Life Identification

[Dglgmut]

In Atlas Shrugged Rand made reference to the idea that people do not value their lives, and that this is sort of the root of the collectivist mentality. I think I finally understand how this is and the reason for it. I put this in "Epistemology" because it is an error in identification, I believe, that gives people the excuse that life is not so important that it should be taken seriously.

Spiritual people believe that life is simply the time that passes before they move on to their next stage of existence, or perhaps a test in order to enter into some sort of paradise in an afterlife. There's not much hope in changing a person's mind about an afterlife... it's up to them to start being honest with themselves. However, there are also many who will claim that they believe our time on earth is all we have... however, they simply don't think about death because it's unpleasant.

The nonacceptance of a finite existence is the real problem here. You can't realistically think about life without thinking about death; it's like trying to imagine a shape without a border. When people deny the fact of their own mortality, they think of life as something that it's not...

The fear of prioritizing and of making choices that crops up in Rand's novels is most devastating when it comes to one's own life course. If we don't acknowledge death, we don't have to see life as something very important, which it ought to be considered by everyone. And it relieves people to not have to think... but it's like any other instance of poor planning... If you get an eviction notice, you can pretend for two months that everything's fine, and then suddenly when all you're stuff is on the front lawn the shit will the fan.... or you can go out and start looking for a new place so that never happens.

Once in a while, everyone will think of life as finite, because reality cannot be ignored completely, and in those moments, it's gotta painful to know you're wasting your life because you don't want to take it seriously...

Rand talked about children having a sense of life that generally fades away as they enter adulthood. Kids don't learn about death for a while, so they do not need to think about death in order to make their lives seem important. However, the reason they appreciate life is because it is still linear to them. They see it as a progression... where as most adults see it as a blob that just sits there.

Anyway, just felt like writing this out because it just hit me yesterday that this is a big thing. You can't think about life without thinking about death...

[Xray]

Rand talked about children having a sense of life that generally fades away as they enter adulthood. Kids don't learn about death for a while, so they do not need to think about death in order to make their lives seem important. However, the reason they appreciate life is because it is still linear to them. They see it as a progression... where as most adults see it as a blob that just sits there.

Anyway, just felt like writing this out because it just hit me yesterday that this is a big thing. You can't think about life without thinking about death...

I don't think children's joy of life has to do with linear thinking on their part. It has more to do with their life drive being so strong; they live mostly in the moment and cannot yet fully grasp the fact of their own finiteness.

My dog enjoys life too and it won't t ever be able to form a concept of its own finiteness.

where as most adults see it [life] as a blob that just sits there.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "blob that just sits there".

"Just sits there" has a connotation of immobility that I don't associate with life at all. What I connote with life is permanent motion and transformation.

[Dglgmut]

I can't find the quote, but Rand said something along the lines of, "The love of life people remember from their childhood isn't because of what life was, but because of what life promised to be."

It's probably not worded anything close to that, but the gist of it's there. I agree with this idea fully.

Your dog is not as smart as a child. Sorry. And the child's "life drive" as you call it can be explained by what Rand said... they see life as a linear progression. They are excited because things can only get better.

I say most adults see life as non-linear and stagnant because they can't really imagine anymore that their lives had a beginning. It just seems like it's unconditionally there, and for no apparent reason.

Acknowledging the finiteness of life makes it all the more important, which is a good thing. There's a difference between being pessimistic and being realistic, and being realistic is more useful than being irrationally optimistic.

...Actually, though, after thinking about it more, I still probably don't understand what makes life seem unimportant to anyone...

Just to clarify things for myself: All we have is time.

[Dglgmut]

Ok, so our time is not guaranteed to us, and that is perhaps what is going unacknowledged. It's not so much the importance of the time, but the importance of how one uses that time.

Sorry for unraveling my thoughts here.

[anthony]

(Unravel away, Calvin) ;)

The child knows something that the adult has forgotten, or renounced, I believe.

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like

a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

[1 Corinthians]

Why, but for expectations of society, would we do this?

