Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: torridon on March 16, 2018, 07:40:43 AM
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There is no El Dorado; there is no Shangri-La, no Nirvana, no Heaven, no Valhalla.
What we can do, is enjoy the journey there. The destination always turns out to have been something of a mirage all along. It is the journeying towards, that is of real value. Enjoy the journey for itself.
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Surely, given that things are determined whether we are happy or not is a simple fact, not a choice as the 'how' implies?
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We are all responsible for our own happiness. That said, I think I find ‘meaning’ more accurate. ‘Happiness’ isn’t our default state.
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There is no El Dorado; there is no Shangri-La, no Nirvana, no Heaven, no Valhalla.
What we can do, is enjoy the journey there. The destination always turns out to have been something of a mirage all along. It is the journeying towards, that is of real value. Enjoy the journey for itself.
Another way of looking at it is to treat words like 'heaven', paradise etc as words which represent a source rather than a destination and that the source is within you and expressed as joy. To 'enjoy' then becomes a way of externalising that joy into the world. We 'enjoy the journey' by putting our joy outwards into our actions. So called 'spiritual methods' tend towards revealing that inner source. Joy is always present but our attention can be distracted from it i.e. we come and go from it.
Pleasure and happiness, on the other hand, tend to be seen to be sourced from the external world and attempts are made to internalise them. Pleasure and happiness come and go according to the presence or absence of its external source. Entertainment and consumerism tend to promote external sources.
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There is no El Dorado; there is no Shangri-La, no Nirvana, no Heaven, no Valhalla.
What we can do, is enjoy the journey there. The destination always turns out to have been something of a mirage all along. It is the journeying towards, that is of real value. Enjoy the journey for itself.
Which fortune cookie did you get that out of?
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Which fortune cookie did you get that out of?
But he’s right. There is no destination. If you spend your life focussed on the ending you miss the story, and given that the ending isn’t guaranteed, that’s not exactly sensible.
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I think whether we describe ourselves as "happy" or "enjoying the journey" is partly down to a recognition of how much worse things could be, which I suppose is dependent on what you think is important to you.
For example, if a person's body and brain does not process the discipline of being organised, juggling multiple tasks, stress, and lack of sleep very well, downtime becomes a lot more important to them than whatever can be achieved through stressful situations.
Changes in hormone levels affect how well different people deal with stress. This article looks at the difference between two proposed types of "stress": eustress (good stress) and distress (bad stress), which both cause the release of the hormone cortisol as part of the "fight or flight" mechanism, and looks at ways to dissipate the level of cortisol.
Something I found particularly interesting is that the article states that "Researchers at Johns Hopkins established that elevated levels of cortisol in adolescence change the expression of numerous genes linked to mental illness in some people. They found that these changes in young adulthood — which is a critical time for brain development — could cause severe mental illness in those predisposed for it."
The article says that while researching the effects of bullying and feelings of isolation, "researchers found that if they blocked the cortisol receptors, the bullied mice became more resilient and no longer avoided their fellow creatures."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201301/cortisol-why-the-stress-hormone-is-public-enemy-no-1
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But he’s right. There is no destination. If you spend your life focussed on the ending you miss the story, and given that the ending isn’t guaranteed, that’s not exactly sensible.
That is so glaringly, obviously true, that it astounds me that so many people can't see it.
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There is no El Dorado; there is no Shangri-La, no Nirvana, no Heaven, no Valhalla.
What we can do, is enjoy the journey there. The destination always turns out to have been something of a mirage all along. It is the journeying towards, that is of real value. Enjoy the journey for itself.
Not quite sure what you're trying to say here. If there's no destination how can you journey there? Must 'real value' be dependent on 'journeying towards' some goal? In the absence of an actual destination do we need to fabricate a mirage? Your initial rejection of spiritual termini doesn't survive your second paragraph, where you appear to embrace the need for such, even if these are qualified as imaginary. This all sounds not too far removed from the religious approach I'm guessing you intend to repudiate. Destinations, journeys - these are the stuff of storying our lives, which is how we construct a sense of self. To be someone is to be trans-temporal and implies the idea of going somewhere, from which notions of purpose and meaning naturally arise and lead seamlessly to religion, after-lives and so on. To be someone with a purpose is in some sense to step outside the moment, to separate oneself from one's experience, from where the tendency is so often to compare what one has with what one might have. Don't you find that when you are most happy - mountain walking, perhaps - you have forgotten your narrative, your self, your journey, and you are (as Zen would say) intimate with the moment and not journeying anywhere else at all?
