We pay for everything.
We also at times pay for the mistakes of others - because they see things in an unrealistic way.
We often feel comforted in being the victim of other people’s mistakes.
That is only when one sees one’s self as a victim and plays the victim. That is not comfort - it’s masochism.
What I am speaking about is the realization that someone else has in some negative way influenced our existence. It’s up to us plow through that, transcend that and move on.
Feeling “comforted” is no more than an excuse to stay in the same place - in other words, not to move on.
Agree 100%.
Do you think there is discomfort in moving forward?
There is always discomfort in unknown, which is why people like to delay it and put it off.
I don’t think it makes much sense to talk of the unknown. We can only know things. The discomfort we feel is fear of the known (experienced) repeating itself.
It makes perfect sense to talk about the unknown, it is the drive for learning and discovering new… If we can only know things then that defeats the entire point of not knowing something. A lot of the discomfort people feel is from change and unknown. Saying we only know things is like saying we know everything, which we don’t. We hardly know anything. I wouldn’t even count on us knowing 1% of the things we can and will know later on. We live in a cosmic sea of knowledge and unlimited possibilities and we sure as hell aren’t an advanced species, not yet.
We cannot respond with fear to that which is not experienced. If it is not part of us or in our memory then we cannot have a basis to respond to it. If we were afraid of the unknown then we would be in a permanent state of fear as we know so little.
When we are in a different situation that we experience fear in, there is something of that situation that we know and do not want to happen. E.g. Walking in the dark may cause fear in some as they imagine monsters, being attacked or being raped. It is these known things that we fear may happen. We fill in the blanks of unknown with known things and it is these things we fear.
I think a distinction can be made between the unknown and the unknowable. We can venture into one, not into the other. In other words, the unknown can often become the known; the unknowable cannot. In any event, I still cannot see the move from unknown into the known as a matter of transcendence. Transcendence seems to imply that one can become what one isn’t.
Ah I see what you’re saying. Can’t fear the unknown because it’s not known of for them to experience any emotions from it. I am trying to say unexpected then, that may be a better word. People fear what they don’t know is going to happen, but know of in form of possibility.
That is why in the past I have said that a true test of a person is how they respond to ambiguity and uncertainty (the unexpected). What a person projects onto these is the true test of character.
I’d argue that strength of character is based on how one attends to the expected–disease, death, loss, etc., which are part of what it means to be human.
Do you know when all of this will happen and how it will happen? Do you hold in your heart that you may die today because someone will break into your home and kill you for a few bucks? Humans die this way? Do you sometimes lock your doors thinking of this? Do you have anxiety over posting on ILP on certain topics because you are unsure how people will respond (anxiety over death and disease of your sense of “self”)?
In previous posts I commented that we fear the known in ambiguous circumstances. It is a true test of character how we respond to this ambiguity. Do we respond with confidence and determination and live life or do we respond with insecurity and hide from life? In ambiguous circumstances what thoughts, feelings, memories and anticipations do we fill the holes of uncertainty in with?
“The saddest words of tongue or pen”
Are not “It might have been.”
They are “It will never be again.”
It depends on what it is…
please give an example
Read the poem.
please give me another example…
The it in the poem refers to things one once could do or be; but, with age can no longer do or be.