Ripple Effect

'It's a Wonderful Life' is a movie. It's not real. I just use that as an example. Jimmy Stewart was an actor. I'm sorry for not making that clear.

 

I understood that part, I meant as long as we don't get caught up in whatif's and what couldabins. A lot of people really lose the present because they are mentally in the past and future. I am sure there is a psychology name for that but I know it's not a good way to live. This is just for fun is what I meant, we aren't getting seriously into the woulda coulda shoulda realm.

 

Boy has this post gotten off track....

If we weren't expendable then the Earth would stop turning and life would cease to exist . As in business, we are all expendable, we have no choice. Who says were are going to exist tomorrow or for that matter the next few minutes. Our lives can stop at any moment, we do our best to plan for that moment but it make come before we are born, before we graduate high school, before we see our first born take it's first breath.

Even if we don't die, who says my neighbor will come home to his wife & kids but instead run off with his new girlfriend never to return. When someone dies or disappears from our lives, we grieve, we feel pain of their loss but we continue on in life.

 

Nwspin: "When someone dies or disappears from our lives, we grieve, we feel pain of their loss but we continue on in life."

Well of course we do. we have to. We do the best we can when bad things happen. But 'expendable?' Is that really the word? That implies that everything would be just as fine with us or without us. Things would run just as well. But even with our kids??? Heck, maybe things would even be better! Maybe a lot better! I mean, if it makes no difference whether we raise our kids or someone else does, why not put them up for adoption and see? What am I hearing here?

Sarita, "tugging at heart strings?". I would HOPE so. If you truly felt as though anyone could and would raise your kids as well as you do, then you would also realize that some folks might raise them even better. So your love for your kids would require that you find the best place for them. The only thing that would keep you from doing that would be 'heartstrings.' Well, what value heartstrings when anyone might do the same job as you, or better!

Can you possibly believe what you are saying?

 

A squillion posts later Hank and I still come back to this - what you're talking about, as always, is YOUR truth. You seem, as always, determined to go on and on and on with a tsunami of words until people concede, if from nothing else than sheer exhaustion, that your view of the world is THE view.

And of course I can say "I don't know". For metaphysical, intangible things like personality or "spirit" that is an entirely acceptable answer. And if you don't like it then what are you going to do Principal Skinner - make me write out a hundred times "Hank is always right. Hank is always right. Hank is always right"?

 

I'm not cunning and I'm not an operator. I started into this because your statements were incredulous. So I ask about them. And so to not seem inconsistent, your answers get more and more so. Hey, my fondest prayer for you is that your kids never have to find out whether you are right.

 

INS:"A squillion posts later Hank and I still come back to this - what you're talking about, as always, is YOUR truth. You seem, as always, determined to go on and on and on with a tsunami of words until people concede, if from nothing else than sheer exhaustion, that your view of the world is THE view."

I go on because I find this an interesting and stimulating use of my time. And while doing so I find that I develop relationships with folks all over the world, the vast majority of whom I will never meet, but also, for quite a few, I feel a kinship and a certain endearment. I hope it is a shared endearment.

It is a mistake to imagine that any goal of mine is to make anyone concede. They never do. They never have. So if that is my goal, I am failing miserably.

Now if you on the other side of certain of these discussions, feel as though my tsunami of words is overwhelming, then perhaps it is time for you to stop denying the truth of what I say as simply my truth. If someone's truth cannot pass scrutiny, it was not truth to begin with.

Be that as it may, I am not here to change your truth, only to understand it, to discuss it, and to contrast it with my own. If you are overwhelmed, then I expect that I present my arguments well and you find it challenging to discuss these things. That is a good thing because you never get better playing against an inferior opponent.

 

Hank,

I agree with most of what you've said here - I think we both enjoy learning about other people and how they think. I find that sometimes you keep saying (not literally, I'm paraphrasing here) 'but how can you think that?'. When you do that for matters of a personal and/spiritual nature you reach a point where the twain won't meet and endlessy going round in circles won't change that. So this comment by you:

does not apply. For those metaphysical matters external scrutiny is not appropriate. If it is my truth, or your truth then it is true for each of us, regardless of any differences. Kapeesh?