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Yes, contentment is found within, no need to journey anywhere.... 'the kingdom of heaven is within..' Once you have found that, it is like an anchor and you can carry it with you at all times and in any situation. It forms a protection around you and holds you safe from any outward foes.
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Not quite sure what you're trying to say here. If there's no destination how can you journey there? Must 'real value' be dependent on 'journeying towards' some goal? In the absence of an actual destination do we need to fabricate a mirage? Your initial rejection of spiritual termini doesn't survive your second paragraph, where you appear to embrace the need for such, even if these are qualified as imaginary. This all sounds not too far removed from the religious approach I'm guessing you intend to repudiate. Destinations, journeys - these are the stuff of storying our lives, which is how we construct a sense of self. To be someone is to be trans-temporal and implies the idea of going somewhere, from which notions of purpose and meaning naturally arise and lead seamlessly to religion, after-lives and so on. To be someone with a purpose is in some sense to step outside the moment, to separate oneself from one's experience, from where the tendency is so often to compare what one has with what one might have. Don't you find that when you are most happy - mountain walking, perhaps - you have forgotten your narrative, your self, your journey, and you are (as Zen would say) intimate with the moment and not journeying anywhere else at all?
It is also from Buddhism that the idea of there being no destination, no appointment comes from. I think of the journey for me as being like the flow of a river. There isn't a purpose as such, just a movement. If you like, the sea is the destination, but that is just vastness. Nothing more.
I do have a story of me and what I experience and it annoys me when life does this to me. But then I am in a relationship, a partnership, and I think that needs to have an element of flow to it, as it evolves and moves from this to that. Sometimes it can feel like the steps of a dance, where at first you can't move in harmony and keep tripping over each other's feet, but in time it becomes effortless, and you move together seamlessly.
I don't see the contradiction between rejecting religion and embracing the spiritual. I believe that all of us need to take care of our needs that go beyond the physical - embracing art, music, nature - and it is very often these things that allow us to lose ourselves and our stories and become present.
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Bramble - terrific post. I think it's unavoidable that humans have stories and the notion of journeys, but I feel that peak happiness occurs when I let go of them. Everything collapses into this, then there is no I surveying the rest of it, or it, or life. Still, it's OK to go back to stories and worries and the rest. In a way, the collapse is just love.
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A therapist once got quite cross with me because I couldn't answer her question about who I am. Stories have their uses, but I didn't have one prepared.
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A therapist once got quite cross with me because I couldn't answer her question about who I am. Stories have their uses, but I didn't have one prepared.
That reminds me that on long meditation intensives, people tend to run out of stories, and go blank. Then they often say 'I don't know', but after that, some interesting things happen. Well, not knowing turns out to be rather nice.
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Not quite sure what you're trying to say here. If there's no destination how can you journey there? Must 'real value' be dependent on 'journeying towards' some goal? In the absence of an actual destination do we need to fabricate a mirage? Your initial rejection of spiritual termini doesn't survive your second paragraph, where you appear to embrace the need for such, even if these are qualified as imaginary. This all sounds not too far removed from the religious approach I'm guessing you intend to repudiate. Destinations, journeys - these are the stuff of storying our lives, which is how we construct a sense of self. To be someone is to be trans-temporal and implies the idea of going somewhere, from which notions of purpose and meaning naturally arise and lead seamlessly to religion, after-lives and so on. To be someone with a purpose is in some sense to step outside the moment, to separate oneself from one's experience, from where the tendency is so often to compare what one has with what one might have. Don't you find that when you are most happy - mountain walking, perhaps - you have forgotten your narrative, your self, your journey, and you are (as Zen would say) intimate with the moment and not journeying anywhere else at all?
