking of mind altering drugs because I could not stand the thought of loss of control over perception (which I deemed perception of reality). I was fearful of the perception of the unreal as real. I was not into sticking a knife into a pillow under the influence of a drug only to later discover I was sticking the chest of another human being. I could not stomach the absence of responsibility for one's actual conduct.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
The Person in Residence in the Body.
The human body can be said to host the person in residence. I do not mean nonsense here since the human body that concerns this discourse is the living human body. However, the human body is not a dwelling in the sense that a house is a dwelling. The owner occupant of a house can have invitees who in coming into the house accept the hospitality of the invitor owner/occupant. However, it can more accurately be said that the human body in its respirations gives rise to the person that comes to occupy it. There is in every human body the potential resident, the person. Initially, this resident is not an invitee as the body has no say in the matter of which person comes to occupy it.
The multiple-personality disorder posits that in residence are not just one person but several persons. The healing of this disorder if healing there be is in dis-inviting persons from the body and asking them to leave, or not. I am not sure who does the asking to stay or to go. I believe that in coming to know who does the asking, the true person in residence is coming to the fore and accepting possession of the body.
The expression being comfortable in one's own skin is helpful. The human body does host the person in residence and that person may have to disinvite either persons or versions of persons that are ultimately anathema to the person in possession and control of the body. In saying I want to become and am in the process of becoming is to say I am not yet fully realized as a person. In this sense the human body does give rise to the person that I am to become.
However, the nature of the person is at issue as that person exercises dominion over its body and the conduct of the actions the body takes.
I believe this taking hold of self-government is the wisdom of responsible conduct. Mental health is not a given but it is the result of exercising responsible conduct. Non compos mentis is not a status I aspire to. In abdicating the responsibilty of self-government, the person is unseated ultimately. Insanity is the result. I choose sanity and more directly I choose to take responsibilty. I do not mean this judgementally of those who are driven insane by the exertions upon the psyche of events beyond the control of the individual (ex. torture).
Early on I abhorred the taking of mind altering drugs because I could not stand the thought of loss of control over perception (which I deemed perception of reality). I was fearful of the perception of the unreal as real. I was not into sticking a knife into a pillow under the influence of a drug only to later discover I was sticking the chest of another human being. I could not stomach the absence of responsibility for one's actual conduct.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
Part 4. Lightness of Being
The following is a fourth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.
Lightness of Being
In my evolution as a person, I had to grapple with the illusion that not only is God in existence but I am not God. For purposes of this essay, I define God as the "Ultimate Responsible Party not in Existence." Shortly, I come now to the proposition that I am not God. I did not start with the high morality that I am the ultimate responsible person in existence but I had to work through the posture that I was if I was to make a difference (my youthful self-importance). I know the dissonance in this perception is deafening to hear but so it was I suffered grandiosity of the highest order. The other tact would be to blow off any responsibility at all, but such was not my conditioning as a child.
While we are called to be heroic, we have to live life as it unfolds. The youth who takes on the task of changing the world for the better and acts heroically in the pursuit is quickly hobbled by the sheer weight of taking responsibility for the result. The result may not by heroic effort even be obtainable in his lifetime.
In taking small steps and half-measures he must be satisfied with little progress towards the goal. He or she is sure to be humbled by his own shortcomings if not by the limitations of time and mortality. A mental breakdown can be precipitated by the awareness of the impossibility of the undertaking.
The only way out is to surrender and confess dependence on something or someone outside of oneself. This is not to be confused with the abdication inherent in insanity. It is definitely about a pattern of conduct in which the human being by honesty confesses he can not ultimately be responsible for the result because the result is not obtainable by his efforts alone. In deed, he sooner or later concludes that he is not alone in questing after the seemingly unobtainable goal of altering the course of human conduct.
The release that shortly thereafter transpires is what I call the lightness of being. He or she experiences release from responsibility for the result. He concludes he or she must trust that the result though not procurable by his or her own conduct is yet obtainable by someone or something outside of himself or herself. Notice he is not absolving himself of the responsibility of taking steps towards the goal.
