Sixth Letter To Isla
Dear Isla:
In this sixth letter I will discuss adopting a personal philosophy toward life so as to provide a basis for understanding and evaluating each situation you find yourself in as you go about your daily activities against some larger, dispassionate whole. More specifically, I will discuss the essential need for viewing life as a learning process and for setting goals for oneself.
As I have said in a previous letter, to do its best work, the mind must be focused. We all understand this need in terms discrete, concrete tasks such as studying for a class, accomplishing a complex job at our work, or trying to figure out how to afford to buy an automobile or house. Few, however, understand the need to focus the mind on the larger, more abstract task how best to live life to realize the most pleasure, comfort, and security possible. As a result, most people, as Thoreau pointed out, “lead lives of quiet desperation.”
What I am saying, with 65 years of hindsight, is that I believe we members of the educated, middle class have a choice. We are free to adopt a means for imposing some degree of control over future events in our lives or we can live our life reacting to events as they come. The former decision leads, I believe, to a life with the most possible pleasure, comfort, and security; the latter to quiet desperation. (I introduce the class issue only because the uneducated poor all too often have no choice at all.)
Am I implying we can know and control the future? Absolutely. Knowing the future is merely a question of precision. We cannot, of course know, the detailed events that will occur in the future, but we can both know and select settings -- the context -- in which at least some of the detailed events will transpire. For example, if next weekend I decide to motor to Wales, much of whatever happens to me is going to happen in the context of the trip. If, on the other hand, I decide to spend the weekend at home working in the back garden, much of whatever happens in my life will happen in the context of my home and garden, which is necessarily a different set of events than if I had traveled to Wales. And so it is with everything in our life. By selecting a career, employment with a particular firm, a neighborhood in which to live, a roommate, and so on, we select settings for events that will take place in the future. It seems to me only prudent that one should consider the nature of the event-sets of the more important decisions. It also seems prudent to prepare oneself for the inevitable adversities and disappointments that await us in all actual futures. I have evolved a personal philosophy that helps guide my thinking and understanding of the events that make up my life.
I have never come across a single school of philosophy with which I agree completely. Instead, I have adopted bits and pieces from one philosophical school or another into a hodgepodge of beliefs that works for me. I will state this philosophy as a series of beliefs with the original sources of these beliefs stated in brackets.
I believe:
· Nothing can come from nothing [Epicurus]. Each of us comes into this world through the “labor” of our mother. Thus, our life itself and everything in it is the result of our own or someone else’s effort. That is not to say that hard work is always rewarded. Rather, that for any chance of reward, one must first make an effort.
· All things are in flux, in a continual state of change or state of becoming [Heraclitus]. Moreover, if left unattended, this flux tends to be negative. One’s job, one’s relationship with others, one’s health, and so on, if left alone, will deteriorate. Input effort is constantly required.
· There is no evil on earth except for individual humans. Neither nature nor fate are evil [the Stoics]. Both are indifferent to human desires and needs. All evil in the world is caused by individual humans. That being the case, we have nothing to fear and everything to hope for from the future, except that affected by humans. There is, however, nothing in human nature that makes evil in individuals inevitable [Bertrand Russell].
· We must set goals and objectives for ourselves in order to avoid being distracted by external events that fall upon us [Marcus Aurelius, probably the best known Stoic]. By setting goals toward which we direct our efforts, we not only select the context in which much of the events of the future will happen but we also provide the focus for our mind to its best work.
· To strike the right balance between ends and means is both difficult and important [Bertrand Russell]. On a personal level, in selecting goals (ends) toward which to focus our mind and effort, it is important that we chose a means of attainment that depends primarily upon our own efforts rather than upon others or on chance. It is futile, for example, to set a goal of becoming rich by means of winning a football pool because there is nothing you can do, beyond buying a ticket in the pool, to affect the outcome. In this case the goal is valid, the means is not. On the other hand, setting a goal of becoming rich by means of writing popular novels can require a lifetime of effort. In this case both the goal and means are valid, but not balanced because of the extreme effort required. A more comfortable balance can be achieved by scaling down the goal to that of merely supporting one self by writing popular novels. On a larger level, because the media does not, you must constantly remind yourself that politics, economics, and society as an organization are not ends onto themselves but only means to the goal of a good life for all.
· Forethought, which involves doing unpleasant or inconvenient things now for the sake of pleasant things in the future, is one of the most essential marks of a fully-developed, adult intellect at work [Bertrand Russell]. Forethought is difficult because it involves the control of present impulses. Yet without forethought, a mind is undisciplined and childlike, and however brilliant, cannot be relied upon.
· Upon laying down to sleep, adopt the practice of resolving in your mind, the arguments and emotional issues that may have occurred during the day. Unresolved issues in your life are a drag on both your focus and your pleasure [Bob Baker]. Don’t let them go on longer than a single day by resolving them, at least in your own mind, before you sleep the day of occurrence. That way, you will awake each morning with the thought that today is another chance to have an enjoyable and rewarding day.
The effect of adopting this philosophy is to turn your life into a learning process. By setting goals, by attempting to balance the ends with means, by facing and addressing all that happens to you, by continual making efforts to work your way toward the current goal, and through doing today that which must be done to secure tomorrow, you learn. You learn about yourself, about the important aspects of your relations with others, and about how best to proceed toward realizing the most pleasure, comfort, and security. And in so learning, you improve as an intellect and as a person. And most importantly, you enjoy each day.
With that happy thought, Isla, I will end this short letter.
