Happiness Tethered to Desire

If we imagine a man who wants nothing, do we imagine a happy man? Or if not a happy man, a man capable of happiness? What is happiness apart from a man's desire?

Of course we can define happiness in different ways, which means that there are possible definitions of happiness that do not require desire. Instead, lets focus on our gut understanding of happiness, the kind we inherit from culture and biology prior to reflection.

With that foggy notion of happiness, is it possible without desire? Is it possible without wanting something? I do not think I can conceive of it.

It may be pointed out that if we conceive of happiness this way, then we can conceive of a negative happiness as well, what would probably be called suffering. Suffering that would also depend upon desire. By wanting and having our desires frustrated we would experience pain.

To opt out of the game and try to quiet one's desires so that all suffering is manageable would also be to deny ourselves happiness. Happiness, under this conception, carries the risk of greater suffering. Is there a way around this? Would we really be better off escaping the risk of suffering? 

The Whole and the Parts

Which is the truest way of seeing the universe?

As a whole, wherein everything is interwoven together and nothing can truly be understood unless everything is understood? Abstraction being a kind of useful fiction-writing and all contemplation of anything apart from everything is the study of a shadow.

Or as a collection of simple parts which can be individually understood and whose relations to one another can be understood, the totality of these simple parts and relations being what we call "everything." Abstraction allowing us to grasp the atoms that make up what we happen to call totality.

The Enlightened Thinker

Here is someone who sees
himself in such a way.
He is not such a helper.

In Christianity - perhaps all faiths, but certainly Christianity - there repeatedly turns up the figure of the man who knows what the faith is really all about and how the rest of civilization has fallen away from the true religion. This is not too surprising, the entire religion is built upon one such figure. But there is always something discomforting about reading such a thinker.

If you are the only one - or one of the elite few - then it must be that everyone else is wrong. You must lead them, and they ignore you at their peril. But you are a particular man. You love some things more than others. You are terrified by some things and not by others. You have a body type, a skin color, a hair style, a wardrobe. How can an entire church become like you when there is no one else in the world precisely like you?

Perhaps we say that they only need to resemble him in one capacity - the capacity of faith - but men do not divide that cleanly. If he had a different upbringing, a different culture, a different nationality, a different tone of voice, a different socioeconomic status, a different hobby, a different length of penis, a different preferred style of writing or film, a different sized family, a different first crush; then the faith would be different.

I want to say that we should approach all such Enlightened Thinkers as helpers. People who have excelled at some faith game and become a certain kind of man, and who can therefore help us become certain kinds of men. Distinct from them, but great in our own way. That is what I want to say, but is it true from the Christian point of view? It certainly seems to be a rare sentiment among the Enlightened Thinkers themselves, they rarely sell their ways and methods as just another set of ways and methods.

And then I step back out of the Christian Vantage Point, and leave that question to simmer.

The Rotten Body that Faith Resides in

Suppose that there is a God. And suppose that there is a faith that brings us into communion with Him. And suppose that this faith needs the trappings of a religion to be made intelligible.

If there existed a religion that originated in a hoax, was spread by means of deception and violence, and only among the adherents was honesty possible because all the teachers knew the falsehood of what they taught (at least initially until the first teachers died and the religion took on a life of its own), would this be a suitable religion by which we could approach God?

Or perhaps we should ask if it is possible to find a religion that was not similarly rotten?

To What Extent Am I Responsible for Motion

If you do not grow, then you are stagnant. Stagnation is basically conscious death. You go nowhere, but you continue to feel what it is like to go nowhere.

But there is a midpoint between growth and stagnation. Stillness. Basking in being what one is at this very moment instead of rushing on to become something else.

Maybe Stillness and Stagnation is the same thing - just approached with a different attitude.

All the same, I have to wonder, to what extent must I propel myself forward and to what extent will fate, my environment, and my nature carry me? Is it acceptable to just continue being what I am until some kind of motivating pain or motivating situation occurs? Or is that indicative of laziness? Reverse it all - is there something wrong in being too quick to change into something else? Is it our responsibility to spend a little time experiencing what it is like to be what we are?

All this talk of responsibility is, of course, disingenuous. Does the question make sense without that kind of talk? No, not as a question, so instead I can say it like this:

You can sit and wait for something to happen that causes you to change and evolve, or you can try to force the change yourself. Neither is correct; neither is wrong. But it is the way life is.

What Makes a Suitable Religion?

If there did exist a Pure Faith, but we could only approach it by first placing it into a religious body, is there some way to determine a best religious body to put it in?

More to the heart of my question: there are religious bodies that seem to make historical claims. Suppose we could disregard the truth of these historical claims, would choosing a religion that made such claims be inferior to one that did not?

Could one use the Christian body for their faith if they could not bring themselves to consider the crucifixion and resurrection an historical event? Is there anything left of the body once you discard that?

How to Approach Ones Conscience

What is the conscience? It is a moral feeling - a moral voice - it is moral inclination from within. It is a kind of guidance. But what is the nature of its guidance?

Does the conscience proceed from the will? Then the conscience simply beckons you to keep being yourself. To be more like yourself. To keep you to the path that you have chosen.

Does the conscience proceed from instinct? Then the conscience beckons you to live according to your nature. Your biological nature, anyway. It beckons you to be human. To live in a way determined by your genes.

Does the conscience proceed from upbringing? Then the conscience beckons you to live according to society. It tells you to be more like those around you. It tells you to shape yourself according to the lessons you have been taught.

For that matter: is the conscience constant or is it dynamic? If it is constant, then we have found something seemingly mystical, because what else about a human being's feelings and thoughts is so constant? If it is dynamic, then what kind of guide is that who tells you to do one thing and then another?

There are hypothetical ethical imperatives that can be cast as a science. There are moral intuitions and inclinations that make up our conscience. The former lend themselves well to a nihilistic view of values in the world, as well as a utilitarian approach to created value, or an approach that aims to be a certain kind of person, or an approach that aims to value and will in a certain kind of way. The latter lend themselves to what?

I want to say that we should disregard the conscience as anything but a helpful feature that does... something, but does not offer genuine guidance. But it intrigues me. The possibility that it is something deeper than my current understanding of ethics allows makes me want to look a little further. Is it possible that it offers a kind of real, individual guidance in the world? If so, we can approach ethics without bogging down the individual in universal "moral facts" that make it impossible for a man to be himself and instead tells him to be everyone, but also without doing away with imperatives apart from the hypothetical imperatives that exist only after someone has already chosen a goal or thrown his will behind a value.

For the moment, though, I have to call it intriguing, not desirable.

A Pure Faith

Would it be possible to come to a "pure" faith apart from all the particulars, cultural trappings, and situatedness of the religions that actually exist in the world? Is there some purity behind all the peculiarities and specifics of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and so on? And if it is possible, how do we reach such a faith?

Or does the soul of faith require the body of a religion? And if so, are the bodies perfectly interchangeable?

Could we create new bodies as we like to house the soul? Or are there criteria that must be taken into account for making suitable bodies?