I'd probably agree with all of that. I didn't intend for the journey metaphor to be especially a spiritual journey. I think I was ruminating on a piece I read on Schopenhaur recently, famously got depressed seeing life as a series of projects, and the only way to find happiness was to fix on another goal as soon as one was done with. Well that got Schopenhaur depressed so perhaps the failing in that thinking is to see the achievement as the goal when in fact is we could see the doing and the progressing as the source of satisfaction, not the achievement. Take pleasure in the climbing of a mountain rather than in reaching the summit, perhaps.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq4ai9hHkT0
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Dear Forum,
And then a wonderful thread comes along, thank you :)
Gonnagle.
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This is someone's signature on another forum. Relevant?
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T.S.Eliot 'Four Quartets'.
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This is someone's signature on another forum. Relevant?
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T.S.Eliot 'Four Quartets'.
It’s one of my favourite lines from poetry. And yet... wishful thinking? The idea of life being circular is appealing.
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It’s one of my favourite lines from poetry. And yet... wishful thinking? The idea of life being circular is appealing.
It is at any rate a good description of jamais vu, which is the opposite of deja vu.
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It is at any rate a good description of jamais vu, which is the opposite of deja vu.
I’m not sure ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ are the same thing. The Eliot quote suggests a place of origin that acquires fresh meaning thanks to exploration that leads to the acquiring of knowledge. I can imagine how that could be. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that with people and relationships, where the scales fall from your eyes, or the opposite, where someone you think is a friend suddenly becomes the person that you love. You know them differently and it does feel like a ‘first’.
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The mountain metaphor sits easily with me as I like doing that and I recognise the values I get out of it. I might set myself a challenge of reaching a named peak, and for sure, the getting to the summit is a pleasure in itself. But deeper down I know I set that goal because I know I will enjoy the journey along the way. I'll enjoy the scent of pine needles and wet moss in the forests of the foothills; the echoey sound of bird calls in woodland; and at higher altitudes I'll enjoy the big vistas, the open skies, the clear air, the snow and rock, the sight of a lonely eagle way up high. Setting the goal is a means of procuring moments for mindfulness along the way, moments for sensory engagement with a bigger and richer world than my own. End results are important, but they aren't the be all and end all of everything.
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Setting the goal is a means of procuring moments for mindfulness along the way,
Yes, and the reverse of this is what I was suggesting above i.e. that the source of mindfulness or joyfulness is always present and available even when you do the washing up before you leave for the mountain climbing. The moments you mention, I would suggest, are glimpses of that inner source.
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Setting the goal is a means of procuring moments for mindfulness along the way, moments for sensory engagement with a bigger and richer world than my own.
Those moments don't really need procuring though, do they? And how could that rich world be other than your own?
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Those moments don't really need procuring though, do they? And how could that rich world be other than your own?
Agree very much with this.
I know that sometimes a goal has to be set. Or at least, actions taken that have an outcome. Getting there though is where the juice is - what you learn.
And very often my best moments come in spite of the place I’m heading to, not because of it.
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https://youtu.be/x84O_u9rAHI
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq4ai9hHkT0
:) ??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erGNSQMJ79Q 8)
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:) ??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erGNSQMJ79Q 8)
Whatever happened to the Blockheads?
Regards ippy
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How to be happy? Live in a reasonably prosperous, democratic, socialist country, such as any Scandinavian country.
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How to be happy? Live in a reasonably prosperous, democratic, socialist country, such as any Scandinavian country.
Read "Fishing in Utopia" by Andrew Brown.
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How to be happy? Live in a reasonably prosperous, democratic, socialist country, such as any Scandinavian country.
Have you actually never talked to ad-o at all?
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Have you actually never talked to ad-o at all?
Well, he never struck me as particularly happy, so no doubt he agrees with some of Andrew Brown's comments (see above). His faith strikes me as being as close to fundamentalism as you can get in an Orthodox believer, and I reckon fundamentalists to be some of the most miserable old gits that you can get in Christianity, except when they're smugly reflecting on their being the elect of God.