Thinking and reasoning must evolve, but the drive behind it - 'childish' -

should not change.

Rand often tapped in to that childish innocence and wonder, didn't she?

[Dglgmut]

Tony,

I think it is because they still have a sense of a beginning. Adults are not aware of a beginning or an end to life, most of the time. Unless they consciously choose to think about death, they are distracted from the "shape" of their lives.

A shape without a boundary isn't anything, and I think it may be similar to look at life without noticing those boundaries.

However, you mention the ought/is dichotomy from time to time, and I think it's a good, though tricky to grasp, point. The purpose of life seems to be to do what you have to do as well as you can.

We don't have a choice of what we have to do, and for that reason, it is not enough to say that, "Time is all we have." On top of time, we have the option to prolong the experience. And on top of that, the things we do to prolong the experience generally make us happy for natural reasons.

So we do not simply have a chunk of time to live and the option to spend it as we like, we also have a list of things that we ought to do to stay alive. These things go unnoticed by children and adults alike when they live a coddled existence (like many of us do--though the choice to learn is always there).

A sense of self-preservation is natural, but people can be convinced that the responsibility to fulfill such desires is not theirs. God will make them immortal, or perhaps the desire is better harnessed to pursue a humble existence of self-sacrifice (which will bring happiness!!).

One thing I'm definitely sure of is that people generally do not want to accept responsibility for their own happiness. This may be why I started thinking about death... maybe it's not the "shape" of life that they're missing, but the sense of privacy. Thinking of death can bring into perspective the uniqueness and separateness of our experience on earth.

Or maybe it's not even possible to think about death... We can't conceptualize non-existence. Maybe it's just thinking about the future and about a progression (even a downward progression)... Maybe it's simply choices and responsibility on their own that make people shudder. They'd rather sit in the "lazy river" of life, than be free to conquer (or just challenge) the ocean--or what have you.

[anthony]

Tony, I think it is because they still have a sense of a beginning. Adults are not aware of a beginning or an end to life, most of the time. Unless they consciously choose to think about death, they are distracted from the "shape" of their lives. A shape without a boundary isn't anything, and I think it may be similar to look at life without noticing those boundaries. However, you mention the ought/is dichotomy from time to time, and I think it's a good, though tricky to grasp, point. The purpose of life seems to be to do what you have to do as well as you can. We don't have a choice of what we have to do, and for that reason, it is not enough to say that, "Time is all we have." On top of time, we have the option to prolong the experience. And on top of that, the things we do to prolong the experience generally make us happy for natural reasons. So we do not simply have a chunk of time to live and the option to spend it as we like, we also have a list of things that we ought to do to stay alive. These things go unnoticed by children and adults alike when they live a coddled existence (like many of us do--though the choice to learn is always there). A sense of self-preservation is natural, but people can be convinced that the responsibility to fulfill such desires is not theirs. God will make them immortal, or perhaps the desire is better harnessed to pursue a humble existence of self-sacrifice (which will bring happiness!!). One thing I'm definitely sure of is that people generally do not want to accept responsibility for their own happiness. This may be why I started thinking about death... maybe it's not the "shape" of life that they're missing, but the sense of privacy. Thinking of death can bring into perspective the uniqueness and separateness of our experience on earth. Or maybe it's not even possible to think about death... We can't conceptualize non-existence. Maybe it's just thinking about the future and about a progression (even a downward progression)... Maybe it's simply choices and responsibility on their own that make people shudder. They'd rather sit in the "lazy river" of life, than be free to conquer (or just challenge) the ocean--or what have you.

After a while of thinking about this, I can't come up with anything very new to address your concerns.

Art and science have worried the subject - well - to death.

We, here, don't allow ourselves the self-indulgence of wishing things away.

To be self-responsible about living, implies being absolutely honest with ourselves about death.

All that occurs to me is that each one these few 7 billion of us alive, by a long process of causality and against astronomical odds, has seemingly been snatched from non-existence. Nothing else, but we gotta appreciate that. But, again, you know that as well as I.