 

For both Sarita and INS:

Of course, I catagorically reject that truth is relative to the observer. Now I may not have the truth. But whatever the truth is is absolute and cannot be different from individual to individual. That is "my truth."

"Your truth" however is that truth is relative to the observer. But when you say that, it is meaningless because as soon as it leaves your lips it is no longer truth to whomever you are speaking. That being the case, no point that you endeavor to make, regarding what is true for you, is worth the effort it takes to do so. You might just save your breath.

By contrast, because my truth is absolute, meaning it applies to not only me but everyone I might speak to, for this reason, at least, my premise is worthy of the time it takes to establish. Your premise is defeated as soon as it passes your lips.

 

Intrepid:Quote" Be that as it may, I am not here to change your truth, only to understand it, to discuss it, and to contrast it with my own.That is incomplete. You also pass judgment"

I compare it with my own and give you the result. Complete now?

 

Just what has this discusion turned into?

The riple effect of the world or the ripple effect of an individuals life? Perhaps the ripple effect of this particular post?

Toss a stone into the water - ripple effect. But even that doesn't go on forever. It comes down to beliefs in the end perhaps. Always those nagging little beliefs.

 

good girl, Hollymm

 

I have trouble with the concept that we are "expendable" as Hank does. Perhaps it's the word itself:

– designed to be used only once and then abandoned or destroyed.
– of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned.

To take extreme examples, was Einstein expendable? Martin Luther King? Socrates? I think these people mattered and made an immeasurable contribution to humanity and therefore by extension, everybody matters in their own little way. Sure, if I drop dead tomorrow, the world will continue on and the next version of the iPhone will appear with or without me (that would suck to miss that ) but I hope I'm more important then a biodegradeable garbage bag.

On the other hand, in the grand scheme of things, when we look at the immensity of this Universe, how significant are we really?

 

What a cool kid!

 

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
...
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

 

Holly,

This discussion may seem as if it has gone all over the place. But I see it circumnavigating this concept of 'ripple effects.' And I credit Nwspin for bringing this topic up. It is a good one. And on one end of the discussion, the opposite end from my own, what I hear Sarita say is that there are no ripple effects, that all would procede according to a certain natural order regardless of any particular individual efforts that contribute to the procession. If someone did not contribute certain efforts, someone else would have. If the Wright Brothers had not built an airplane, the Wrong Brothers would have. I can only imagine that she has left out a vital ingredient to her thesis. Perhaps it is implied, but weakly and it needs to be stated boldly to have any legs to hold her point up. She is dealing in the long run of things. She needs to make that clear. And viewed in that context, perhaps this morning I can begin to understand, not from what she has said in this thread, but throughout many discussions I have had with her. In that context, although she may find a way to disagree with me still, because this is me talking, but in the long run, we're all dead. And since we are all dead in the long run, it really doesn't matter who raised our kids. After all, they are dead too. So in this view, all is in vain. That being the case, nothing matters except the here and now, and providing for each successive here and now until the long run requires that we are all dead. OK, I got it.

So in this view, every ripple effect is confined within a certain vessel. The ripples can only go so far out. That is because at the edge of the vessel is death to all. The ripple effects stop when there is no one there to witness them. Every ripple effect therefore is relative to, and requires, an observer. Now of course, I believe this view of ripple effects is frought with error. But what I describe is what I believe, after discussing this and other related topics, Sarita means.

And Sarita is not alone here. The more I think about this the more I realize that much of our system of education is built around denying ripple effects and promoting the placement of each student at the center of his or her own universe, at least until he or she is dead. Look at the American history that is taught today. In this past year I saw a piece on a news show about the text books being used today. Text books are largely written for the Texas school system, and whatever Texas centers on, much of the other states do as well, for some reason I cannot remember. Well, the American history book up for consideration did not even mention the Declaration of Independence. There was very little on the Civil War. And as the book goes through American history, there is more and more concerning current history, relatively recent history, until the book brings us to where we are now. Now I understand that as history marches on, that in the same amount of pages there is only room for what there is room for. But to gloss over the founding of America in favor of discussing national health care???? In this manner, American history tends to become a course in current events.