Who is then responsible if not I. This can not be about holding others to account because that is to play the blame game and ultimately I have to accept that others are in the same boat that I occupy. So I conclude that by definition the truly responsible does not include my human peers, but it does include the truly responsible party, God. However, before getting ahead of myself here, follow the path with me.
The person who in his humanity and humor accepts that she or he is not God, not ultimately responsible, having experienced the lightness of being, released from ultimate responsibility, trusting in "something" outside and greater than himself or herself is on the pathway of one who has begun to experience relationship with God.
Not sure how, but this context in human experience gives rise to trust that the goal is obtainable by one not ourselves. Trust that what is about to happen and what is even unavoidably about to happen (given our human experience and insight) is in the hands of "another" not ourselves has been required of us in our moment of extremity.
The term "oversoul" is perhaps useful here as a precursor to the use of the word God. This is comparable to the mountaineer who knows he will not make the summit of the mountain but trusts that someday given the spirit is willing someone will make the conquest. We all live in the "oversoul" that procures the result we desire. This is very much like Martin Luther King (MLK) and Barack Obama, dreamer and dream come true. A person should not be judged by the color of his skin but the content of his character.
The tremor in MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is that realization that he might not personally live to see the day, but another would. In accepting his human condition, he was not yielding one inch of the ground that would have to be covered to achieve human equality, he just trusted that others would cover that ground in his stead. I for one am convinced that MLK experienced true lightness of being.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
Lightness of Being
In my evolution as a person, I had to grapple with the illusion that not only is God in existence but I am not God. For purposes of this essay, I define God as the "Ultimate Responsible Party not in Existence." Shortly, I come now to the proposition that I am not God. I did not start with the high morality that I am the ultimate responsible person in existence but I had to work through the posture that I was if I was to make a difference (my youthful self-importance). I know the dissonance in this perception is deafening to hear but so it was I suffered grandiosity of the highest order. The other tact would be to blow off any responsibility at all, but such was not my conditioning as a child.
While we are called to be heroic, we have to live life as it unfolds. The youth who takes on the task of changing the world for the better and acts heroically in the pursuit is quickly hobbled by the sheer weight of taking responsibility for the result. The result may not by heroic effort even be obtainable in his lifetime.
In taking small steps and half-measures he must be satisfied with little progress towards the goal. He or she is sure to be humbled by his own shortcomings if not by the limitations of time and mortality. A mental breakdown can be precipitated by the awareness of the impossibility of the undertaking.
The only way out is to surrender and confess dependence on something or someone outside of oneself. This is not to be confused with the abdication inherent in insanity. It is definitely about a pattern of conduct in which the human being by honesty confesses he can not ultimately be responsible for the result because the result is not obtainable by his efforts alone. In deed, he sooner or later concludes that he is not alone in questing after the seemingly unobtainable goal of altering the course of human conduct.
The release that shortly thereafter transpires is what I call the lightness of being. He or she experiences release from responsibility for the result. He concludes he or she must trust that the result though not procurable by his or her own conduct is yet obtainable by someone or something outside of himself or herself. Notice he is not absolving himself of the responsibility of taking steps towards the goal.
Who is then responsible if not I. This can not be about holding others to account because that is to play the blame game and ultimately I have to accept that others are in the same boat that I occupy. So I conclude that by definition the truly responsible does not include my human peers, but it does include the truly responsible party, God. However, before getting ahead of myself here, follow the path with me.
The person who in his humanity and humor accepts that she or he is not God, not ultimately responsible, having experienced the lightness of being, released from ultimate responsibility, trusting in "something" outside and greater than himself or herself is on the pathway of one who has begun to experience relationship with God.
Not sure how, but this context in human experience gives rise to trust that the goal is obtainable by one not ourselves. Trust that what is about to happen and what is even unavoidably about to happen (given our human experience and insight) is in the hands of "another" not ourselves has been required of us in our moment of extremity.
The term "oversoul" is perhaps useful here as a precursor to the use of the word God. This is comparable to the mountaineer who knows he will not make the summit of the mountain but trusts that someday given the spirit is willing someone will make the conquest. We all live in the "oversoul" that procures the result we desire. This is very much like Martin Luther King (MLK) and Barack Obama, dreamer and dream come true. A person should not be judged by the color of his skin but the content of his character.
