One of the many ongoing themes here is philosophy. Philosophia is Greek for love of wisdom. In this pursuit I think we should find ourselves at all times, but this here will probably be enough for today. There's branches of "Philosophy" that are interesting and pertinent to today, but not necessary to discuss one of my personal buddhas: Bruce Lee. Some things I say here could have lead the initiated to the conclusion that I think Bruce Lee was everything we should try and emulate, which is kind of interesting considering what he had to say on the matter: "We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us! We are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay." Simply put, standing on the shoulders of giants means you're not alone.
Solitude is a place I've come to know intimately. I think it is actually the only place where you can get any real self reflection done. You can quiet out the other voices, silence the weariness in your soul, and focus on learning yourself. Socrates, another philosopher, said "the unexamined life is not worth living." He's right but it's also impossible not to examine your life from time to time. It's learning and almost everyone is capable of growth, it's whether we do it or not that makes the difference.
This type of growth is inevitable but if we embrace it, truly magical things can happen. Everyone's journey is unique and as far as I can tell, everyone's journey is uniquely fascinating. What we need to do in an ideal scenario is to stand on those shoulders to get us to the next plateau where there's firm ground in which to set our own roots. Using the wisdom of the past to guide our minds and hands towards the future is what I so eloquently stated in another post was (paraphrasing) "old fucks that were only half full of shit arguing with each other and occasionally finding a nugget of truth."
In order to receive any of this wisdom, we need to be receptive and open to the journey. I can remember plenty of times where I've known better and did the "wrong" thing anyways. It's maybe a bit of insanity, but it's inherently human. We try and we fail and we fail some more until we eventually figure it out. Every once in a while someone slips in a pile of shit and comes out smelling like roses, metaphorically, but human history is mostly a series of failures marked periodically by some great success. Someone wrote about this stuff, I want to say Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point but I don't think that work encompasses what I'm talking about here. Human successes are paradigm shifts in collective thinking and action, human failures are everyday occurrences.
The biggest issue with examining our lives for growth is that we need to wade through all the shit. How do we know what works and what doesn't unless we have a ton of experience to compare it with? Examining our lives also helps with putting things into long term memory, keeping those nuggets and holding on to them and eventually forming them into something bigger and better, a more fuller you. This is why a lot of old timers have huge personalities. They seen so much shit that even if they didn't want to personally grow, they had no choice just by inadvertent examination. It's possible to achieve such great heights of personality much younger, though.
When we examine our lives and grow from our mistakes, that's the action of life. I've always thought certain words were implicit verbs, like life and love. They imply action in the idea of them. Growth is an achievement of the self: "Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of self. We are proud when we identify ourselves with an imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body of possessions. There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is insensitive and uncompromising. The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection."
We don't need to look anywhere for guidance other than our own selves. When we identify too strongly with someone or another, we pick things up from them. They should influence you because they do influence you but they should not guide your actions. If you need to break the hearts of short, dark haired vixens because you prefer to drink than to live and love, then you should probably take a look at that. I never followed the actions of any one great person, I tried on as many as I could but eventually found that nothing fits quite like bespoke.
When you do something on your own, even if it winds up getting destroyed, no one can take the achievement from you. You still accomplished something you can feel good about and it is uniquely your own. We should be mindful of that which great people do but still strive for our own greatness. The river of life is much like any other. Occasionally, it can flood and overflow the banks because something tries to stop the flow.
"When, for whatever reason, self-esteem is unattainable, the autonomous individual becomes a highly explosive entity. He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride — the explosive substitute for self-esteem. All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in a crisis of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavors in which the masses most readily unite [are] basically a search for pride." The issue then becomes the allure, the easy and enticing sense of false strength, which of course, is weakness. If everyone is doing a thing, you don't have to think as hard to determine whether or not that thing is good. You assume (lazily) that someone else did the necessary research and thought and you join in the cause, thereby further strengthening the facade of the weakness. Essentially, it's form over function. It's a surface, when scratched, shows darkness and vanity.
I think Bruce Lee has more to say about some of the results of this thinking. He's more eloquent than I in the following interview:
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