The Progression of Pondering

The Progression of Pondering

I’d like to firstly present a potent quote that I recently read in the novel I’m currently engrossed in entitled Dune and it’s written by the brilliant Frank Herbert: 

“Many have marked the speed by which Muad’dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the other, we can say that Muad’dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.”

Envision society as a celestial ball, much like our Earth, with a labyrinth of layers with an elaborate interaction between each of these layers. Within each layer is an independent level of complexity, nonetheless, each layer is reliant on the other layers to maintain a sound structure. Human society has defective or perhaps corrupt layers, but in order to manufacture the solution you mustn’t dwell on the layer as the sole perpetrator or the sole culprit. Flaws in a particular system, be that biological or societal, must be dissected and evaluated as a puzzle with many pieces, some pieces need re invigoration or improvement, but some could remain. 

I enjoy many aspects of society, generally, I’m very satisfied that I live in a colony of humans. I relish in knowing that I will not be harmed when I leave my house so long as I myself restrain from dangerous activity and I relish in the guarantee that my next meal is immediately attainable and I relish in the ability to rest and relax in a secure abode. I’d like to think that we could all harmonize and dwell in our colonies safely, but this is often not the case. There exist other, antagonistic, colonies of humans who don’t share the same fundamental characteristics: their morals are different, they’re bred and raised differently and taught to believe in different things.

Gradually, through the inevitable process of accretion, we will surpass this, so long as we maintain a reflective and responsible populace and seek to bridge the gulf between cultures by unifying our people and ideas. Kind acts begin by first understanding thyself.  A reflective person, one who inwardly explores themselves intimately and frequently, is less likely to cause harm to another person. It’s difficult, for me at least, to wish harm or verbal-affliction on another person because I have spent much time alone with myself and my own thoughts.  

 I’ve cried completely by myself, I’ve deconstructed my ego and sobbed as if I were a child. Although that’s a very personal journey, it is universal in nature. We all experience sadness whether we enjoy sharing it or hiding it. The deconstruction itself, although very crucial, is not the focus. The deconstruction process is imperative for the re-construction, and that’s where you can instigate all the change you’ve been surreptitiously formulating in your mind or you can return to your normal routines, the same ones that led to your distention.

Our brains are intricate mechanisms; the soil for ideas is often cultivated beyond our cognizant recognition, the thoughts you are thinking today, given you’re thinking creatively, were probably being forged in the depths of your mind in the days past. I, just today, had a very intimate and personal experience where I had to be by myself in order to cry due to an experience I had yesterday coupled with numerous other influences in the past which only came to fruition today. After that lengthy deconstruction, where you’re absolutely stripped of your egotistic barriers which we all harbor, the man had to take the reins and recover from the collapse. The collapse was inevitable for the re-construction and I am now a decidedly stronger person with a stronger grasp on my intentions. 

Much as every human must experience the collapse of ego and then embark on the re-discovery or re-construction, so too does society. Much as when you collapse into the emotional whirlwind of sadness, you don’t emerge as an entirely new entity, you are that same entity with a stronger grasp on your intentions, on your proclivities, on your ambitions, on your influences, on everything that comprises you. The infrastructure remains:  you’re still a habitual, hormonal ape. How you proceed with that infrastructure has been drastically re-aligned though. The healthiest way to re-construct society is not by rioting and destroying everything, which has happened in the past and in extreme cases those belligerent apes have destroyed key-pieces of intellectual property that set humanity back, forcing us to re-discover old ideas. The healthiest way for society to evolve is through accretion because unlike the forces of natural processes, we can reflect. We have hindsight and we can correct mistakes, we’re quite omnipotent in that. We’re an organism, accreted through unreflective and random processes of biological interaction, which can reflect. An unreflective universe created a reflective organism.

 Through reflection we can seek to identify the defective traits of our society and seek the solution. The solution to problems is often multi-faceted and layered though. I’ll give a personal example to illustrate this. I initially wanted to write this blog because I thought the youth, on a general level, were not thoughtful enough and was not contemplating the future consequences of present actions. This stems from my fundamental belief that you cannot change the world but you can most certainly change the way you yourself live and influence others.

So, I wanted to share my ideas and offer some practical tools, well how do you that most effectively? On the surface it’s a simple sentiment but it harbors intricate implications. First, you have to write daily and you have to write for lengthy periods of time, so there I had to foster an entirely new habit, catering my supplementary tendencies to writing. What I do outside of writing must not detract from my ability to write. Writing is also far from facile too, writing requires tremendous ability: the ability to reflect, the ability to amalgamate copious influences into a single idea, the ability to convey your idea in your unique voice… Then, I had to start studying as well because you need the proper information in order to convey the sentiment you wish to convey. Then again, my life had to adapt to that activity so that when I choose to study I can do so with attentive thoughtfulness. As well, I needed a medium to present my expositions through; ideas deserve dissemination, so I had to create an entire blog around my ideas and advertise it and ensure it’s interesting enough to engross readers. You can imagine the implications of that, it becomes quite a job. Additional to all this, you can’t seclude yourself in your room and write until your fingers fall off, you need to then learn to convey your ideas vocally and concisely so that you can quickly transmit your idea. You don’t have the luxury of an empty word-document and unlimited time when you’re interacting with someone face-to-face. So, hopefully that illustrated the intricate nature of any undertaking, although it does go deeper, for the sake of brevity I’ll end it at that.

It’s brilliant that people are aware of how defective and faulty our system is, don’t misinterpret me, awareness is absolutely vital. Awareness is not the sole component of change though, how you utilize that awareness is also present in the equation of change. Let’s say you realize how defective our educational system is and then feel compelled to tell people: “School only manufactures cogs to feed the machine.” Well, that’s brilliant, yes, indeed, it does. But is it correctable? Do you understand how and why our system is defective? Where does it begin? Are we bred to mindlessly contribute to a system during infancy? If so, does that begin through the educational system or does that begin through inadequate parenting? Are we not allowing our youth to experience enough things that harbor lessons, when our children fall and scrape their knee do we pamper them too much? An injury must be tended, not complained about. So you can see how awareness is imperative but that awareness itself is inadequate. Whenever I recognize a defective trait in myself or in the “system,” I spend hours writing about it and systematically coming to a conclusion that suffices my mind.

 If the system is corrupt, but the system is fundamentally inter-connected to the youth, are we doing enough? Lessons are not instilled but rather garnered through personal means. Touch the stove top and then you’ll understand why to keep your hand away from it. Insult someone and handle the retaliation to understand why it’s beneficial to abstain from insults. Love someone and understand why it’s imperative to love every human – even if it’s not evidently expressed – the way you love your mate. The best way to teach a person to build a house is not by giving them a home but rather giving them the tools to make a home.

 So perhaps our educational system is not the folly, but rather our parenting methods are, perhaps we’re raising children incapable of extracting lessons from every minute influence. Personally, I grew up with little to no parental guidance, I wasn’t grounded for poor behavior or punished for the things I did. My dad, perhaps unintentionally, allowed me to suffer the consequences of my actions for myself. If I stayed up too late, the next day was mine and mine alone to suffer on an insufficient amount of sleep, so I learned the importance of sufficient sleep. If I feasted on sugar I suffered the crash. He allowed me to personally cope with the consequences of my actions, this method isn’t inscrutable or perfect by any means, and perhaps another kid would need more guidance to cultivate the ability to extract lessons; for me, it worked.