The tremor in MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is that realization that he might not personally live to see the day, but another would. In accepting his human condition, he was not yielding one inch of the ground that would have to be covered to achieve human equality, he just trusted that others would cover that ground in his stead. I for one am convinced that MLK experienced true lightness of being.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.
Part 5. Youth and Adulthood
The Quest for Completion continues with the fifth excerpt.
Youth and Adulthood.
Youth can be defined as a period of life in which we view ourselves as immortal and indestructible. This confidence is a by product of liberation from dependence on mother's milk (which fails in direct measure as our independence of it grows). I believe the obvious case is in the grandious conduct of some youth, but the result is the same whether a youth is testing his or her limits or not.
Our independence though is arguable and soon muted by experience. Physical pain, the not so gentle teacher, soon educates us to a different view of the matter. Make the pain go away is our common plea. We can be heard bargaining with the pain. I will just stop doing something if the pain will just stop. The "pain adverse" among us perhaps delay this moment of compromise but childhood is only temporary regardless of its duration.
This growth is in fits and starts. The pain of social rejection leads to changes in one's conduct. In my youth, I could act selfishly but always had to deal with the barrier to greater productivity in that course of conduct. In behaving socially I could expand my repertoire and success rate. In effect, true selfishness required a change in how I obtained what met my needs. Having obtained social acceptance, our self-confidence returns with a renewed vigor that in socially acceptable conduct we can more fully be indestructible and immortal.
It is ironic that adulthood only leads to a more subtle argument about my indestructibility and immortality. They call it humility. What makes me an adult? I now hold the view that I am mortal and dependent on my surroundings and in being separate I have no being. I am part of the whole, an island not! In procuring the indestructibility and immortality of the whole human race, I procure my own.
I believe based on my life experience that acceptance of my limitations has made me more human and capable of behaving humanely towards others. I have had to look beyond my personal success in having my needs met towards what makes me a successful person, my capacity and enaction of conduct which can be termed indifferent to my personal success, disinterested behavior, doing the right thing even if it does not support my enlargement or grandiosity.
A true parent is such a person because right conduct requires that he do what is right by a child even when that child does not approve of a course of parental conduct. In fact, the child may rage at such parental conduct but true affection for a parent only comes in hindsight and appreciation that the parent was not just well motivated in setting a limit on one's child but that the parent was right to do so. I doubt very much that a parent does the right thing awaiting the day of approval and acceptance by the adult child. If a parent does do so, he or she will spend months and possibly years waiting for that other shoe to drop. The reward is only in doing the right thing.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Youth and Adulthood.
Youth can be defined as a period of life in which we view ourselves as immortal and indestructible. This confidence is a by product of liberation from dependence on mother's milk (which fails in direct measure as our independence of it grows). I believe the obvious case is in the grandious conduct of some youth, but the result is the same whether a youth is testing his or her limits or not.
Our independence though is arguable and soon muted by experience. Physical pain, the not so gentle teacher, soon educates us to a different view of the matter. Make the pain go away is our common plea. We can be heard bargaining with the pain. I will just stop doing something if the pain will just stop. The "pain adverse" among us perhaps delay this moment of compromise but childhood is only temporary regardless of its duration.
This growth is in fits and starts. The pain of social rejection leads to changes in one's conduct. In my youth, I could act selfishly but always had to deal with the barrier to greater productivity in that course of conduct. In behaving socially I could expand my repertoire and success rate. In effect, true selfishness required a change in how I obtained what met my needs. Having obtained social acceptance, our self-confidence returns with a renewed vigor that in socially acceptable conduct we can more fully be indestructible and immortal.
It is ironic that adulthood only leads to a more subtle argument about my indestructibility and immortality. They call it humility. What makes me an adult? I now hold the view that I am mortal and dependent on my surroundings and in being separate I have no being. I am part of the whole, an island not! In procuring the indestructibility and immortality of the whole human race, I procure my own.
I believe based on my life experience that acceptance of my limitations has made me more human and capable of behaving humanely towards others. I have had to look beyond my personal success in having my needs met towards what makes me a successful person, my capacity and enaction of conduct which can be termed indifferent to my personal success, disinterested behavior, doing the right thing even if it does not support my enlargement or grandiosity.
