How do we really view the world as individuals? We have our common spoken languages which we use to label the items of the world and share with others. We have our individual emotions that color our actions and reactions to objects, people and events. We have our desire which drives us toward or away from situations or objects that create pleasure or induce pain. Even though we all think we speak the same languages and understand how everyone else conceives the world, in all its different objects and facets, we don’t. Each person breaks the world into their own version of the truth, split into a countless array of ideas and thoughts. We may all perceive the same, but never, ever do we conceive the same.
Truth is we all speak the language of multiplicity, each person defining the world around them, different in infinite ways from everyone else. Multiplicity is the language of confusion and is the cause of most all our problems and suffering in this world. It is a language with no dictionary, no standard references, no translations and no enduring commonality. It’s a language we each create separately, that is constantly changing and rearranging the world. It is the language of the small mind, created for only 1 user.
As our world has modernized over the last 3 millennium, the vastness of the separation of objects has grown at breakneck speed. This labeling is no doubt necessary to exist in our everyday modern lives, but I see our pitfall is that most of us forget what we think is not truth, but only the shadow of truth. We forget the world isn’t seen, heard or felt the same by everyone else and yet we are so quick to judge others by how they see and act to the world around them. Perhaps, it not that we need to stop this language, but just understand it is a merely a representation of the world around us?
Yes! The world is complicated.
ReplyDeleteWe know, if only from the past, that our conception of the world necessarily comes from warped perceptions that the future will, to some degree, correct.
We can hope that how we see the world is consistant, fair and balanced -- and not psychotic.
Then, the problem becomes one of believing our POV is higher, more universal, more tolerant, more serene. And we suffer the vanity of believing we've discarded vanity.
[Yowza, this comment is spiffy!]
LOL Very true Tom, I guess we all want to be noticed. I think changing our vanity is a bit like changing the color of our skin.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is a mighty spiffy comment indeed! :-)
There is a word in German Umwelt which means literally "one world" and the idea of it is that we each inhabit a private experiential world that cannot in any way be shared with another. The many facets that contribute to the Umwelt cannot be duplicated in another person. One could find this isolating (as a lot of German philosophers have) or one could find some level of delight in all the uniquenesses of the world and know from a Buddhist perspective once this Umwelt is "broken" and reality as it is is experienced that "loneliness" is not really an issue at all. And communication and understanding become possible in ways that had not been before considered or more aptly the reality of all communications becomes apparent upon the dissolution of the aggregates of this Umwelt (ego).
ReplyDeleteNellaLou - That is excellent, I had no idea about Umwelt. I do believe many, non-Buddhist philosophers have hinted at the oneness of all things, but never quite commit.
ReplyDeleteBTW, you are an excellent writer and have a very eloquent writing style. :-)