Of course it works both ways. The changes might be for the better, giving you hope…or for the worse, leading to despair. The important thing in my view is in recognizing just how important contingency, chance and change can be in our lives. We can never be too comfortable in our skin because we never really know for sure what’s around that proverbial next corner. But, in accepting this, we are better prepared for whatever does come around it.
And, yes, the mystery embedded in the parts that are fate and the parts that are autonomy. Never really being certain of where one crosses over into the other.
That’s good of course. You have thought this through given all of the experiences you have had in both communities. And you certainly strike me as intelligent and perceptive. And someone who has accumulated both emotional depth and social skills in regard to your interactions with others around you. You have come to embody a frame of mind that sustains a level of satisfaction and fulfilment that seems clearly to work for you as “the best of all possible worlds”. At least for now.
I can only imgagine being in a group given my own more problematic frame of mind. I would almost certainly be more inclined to want those who are most like me to share the experiences. Someone I can discuss them with given factors that are most important to us. But those factors will always be different for different people. Which is why I tend towards the more pragmatic notion of “whatever works” here. Different strokes for different folks. While always being mindful of tolerance and in minimizing any possible pain and suffering inflicted on others when points of view are in conflict.
Oh, indeed, and Clannad created one of my all time favorite albums: Macalla
youtu.be/z-Eu3gPywMY
youtu.be/IaY3X1FpUcU
youtu.be/s597mjkKNlQ
youtu.be/caH6Ys_bM34
youtu.be/y7WfjADdPlY
What I’ll do is this: As I come to some of my favorite songs in the folk genre on my cassettes, I’ll put them on this thread for you.
I have literally hundreds of “mixed tapes”. Thousands and thousands of song in which I am never really certain which genre will pop up next. But that’s the thing with me and music. I don’t get in the mood for a particular kind, I let whatever kind does pop up on the cassette take me into however I react to it. Emotionally and/or esthetically.
At the end of the book, I will come to my own conclusion. And then I’ll let you know my own reaction.
Where things get more muddled for me here however is when, given my reaction to a particular situation [from the news or from my life], I fall down into this philosophical hole:
“If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein [the life I lived] and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.”
Then I have to grapple with how much it really is just an intellectual contraption and how much it is applicable to my life “for all practical purposes” from day to day. On the other hand, given my agoraphobia, I almost never actually interact with others “in the flesh” anymore. So, I wonder, is that the good news or the bad news?
Yes, the grey areas:
Exactly! People on both sides of the issue can make reasonable arguments. And each of us as individuals will come to our own subjective conclusions based on what is happening in our lives over the years.
Now, the point of philosophy revolves around this: “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence”. The so-called search for wisdom. That’s always been my own obsession: in regard to animal rights and all of the other moral issues in our life, is there a way philosophically to know how “one ought to live”?
That’s the historical nature of the beast: the human condition. It changes over time as new discoveries, new ways of thinking, new political philosophies, new inventions, new technologies and all of the other factors reconfigure attitudes about almost everything over and over and over again.
Needless to say, no one knows how to sort all this out…not into the most and the least rational ways to think about it. Some things just become a part of what is…whether we like it or not. And the way we make the most out of that. And the way we figure out solutions in regard to the interactions between those who are one way and those who are another way. What some call the “brute facticity” of the world as it is. As opposed to the way we would like it to be instead. And then the parts where we can bring what is closer to what we want it to be.
Yes, for those who could see for many years, those who put so much emphasis on “looks” in their search for a romantic partner, losing their vision might be awful indeed. What are they going to do when they meet someone new? They find this person intelligent and funny and in possession of great emotional depth and liking the same things that they do. But will they still find it necessary to ask of a sighted friend, “is she pretty?”, is he “handsome”.
Of course, never having been blind, I hardly ever gave thought to smell in my own relationships. On the other hand, smell aside, you still do have all those other factors available to you in which to react to others.