---------

Later-

Calvin, you bring up the is-ought false dichotomy, and write: "The purpose

of life seems to be to do what you have to do as well as you can. We don't

have a choice of what we have to do, and for that reason, it is not enough

to say that "Time is all we have.""

First, 'is-ought' does not pre-determine our actions. It simply requires

that we act according to our identity. One part of our identity is volition.

Quite apt here, is my own experience at a memorial service for somebody,

a lady I was very fond of - married to an ex-colleague of mine - just last week.

The Methodist pastor/minister (?) began some general statements about life, and as I was about to 'switch off', he suddenly got my attention. "We are, and our lives are", he said, "the sum total of every choice and decision we ever make - no matter how small."

He developed this theme, to the extent he got me thinking - this guy's been studying Objectivism! It was a fine service.

We do have a choice, and every one of which opens up more choices.

Lastly, I would instead say "Time - and consciousness - is all we have." They are both

plenty enough, I think.

[Dglgmut]

After thinking about this a bit more my brain's made some connections.

I made this thread a little bit after reading the foreword to We The Living. In the foreword Rand refers to a passage spoken by Irina regarding the characters thoughts on life. The question she raises is basically: For what reason do people not use their lives as their standard of value?

Rand says afterwards that it was not until AS that she was able to fully answer that question, and I think it may revolve around original sin.

AS was the first of her works that I read, and I'm sure I will take a lot more out of it, especially Galt's speech, next time around. That being said, I don't remember a comprehensive answer to that question.

Whose life is it? There is a massive difference between "life" and "my life". Imagine, there's the saying, "That's life;" as if life is a giant collective pot from which we are all served the same slop.

The trouble with living for oneself is the problem of self-esteem. When people speak about self-worth, I realize that it is primarily relevant to one's worthiness of life. Are you worth being lived for?

People who do not deem themselves worthy look for a greater cause -- society or God (as Rand covered thoroughly in Galt's speech). The irony of this is that they expect fulfillment of their service to a "great" cause to bring them happiness, when the choice to serve such a cause in the first place was based on their evaluation that they were not worthy of happiness.

Thoughts of owning my own life naturally connected to what George was talking about in that other thread, that being Rothbard's principle (axiom?) of self-ownership, which seems very attractive to me.

---

In reply to Tony, when I say "have to do," I mean it quite literally. We have to act to survive, but what is required from us on bare minimum can be extended based on our living conditions.

So the "is" is our basic needs. The "ought" is us fulfilling those needs as best we can, not just the bare minimum (in the context of what I said).

I don't have to push myself very hard to achieve the bare minimum, and I'll derive little happiness from attaining it.

People think after they've gotten what they need to live, the rest is experience. They focus the rest of their time on "spending" their lives, rather than building them up. It's like saving money and spending it... there's a dichotomy: "I need to earn money because I ought to spend money. Because spending money brings happiness, not earning it..."

"I need to spend money, so I ought to earn it," is the right way to look at it. We like having things to do, we like challenges. However, we are so disconnected from what we need, because so many contributions have been made throughout history that it's hard to distinguish the amount of work still going into our lives.

People don't make the connection between work and life, because it's been covered up... and work has lost it's natural value to younger people because it doesn't seem necessary. In fact, my past socialist sentiments were precisely because of this thinking. "We've already done so much as a species, why the hell are we still working so much?" Obviously government intervention has completely distorted the benefits of free markets, but aside from that, it is not evident to most people that individual rights are that important, because many people feel that the government does take care of them, and so they have not had responsibility for themselves their whole lives.

Okay, I gotta stop. I know this post was all over the shop...

[BaalChatzaf]

Ok, so our time is not guaranteed to us, and that is perhaps what is going unacknowledged. It's not so much the importance of the time, but the importance of how one uses that time.

Sorry for unraveling my thoughts here.

Not only is our time not guaranteed to us, but the end of our time is. Telemeres shorten with each cell division. Cosmic rays rain down on us. We wear our parts out until they break. We die. No one is getting out of life alive. No one.

Only one thing to do. Learn not to waste the limited time we do have.

Ba'al Chatzaf