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Sat 24 Jan, 2004 05:06 pm
We either only seem to lose things or gain things in our lives.
For instance, on one hand, you could say that you lost the love of your life. And on the other, you might say that you gained freedom.
You might think that you gained knowledge about the world while another person says that you just lost your innocence.
One man might claim that he lost his virginity, and his partner will tell him that he just gained a STD.
One presidential candidate will state that he just gained a great reputation, while a skeptic will say that he just lost a great reputation.
Are you pouring a liquid into a glass, or forcing the air out?
Do you loose your mind, or gain insanity?
Do you lose life, or gain death?
Do we really only lose things, only gain things, both at the same time, or does it all depend on how you look at it?
Both. You wouldn't, for instance, gain death in addition to still having life. Or lose life without neccessarily gaining death.
As I pour coffee into a cup, I'm not forcing the air out of reach but filling myself with the smell I love. I cannot do that only by losing a pound of Chock-full-o-Nuts or preserving the air inside an empty cup.
Quantity, quality and integration of both add to something new that you can get either by losing or gaining, or both.
It's not about differentiating who got better or which part lost its attribute - it's about what became of such a process of change and transformation and how it was integrated.
And also...
Control is something to lose as I give it to someone next to me, and she'd be satisfied. When both lose control, we may gain something else in exchange for surrendering ourselves to something else that we can think of only by thinking outside the box.
That something else may be formed through the integration of both of us, or has been there without our knowledge. Either way, both could realize there's something other than maintaining or losing control that we can rejoice.
And more...
Having lost family, money, home, job, friends, and my own good health, I came to know what it's like to keep losing. But the resulting state was not about "having nothing" but "having nothing but myself."
And I realized I'm still capable of creating something and loving someone. Then what I thought was entropy inside my system became the energy to produce and profit.
Therefore...
Whether looking inside the system or thinking outside the box, incurred gain or loss is transformed to something inside and connected to something else outside the subject of change.
Internalizing a sense of loss, gaining perspective from it, and summoning your spontaneity to rise above the negative and to watch and catch the changing state all add to successive transformation. And I can move on.
I heard long ago that there is no gain without a loss.
I've found that to be true.
"There are no gains without pains" Benjamin Franklin in his almanac.
He was saying that you have to work for what you have, not that you can't gain something without losing something.
But you can gain something only in exchange for something you got to give.
So why don't you rise above the gain and the loss and instead think of what turns out of that entire transaction?
I once had a girl friend who divided people into two classes, collectors and contributors. She was thinking at the time of small items such as pens, pencils loose change and the like. In that sense I am definitely a contributor.
Metaethics, your question makes no sense. I'm asking whether you gain or lose in the end, if something turns out then I obviously either lost or gained something.
Individual wrote:Metaethics, your question makes no sense.
How could you be ... declaring "no sense" for the lack of better words?
Think positive. What turns out may be what you've been looking for, and you'll have gained it. When you lose from that transaction, learn something and you'll still gain knowledge.
MY GUESS:
If your frame of mind is positive -- you will almost always see the things that are happening in your life as having gained something.
If your frame of mind is negative -- you will almost always see the things that are happening in your life as a series of losses.
If you are neither positive nor negative in outlook -- you will most likely start a thread in an Internet forum pretty much like this one.
Individual wrote:"There are no gains without pains" Benjamin Franklin in his almanac.
He was saying that you have to work for what you have, not that you can't gain something without losing something.
That's fine. But what I read is, "there's no gain without a loss." And I find it to be true. Graduate from high school, leave old friends, old comforts behind, to start a new life. Get a new job, leave old co-workers behind. Get married, leave the freedom of single life behind. Have a child, bye-bye to it being all about you. The older you get, the more you gain in experience and knowledge, the more you lose in agility and skin elasticity.
No gain without a loss.
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