Autonomy and Life

We know transcendence. Love’s chemicals send us soaring. Under their spell, we wing above the humdrum and find enchantment in a world no different than it was before.

Put our lives in danger and we know transcendence, too, thanks to the autonomic nervous system going into overdrive. More chemicals. Nothing lazy, quarrelsome, or conceited stops us then. Pumped, we rise above our usual habits and meet the demand.

We also go beyond our immediate selves when a pivotal interview demands that we rise to the occasion. Or when team spirit, or a paycheck, or the promise of our name in lights force discipline. Or when we’ve had it up-to-here, but keep our anger in check.
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We had our eye on the Scoreboard, not on our autonomy. In fact, we watched it carefully and it watched us, whether we comply with its commands in a low profile way à la Bohemia or a high profile conspicuous consumption way. Adamant that it has the real lowdown, and monopoly, on success, the Scoreboard’s propaganda and ads are everywhere. We learned about Scoreboarding from others, of course, and from movies, newspapers, magazines, television, the Internet, from the front of tee shirts and artfully placed designer labels.

Blitzed, bedazzled, bedecked, we could have been billboards ourselves. Think about the brands we buy and display; the taste, style, image and opinion we like to represent; the profiles we create for our social networks; the resumes we present to establish ourselves and the blurbs we write for alumni publications.

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One would think there’d be no shortage of information about the right stuff that human beings like to know, and need to know. But about the significant place the good fight has in our lives, there is little data of import. Just how disappointing, meaningless and unfair life is remains a problem to be solved. Especially now.

Of course, much of this discontent is covered up. We, ourselves, have probably been conditioned to look as if we’ve sucked it up, so to speak. Looks are only skin deep, however, and the problem persists. And what about the circumstance that leaves millions of us ill-prepared, by dint of birth and/or limited opportunity, to prevail in the challenge that life is? If we have even a shred of conscience, we feel the moral obligation to endure, to stand up and be counted, to make it matter that we lived at all.

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During the long march from creature to culture, always at play and usually dominating the play is the rivalrous impulse. We are born with it, bred to it, conditioned by it and rewarded for it.  We are also saddled with it, subject to it, undone by it and, as illustrated by Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, punished for it.

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Life is not fair. And we suffer for it.

These are not the best of times. Further, intelligence, talent, opportunity, energy, sex appeal and luck are not equally distributed. Millions live in conditions too impoverished to pretend that they have access to any of life’s bounty. Even efforts to level the playing field are unfair, subject to shifting circumstances, partisan politics and the cold hard facts of recession and unemployment.

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Not now, but before now, we could think that a beginner’s mind was possible. Drawing on our autonomy, we could empty our minds. Get ahead of the rails we ride. Listen up. And approach new ideas without preconceptions or false posits. Now we know better. We know too much about biology, history and language. The great mass of intelligences that keep us humming can’t easily be set aside. We’re already in deep, real deep. Patterned. Habituated.

Still, stopped short by the crisis-at-hand and by the certainties it felled, a new vantage point—a new discipline—may appeal, enlighten, inspire. Such a discipline would address the demands of autonomy, and the place that it has in our lives.

Said another way, it would address fighting the good fight. (more…)

Stormy days are upon us. These are volatile frightening times. We find ourselves in a global crisis that also hits very close to home.

Much more than our place on the Scoreboard is at stake. Because how we weather this storm will show if we’re made of the right stuff. If we’re real. Or if we’re shallow. If we have heart. Soul. Character.

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