A true parent is such a person because right conduct requires that he do what is right by a child even when that child does not approve of a course of parental conduct. In fact, the child may rage at such parental conduct but true affection for a parent only comes in hindsight and appreciation that the parent was not just well motivated in setting a limit on one's child but that the parent was right to do so. I doubt very much that a parent does the right thing awaiting the day of approval and acceptance by the adult child. If a parent does do so, he or she will spend months and possibly years waiting for that other shoe to drop. The reward is only in doing the right thing.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility
The following is a sixth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.
The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.
A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).
The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.
Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.
I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.
The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.
The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.
A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).
The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.
Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.
I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.
The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Part 7. An Attribute of God
The section reproduced below is the seventh and final section of The Quest for Completion in excerpt form.
An Attribute of God.
Human knowledge of God is finite. As an individual, I can only vouch for what I know of God. However, literature which resonates with and is in consonance with our super ego (the study of truth) teaches us even more about the nature of the God than we as individuals can have through our direct experience.
I agree with those who say there is no God known to them. The problem is the God who is known to me! If the philosopher says there is a God, but says that God is not a person, I dissent vociferously. If God not be a person, it is an honest saying, if it does not contradict a person's experience.
The limitation placed artifically on us is that we can only experience what is in existence (or was in existence). The relationship of myself to someone not in existence has become my experience. Notice that I am not abdicating selfhood in saying this. I am saying that I am more fully realized as a person when I accept someone outside of myself who is outside of existence who is ultimately responsible. Why? Because being human, being in existence, my responsibility is finite and circumscribed by my human condition.
The fact that I can have a personal relationship with this person is to say I have come to trust this person will provide the outcome. Think of Abraham and Isaac on the mountaintop. Specifically consider the father who had a personal relationship with God. The father in seeking to appease the will of God would sacrifice his only son, but God holds back this beloved and fearing man with raised knife and provides an animal for sacrifice to symbolize dependence on God's will.
In effect Abraham did not stick a pillow only to later find out it was a person. He was not deluded, but sane, ultimately sane.
The quality of God as merciful is in effect the affirmation of the individual who grows dependent on God's plan and knowledge of God's will. Hence, I know that God has revealed that he is not capable of asking us to do an immoral act, such as killing an innocent child. This God I know affirms me as an individual who each step of the way is accountable for right conduct. God is truly merciful.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Revised by RJH Saturday, February 21, 2009.
An Attribute of God.
Human knowledge of God is finite. As an individual, I can only vouch for what I know of God. However, literature which resonates with and is in consonance with our super ego (the study of truth) teaches us even more about the nature of the God than we as individuals can have through our direct experience.
I agree with those who say there is no God known to them. The problem is the God who is known to me! If the philosopher says there is a God, but says that God is not a person, I dissent vociferously. If God not be a person, it is an honest saying, if it does not contradict a person's experience.
The limitation placed artifically on us is that we can only experience what is in existence (or was in existence). The relationship of myself to someone not in existence has become my experience. Notice that I am not abdicating selfhood in saying this. I am saying that I am more fully realized as a person when I accept someone outside of myself who is outside of existence who is ultimately responsible. Why? Because being human, being in existence, my responsibility is finite and circumscribed by my human condition.
The fact that I can have a personal relationship with this person is to say I have come to trust this person will provide the outcome. Think of Abraham and Isaac on the mountaintop. Specifically consider the father who had a personal relationship with God. The father in seeking to appease the will of God would sacrifice his only son, but God holds back this beloved and fearing man with raised knife and provides an animal for sacrifice to symbolize dependence on God's will.
In effect Abraham did not stick a pillow only to later find out it was a person. He was not deluded, but sane, ultimately sane.
The quality of God as merciful is in effect the affirmation of the individual who grows dependent on God's plan and knowledge of God's will. Hence, I know that God has revealed that he is not capable of asking us to do an immoral act, such as killing an innocent child. This God I know affirms me as an individual who each step of the way is accountable for right conduct. God is truly merciful.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Revised by RJH Saturday, February 21, 2009.
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