The development of a philosophy of life is on some levels cyclic.
Computer chip design goes through successive stages of reducing the instruction set and expanding it. Organizational structure goes through a cycle of centralization and decentralization. In like fashion, I think the philosophy of life cycles through the fundamental ideas of cooperation and competition.
I think people who have a life philosophy of "it's us vs. them" usually get there by intellectually transcending the philosophy of "we're all just people."
I think people who have a life philosophy of "we're all just people" usually get there by intellectually transcending the philosophy of "it's us vs. them."
It seems like a lot of the arguments in the world come from . . . cycles like this, if not exactly this. That each side *knows* the other side is being immature and stupid, because they themselves have grown out of the other side's opinion.
The real trick, of course, is to make sure your philosophy gains depth and you learn things each time you run through the cycle. Ideally, every time you wind up back at "it's up vs. them," you've gained a little more empathy and cooperative theory; every time you cycle back to "we're all just people," you've gained a little better sense for the roots and theory of conflict.
This may not be an insight to anyone else. ^_^
I probably shouldn't worry so much about sticking to / recovering the existing monthly structure when I get sick for a few weeks. ^_^;;
I'll finish cleaning up September and then just accept that *this* month'll be a bit short. Maybe take part of next month off, too, and add an extra month to the chapter. Consider it the hazards of the medium.
The real problem is, figuring out how to smoothly integrate "ack I've been sick and flailing and now I'm better and what do I do?" *into* the medium is not something I can until I'm all the way on an even keel. I'll work on it in a week or so when I'm in smooth-sailing land again. ^_^
Ta!
(Woot! I'm making excuses in the news section for my failure to provide free material with perfect reliability! I'm a real webcomic now. ^_^)
Rebecca
I carefully packed all the gift receipts for stuff I've gotten before I moved, and now I can't find them.
Guilt: This emotion seems to mostly be annoying and frustrating and cause me to rummage through a whole bunch of boxes without getting anywhere. On the other hand, rummaging helped me find the Long Run. Contribution to my thought processes: running around looking in boxes was good exercise!
Could the person who sent me Chung Kuo please mention their name somewhere on Maps so I can review it? ^_^ I'll probably have to make another similar request next week.
Rebecca
Personally,
I'd prefer
that the threads of hate
in Christianity
and in Islam
that want folks dead
died out
and reasonable people
in both faiths
were dominant
because
killing
and hating
was
never really
what either religion
was supposed
to be
about.
And it's sad
and funny
to me
that Christians turn to hate
'cause so has Islam
and Islam
turns to hate
'cause so Christians have done.
If you have any faith
I wonder
who you think
the architect of that
might be.
I don't believe
that there's a Devil.
So I'd go
myself
with "that evil
in people
that is farthest from Grace."