Your loving Godfather,
In this sixth letter I will discuss adopting a personal philosophy toward life so as to provide a basis for understanding and evaluating each situation you find yourself in as you go about your daily activities against some larger, dispassionate whole. More specifically, I will discuss the essential need for viewing life as a learning process and for setting goals for oneself.
As I have said in a previous letter, to do its best work, the mind must be focused. We all understand this need in terms discrete, concrete tasks such as studying for a class, accomplishing a complex job at our work, or trying to figure out how to afford to buy an automobile or house. Few, however, understand the need to focus the mind on the larger, more abstract task how best to live life to realize the most pleasure, comfort, and security possible. As a result, most people, as Thoreau pointed out, “lead lives of quiet desperation.”
What I am saying, with 65 years of hindsight, is that I believe we members of the educated, middle class have a choice. We are free to adopt a means for imposing some degree of control over future events in our lives or we can live our life reacting to events as they come. The former decision leads, I believe, to a life with the most possible pleasure, comfort, and security; the latter to quiet desperation. (I introduce the class issue only because the uneducated poor all too often have no choice at all.)
Am I implying we can know and control the future? Absolutely. Knowing the future is merely a question of precision. We cannot, of course know, the detailed events that will occur in the future, but we can both know and select settings -- the context -- in which at least some of the detailed events will transpire. For example, if next weekend I decide to motor to Wales, much of whatever happens to me is going to happen in the context of the trip. If, on the other hand, I decide to spend the weekend at home working in the back garden, much of whatever happens in my life will happen in the context of my home and garden, which is necessarily a different set of events than if I had traveled to Wales. And so it is with everything in our life. By selecting a career, employment with a particular firm, a neighborhood in which to live, a roommate, and so on, we select settings for events that will take place in the future. It seems to me only prudent that one should consider the nature of the event-sets of the more important decisions. It also seems prudent to prepare oneself for the inevitable adversities and disappointments that await us in all actual futures. I have evolved a personal philosophy that helps guide my thinking and understanding of the events that make up my life.
I have never come across a single school of philosophy with which I agree completely. Instead, I have adopted bits and pieces from one philosophical school or another into a hodgepodge of beliefs that works for me. I will state this philosophy as a series of beliefs with the original sources of these beliefs stated in brackets.
I believe:
· Nothing can come from nothing [Epicurus]. Each of us comes into this world through the “labor” of our mother. Thus, our life itself and everything in it is the result of our own or someone else’s effort. That is not to say that hard work is always rewarded. Rather, that for any chance of reward, one must first make an effort.
· All things are in flux, in a continual state of change or state of becoming [Heraclitus]. Moreover, if left unattended, this flux tends to be negative. One’s job, one’s relationship with others, one’s health, and so on, if left alone, will deteriorate. Input effort is constantly required.
· There is no evil on earth except for individual humans. Neither nature nor fate are evil [the Stoics]. Both are indifferent to human desires and needs. All evil in the world is caused by individual humans. That being the case, we have nothing to fear and everything to hope for from the future, except that affected by humans. There is, however, nothing in human nature that makes evil in individuals inevitable [Bertrand Russell].
· We must set goals and objectives for ourselves in order to avoid being distracted by external events that fall upon us [Marcus Aurelius, probably the best known Stoic]. By setting goals toward which we direct our efforts, we not only select the context in which much of the events of the future will happen but we also provide the focus for our mind to its best work.
· To strike the right balance between ends and means is both difficult and important [Bertrand Russell]. On a personal level, in selecting goals (ends) toward which to focus our mind and effort, it is important that we chose a means of attainment that depends primarily upon our own efforts rather than upon others or on chance. It is futile, for example, to set a goal of becoming rich by means of winning a football pool because there is nothing you can do, beyond buying a ticket in the pool, to affect the outcome. In this case the goal is valid, the means is not. On the other hand, setting a goal of becoming rich by means of writing popular novels can require a lifetime of effort. In this case both the goal and means are valid, but not balanced because of the extreme effort required. A more comfortable balance can be achieved by scaling down the goal to that of merely supporting one self by writing popular novels. On a larger level, because the media does not, you must constantly remind yourself that politics, economics, and society as an organization are not ends onto themselves but only means to the goal of a good life for all.
· Forethought, which involves doing unpleasant or inconvenient things now for the sake of pleasant things in the future, is one of the most essential marks of a fully-developed, adult intellect at work [Bertrand Russell]. Forethought is difficult because it involves the control of present impulses. Yet without forethought, a mind is undisciplined and childlike, and however brilliant, cannot be relied upon.
· Upon laying down to sleep, adopt the practice of resolving in your mind, the arguments and emotional issues that may have occurred during the day. Unresolved issues in your life are a drag on both your focus and your pleasure [Bob Baker]. Don’t let them go on longer than a single day by resolving them, at least in your own mind, before you sleep the day of occurrence. That way, you will awake each morning with the thought that today is another chance to have an enjoyable and rewarding day.
The effect of adopting this philosophy is to turn your life into a learning process. By setting goals, by attempting to balance the ends with means, by facing and addressing all that happens to you, by continual making efforts to work your way toward the current goal, and through doing today that which must be done to secure tomorrow, you learn. You learn about yourself, about the important aspects of your relations with others, and about how best to proceed toward realizing the most pleasure, comfort, and security. And in so learning, you improve as an intellect and as a person. And most importantly, you enjoy each day.
With that happy thought, Isla, I will end this short letter.
Your loving Godfather,
posted by Bob Baker at 4:01 AM
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