Autonomy and Life

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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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