To criticize oneself
The headline can mean many things.
The word "oneself" can be interpreted in many ways.
Is oneself the acts that I do?
Or is it the interaction with the environment, as people, animals, nature and material stuff.
Or is oneself some kind of core in oneself, a "me" or a soul.
There may be no steady soul in oneself.
There may be no me at all.
If we listen an old thinker as Heraclitus, everything is fluid. Like water. You cannot put your foot in the same river twice. Even the foot will change a little bit. And a person can change as time goes by.
If we have no core, change can be fundamental.
Sam Harris, the journalist who tried and liked meditation, puts it like this;
Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system - learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention - may radically transform one's life.
Maybe paradoxically, or maybe not, he admits that he has lost his belief in free will.
As I see it, free will may be overrated. But we may have some free will if we have a look at our thoughts and desires, for instance in meditation.
We cannot stop "our" thoughts from coming; we cannot stop liking some kind of food, and disliking some other food. We cannot change the way we look at, for example, different colors. We may be drawn to some and reject some, though it may change in time.
We are, in some way, programmed to have different feelings.
Many of us, for example, have some ambiguous feelings about Muslims. Even if they aren't religious at all.
We read a lot and follow the news about terrorism, and people who are worry about it is often interviewed.
We read less about statistics that show that very few in the west nowadays are killed by terrorists. Some decades ago many more where killed by organisations like IRA and ETA.
So we may have freedom if we study facts.
But we are also guided by our feelings, and we cannot control them either.
But if we have no core, as many believes, we may have feelings that contradicts themselves. At least
I have.
Feelings may be inherited from our early childhood, may be sent our from our parents to us. Neither our parents had any control over their feelings.
So feelings, like fear, may not be personal, but made up by the environment, by media or maybe inherited from ancestors by the help of the genes.
Sam Harris again;
Losing the belief in a free will has not made me fatalistic - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, my fears and my neurosis seem less personal and indelible.
(Free Will - 2012)
So to criticize oneself, as many of us do, may not help as "oneself" is interrelated with so many components, so it may be impossible to describe what we really are.
But we can look at our anguish and fears like dreams; they may fade away like dreams do:
The word "oneself" can be interpreted in many ways.
Is oneself the acts that I do?
Or is it the interaction with the environment, as people, animals, nature and material stuff.
Or is oneself some kind of core in oneself, a "me" or a soul.
There may be no steady soul in oneself.
There may be no me at all.
If we listen an old thinker as Heraclitus, everything is fluid. Like water. You cannot put your foot in the same river twice. Even the foot will change a little bit. And a person can change as time goes by.
If we have no core, change can be fundamental.
Sam Harris, the journalist who tried and liked meditation, puts it like this;
Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system - learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention - may radically transform one's life.
Maybe paradoxically, or maybe not, he admits that he has lost his belief in free will.
As I see it, free will may be overrated. But we may have some free will if we have a look at our thoughts and desires, for instance in meditation.
We cannot stop "our" thoughts from coming; we cannot stop liking some kind of food, and disliking some other food. We cannot change the way we look at, for example, different colors. We may be drawn to some and reject some, though it may change in time.
We are, in some way, programmed to have different feelings.
Many of us, for example, have some ambiguous feelings about Muslims. Even if they aren't religious at all.
We read a lot and follow the news about terrorism, and people who are worry about it is often interviewed.
We read less about statistics that show that very few in the west nowadays are killed by terrorists. Some decades ago many more where killed by organisations like IRA and ETA.
So we may have freedom if we study facts.
But we are also guided by our feelings, and we cannot control them either.
But if we have no core, as many believes, we may have feelings that contradicts themselves. At least
I have.
Feelings may be inherited from our early childhood, may be sent our from our parents to us. Neither our parents had any control over their feelings.
So feelings, like fear, may not be personal, but made up by the environment, by media or maybe inherited from ancestors by the help of the genes.
Sam Harris again;
Losing the belief in a free will has not made me fatalistic - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, my fears and my neurosis seem less personal and indelible.
(Free Will - 2012)
So to criticize oneself, as many of us do, may not help as "oneself" is interrelated with so many components, so it may be impossible to describe what we really are.
But we can look at our anguish and fears like dreams; they may fade away like dreams do:
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