Designing one's life

Coberst - I think you ask some really interesting questions here. I didn't look at the dates of your postings - so I don't know if you posted this in concert with your questions about self-actualization and Maslow's heirarchy of needs, etc., but I think that they complement each other as subject matter.

I think the ability or tendency to be an independent thinker is somewhat innate - as the tendency or trait to be more or less curious about things is also somewhat innate. I mention these two characteristics together because I think curiousity or the tendency to challenge accepted thinking is what leads to independent thinking. I think it does take a certain amount of self-esteem or self-confidence to acknowledge that one is not in agreement with the status quo or feels the need to continue on past where the status quo would have stopped to pursue another path to one's own particular form of enlightenment, acceptable thought or self-actualization.

And I think the people who do this are those for whom it means more to be who or what they feel they need to be, than to belong to a group or be accepted as part of the status quo. I think self-actualization is different in that it is easier to achieve when someone has the time to devote to pursuing interests and talents. It's less about innate characteristics and more about outside circumstances that may or may not make it possible to pursue one's interests to fulfillment.

I wish I knew the answer to your questions. It's always very interesting to me to look at young people who are independent thinkers and go against the grain of popular thinking to do what they need or want to do and to look at those who don't, and try to figure out what the difference is. Maybe it's just a matter of desire. I don't know. But I definitely think that our culture today makes it much more of an arduous task that takes a lot more courage than it used to be.

Aidan

My interests are directed primarily in attempting to convince adults to fulfill more closely what their potential is. It appears to me that most people lock away their intellect with their yearbook into a trunk in the attic when they graduate from their schooling. Adult potential is not realized as a result.

I think of comprehension as being like a pyramid with awareness at the base, followed by consciousness (awareness plus attention), then comes knowledge with understanding at the pinnacle.

Knowledge is all we need to make it on our job and thus we seldom ever reach understanding. To reach understanding requires a good bit of work beyond knowing and people seldom are motivated to go beyond knowing.

To go beyond knowing requires curiosity and caring. We are born with some degree of curiosity but if that curiosity is not cultivated it dries up and blows away. If a person goes for 20 years after graduation without cultivating their curiosity by engaging their intellect they are unlikely to ever get off their intellectual couch.

This means that the young person, who still has a bit of their curiosity in tact after schooling, must take up some form of intellectual activity beyond their job and day to day living, if not by mid-life there is no curiosity and caring left.

I agree, except that I don't think it's ever too late to adopt a more curious and thus more accepting attitude to new information and/or stimulation. I think in their twenties, most people are more attuned to making money and becoming successful in their careers - and somewhere in their late thirties they realize that life might be passing them by and they become attuned to enjoying it - in whatever form that may take. For some people, being open to anything new is stressful, but to others, learning new things becomes a way of life and helps them to feel that they are still alive and viable as human beings.

aidan wrote-



I just find it unavoidable darling. It has nothing to do with helping me to feel alive and viable as a human being. I take that as a given. It isn't in the least stressful. It's titter fodder.

Spendius - don't start...

"The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of specialized knowledge." --Albert Einstein

The first is what we must do for ourselves as individuals, as part of our spiritual function; the latter is what we do for some organizatio (i.e., an employing company), as our social function.
--although there are overlaps in this formulation.

Yes, you typically raise good questions, Coberst.