Autonomy and Life

Transcendence—it is ours to have, to hold, to put into play, as affinity, hope and strength. As substance, grit and determination, and as the willpower, control and discipline that give rise to influence, leadership and contribution. At the heart of autonomy, transcendence gives each of us the sovereign power to create and renew, to redeem and liberate and to bring to bear and sustain. Total peace of mind. (more…)

Instincts, feelings and conditioning live in biology and pressure the subjective character of each moment of our lives. At the behest of a mass of chemicals, we can feel up. Or down. Scared or comfortable. Hungry or satiated. Immediacy is the name I have given to this process. It happens to us in just the way that it does—involuntarily, uncontrollably and reflexively, without any initial mediation or intervention.
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Creatures high and low are driven by their rivalrous instincts. But this doesn’t mean we realize that it was rivalry that got us to dress up, build cars, freeways and GPS systems and to drink good wines. In fact, though it is creature-to-creature rivalry all the way down, the modern form of rivalry prefers that we hide our animal natures and we do. Nonetheless, whether it is blatantly on display or transparent in the background, rivalry makes the world go round. However, rivalry-in-the-raw, along with its hijacking of will and cognition, make for an anxious life wherein Scoreboarding is the name of the game and envy is the prize.

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Yes, these are difficult times. Many of us, for many reasons, are angry, disgruntled, fed up. As a result, we become marks for those who know how to exploit the human creature’s antagonistic impulse. What we may not recognize, though, when we join forces with the mass voice is this: A programmed voice, a voice that parrots, is not a strong, thoughtful voice of our own making. We don’t have to think when we join forces with the mass voice.

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Old “sins” such as envy, greed, anger, gluttony and sloth are neither routinely denounced nor necessarily avoided, at least in this country. But this doesn’t mean that displays of polarizing moral outrage aren’t prevalent. In many arenas, quick and dirty, disruptive accusation has replaced the hard work of process, negotiation, diplomacy and reconciliation.

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In a previous post, I said that half of us want to live the unexamined life, assimilating into the culture, and half of us want to write our own marching orders. It’s not so easy, though, to be an original, to bring to bear the autonomy of self-command. How we have already been determined and shaped by the cultural impress resists our efforts to be other than the relentlessly acquisitive-of-stuff individuals by which the metaphorical Scoreboard now grades us. Its end-all and be-all: to rank our merit based on its evaluation of the worth of the money we have and the stuff we buy.

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Though the proverbial “the world is going to hell in a handbasket,” rings true often enough, we can’t sidle over to the dark side or wring our hands. We have work to do: a planet to (re)green; relationships to manage and grow; social expectations to satisfy; care, compassion and concern to give; hurdles to jump; disappointments to tolerate; and hope to herald. Each of these requires substance—of heart and soul and mind. So, we put our attention on this substance, its wisdom, its practices and its restraints. (more…)

We are typically endowed with enough, if not more than enough, willfulness. Humans are born to this trait, an ancient, reflexive, hard-wired response to being in the world. It’s undisciplined and without conscience. Its primitive ruthlessness drives those who would use any means possible, i.e., corruption, exploitation, cruelty, to get what they’re (also) driven to want. We see its evidence everywhere. It’s a blight upon our peopled world and an insoluble stain upon our planet.

The rest of us, educated to a conscience and a persistent fascination with the possibility of living a purposed life, want to stamp our will or make our mark upon the world, too. Despite all the privileges to which we are heir, we are well aware of how much of life is muddled, unpredictable, threatening, confrontational and for one reason or another, often just disappointing. (more…)

Half of us want to live the unexamined life, assimilating easily into the culture, the conventions and the perks of the time. And half don’t. We want to write our own marching orders, to look and ponder, to surmise and re-evaluate.

It’s not so easy, though, to be an original, to create a life of your own design, to parse, weight and scale where and how you can best contribute. Whether you’ve always had in mind this intention—and even see it as an obligation or, startled, realized that too much of your life “just happened,” there’s much to think about, plan for and do. (more…)

We see things as WE are, not as THEY are. This recognition is key to success with creating a life of our own design. Why? Because the ability to envision, evaluate, assess, project and correct, etc., is remarkably and extensively determined by our subjectivity. Let me tell you what I mean. (And please don’t be distracted by the detail in the next couple of paragraphs. The turning point is just sentences away!) (more…)