We all have an impact on each other. An influence, a change, a force or a lack of it, an impulse or a repulse. If we do something to someone it changes something about them. If we don't do something to someone, it fails to change something about them, thereby causing a non-change. We have contact and non-contact. Every mode has two ways, either way it brings forth an outcome. What is so interesting about this is that the decision to cause a change or a non-change is bestowed on us.
I like to think we make our own life. We choose choices, we voice voices. It’s like a restaurant menu, there are so many things to choose, to try and there’s a limit to what you can order. It always a new restaurant, you haven’t really tried food here before so you don’t know what really tastes good. You go with good old “trial and error” methodologies and hope that it ideally leads you somewhere you’d prefer it to. Ultimately a goal is reached; call it “the great appetite being fulfilled”. There are two ways after this too, maybe there will be a next time when you arrive and try something new out of the menu. Maybe you won’t end up coming to the place at all. Let’s just dismiss this with “hopefully you will make it again”. So there’s a cause and effect theory. We make a choice and eventually the choice leads us somewhere. Eventually, the choice makes us.
Now let’s combine both phenomena, an ability to bring change, and a choice to define what kind of a change it will be. Preferably a good choice so that if we don’t get to visit the great restaurant again, we always cherish the first choice we made.
A simple design with compliance to reasoning analogized with positions of others. An understanding way to treat others. A non "tit for tat" method. A good life. A life lead with nights full of good sleep. You know what they say, you can't sleep on an empty stomach. Now, who would wanna sleep on an empty stomach, right?
A few lines to effectuate the point (from a previous poem of mine)
A choice eludes, deludes with insights. A voice felt, not heard, incites. A path to take, and walk steady through Another to forsake, forget, disapprove
A choice for the disillusioned mind A poem for the shaky, suspicious kind A choice, a bad choice, be there one? Oh choice, you good to anyone?
An alternate reality, I now await But making choices is not my trait. I wish this would be over soon As I close my eyes, I sleep at noon.
A choice, a choice, this eternal voice, A choice, no sorrows or regrets, nor joys I don’t want to look back, after I take I realize, I am, what choice I make.
****
I wrote this all in about 10 minutes and I haven't checked for typos since its 2 a.m. here and I feel I must go to bed now. Please bear with me.
life is a waste of time, time is a waste of life so get wasted all the time and have the time of your life -Michelle Mastrolacasa
Posts: 3196 | Location: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: 06-26-03
quote:Originally posted by D_w: We all have an impact on each other. An influence, a change, a force or a lack of it, an impulse or a repulse. If we do something to someone it changes something about them. If we don't do something to someone, it fails to change something about them, thereby causing a non-change. We have contact and non-contact. Every mode has two ways, either way it brings forth an outcome. What is so interesting about this is that the decision to cause a change or a non-change is bestowed on us.
Hey, I like the way your mind turns and twists an idea around. Okay, I'm following your logic, and I have a follow-up question: Is it possible, if we "don't do something to someone else", we succeed in changing something about him? I ask because in psychology there's something called "fading". For example, if my dawg jumps on me to get attention, praise, etc. and I instead turn my back on him and ignore him, his bad behavior, jumping, will eventually be extinguished and then cease (at least that's the way it's supposed to work in theory) -- especially if I positively reward him instead when I catch him quietly sitting. Now, when the former jumper sees me and wants attention, he sits attentively at my feet. He's "doing something" to me in order to get praise. (Bright pets do that.... borrow hooman logic and use it on us as a kind of poetic justice!)
Sorry your essay's been neglected for so long..... I think it could be made stronger with more specific examples. The restaurant example wasn't quite clear to me. You had written:
quote:You go with good old “trial and error” methodologies and hope that it ideally leads you somewhere you’d prefer it to.... We make a choice and eventually the choice leads us somewhere. Eventually, the choice makes us.
Ask yourself..... why did "you" choose the old tried and true first and not some novel dish never tasted before? Why did your brother sitting across the table scorn an "old tried and true" choice and instead opt for a dish he'd never tasted? Somehow it seems personality influences our preferences and vice versa.
Airedale
------------------------------ It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. ~ CS Lewis, Weight of Glory
I am honoured that you responded to my prose! I always look forwards to your replies because they are special, they almost have something spiritual about them. Maybe you are closer to God than I am
I agree, we can change something by not doing something. Human behaviour isn't predictable, and that "non-change" in itself is a change. IMHO, logic shouldn't be used to describe human behaviour because logic almost has a relativity, a linearity to it. It makes you expect (in total theory) and I don't see it making a great deal of sense. (I hope Ladon, if he should read this, doesn't mis-interpret what I say. I am too young to die)
So, yes, about your follow-up question, I do agree we can suceed in changing something by not doing something. Actually, that is exactly what I meant by the "non-change" mention I made.
quote:Ask yourself..... why did "you" choose the old tried and true first and not some novel dish never tasted before?
I don't choose the tried and tested. That is exactly what trial and error brings about. You don't know what to expect, you try something and sometimes it brings about desirable results, sometimes it doesn't.
All I want to imply is how we play our tiny little roles in everyday life and make the world go around. Everyone looks so insignificant, yet everyone is so significant. When playing our role, if we are careful about things, we end up saving a lot of heart shattering and in the long run, it could (and I am being hopeful) bring about some change, however insignificant it may be.
Thank you for your insight, it is muchly appreciated
~Dee
life is a waste of time, time is a waste of life so get wasted all the time and have the time of your life -Michelle Mastrolacasa
Posts: 3196 | Location: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: 06-26-03
Okay, I'm following your logic, and I have a follow-up question: Is it possible, if we "don't do something to someone else", we succeed in changing something about him? I ask because in psychology there's something called "fading". For example, if my dawg jumps on me to get attention, praise, etc. and I instead turn my back on him and ignore him, his bad behavior, jumping, will eventually be extinguished and then cease (at least that's the way it's supposed to work in theory) -- especially if I positively reward him instead when I catch him quietly sitting. Now, when the former jumper sees me and wants attention, he sits attentively at my feet. He's "doing something" to me in order to get praise. (Bright pets do that.... borrow hooman logic and use it on us as a kind of poetic justice!) 