Where this becomes relevant is that the less and less we teach our children about the history that ushers the present circumstances that their generation will have to deal with, the less the ripple effects of the efforts of former generations are understood. The end all of this kind of teaching is that nothing in the past matters. Nothing beyond one's own life on the planet matters. All that matters is what heppens during one's life because in the long run we are all dead. That, I believe, is the view Sarita has. Maybe she will agree. Maybe she will disagree. Maybe she will add a codicil. Maybe she will not respond. I do not know. But after cogitating over this, this is the view I believe she is expressing. And she is not alone in her thoughts.

Now Sarita says I judge her views, and the views of others. Of course that means I am judgmental. That is a bad thing of course. Well who does not judge the views of others? We are here in an academic environment, just talking. I leave my views out there for folks to judge. They do. I cannot see that judging the views of others is necessarily a bad thing. And in this setting, if folks did not judge and respond to the ideas of others, this would be an awfully dull discussion. But because this is an academic discussion, and because there are no 'ripple effects' that extend beyond these pages and the minds of those who read them, you can know that I prefer to use the terms, 'compare and contrast,' to 'judge.' To judge is to exact remedies for deficiencies. To compare and contrast are merely to discuss.

Yes, in the long run, we are all dead. And the long run may be over tomorrow. So whatever brought us to this point, and whatever happens after we are gone, does not matter. I believe I am beginning to understand. And that is why I am here.

 

You make a mistake to believe that I try to change you. I have nothing in this to do that, just to understand. And I believe I am making headway.

In your thinking, in the long run we are all dead, even our children. I think that is plain. So what we have is the here and now and the love that we can share until it is over. And when it is over, it is over. I have that.

And the point I make is that your viewpoint is shared by many, many others. But that viewpoint naturally accentuates the present and suppresses the past and the future. Because tomorrow we may not be here anyway.

And that same viewpoint, when entrusted to write text books for children, will naturally accent the same point. It doesn't deny the certain events brought us to where we are today; it just places them secondary to where we are today and emphasizes the importance of what is current and deemphasizes what is not. That is only natural if one is going to live in the short run, where in the run that goes beyond, we're all dead.

 

Sarita, I know you're not trying to be difficult. Of course not. And I'm not either. But everyday, in the human condition, we have folks who do not have the access that we do to one another, communicating with each other through sound bites, snippets. And neither side can understand how and why the other side feels as it does. And through these sound bites they work to convince the folks in the center, who just really don't have a feel for the answers one way or another, that they are correct and the other person is wrong.

So here we are, us here, not speaking in sound bites, but really explaining ourselves at length. And after listening and digesting what we hear, earnestly attempting to understand, we still can't understand???? If after spending this much time and effort toward that object, that we cannot come any closer to really communicating than we do, that doesn't leave much hope for those who communicate via sound bites. That's for sure!

But what I am trying feebly to convey is that in many ways, the totally secular viewpoint that you and others here possess, provides a backdrop and a tint that covers a whole lifestyle of decision-making. And the same can be said for folks who look at the world through believer's eyes.

So to understand the other viewpoint, we must first understand the given information that person operates under. Because that given information changes reality, changes what is important in life, and therefore changes our perceptions, actions and attitudes.

That one aspect, whether one believes in God or not, shades so many actions and reactions, and of major consequence in ones life. It either places one's self and one's own priorities as paramount concerns in one's life, or it places all that as secondary. The result are two entirely different courses that one might follow, each with its own daily decisions and each of those decisions having ripple effects.

But the ripple effects that the secular viewpoint recognizes are temporal, short term, never beyond one's own life. That is because truth is relative to the observer. When the observer is no longer there to observe, their truth dies as well.

But the truth from the viewpoint of the believer transcends one's own life. It transcends all human and natural life. And this emphasis and recognition of truth that is beyond one's own existence provides an entirely different course of daily decisions. And each of those decisions have there ripple effects as well. But the believer sees ripple effects lasting well beyond his or her life. The believer has a long view of things because to the believer, in the long run we're all still alive!

So that difference leads to a whole different set of priorities, a whole different outlook. But this is why we, the different groups, almost always end up in different camps, even politically, but also possibly in the health treatments and decisions we undergo. So to really begin to understand, we have to first understand the givens of the other. From there, many things that might not make sense otherwise, at least begin to.

 

Henry, do you agree that a person who is your equal in intelligence, experience and good intentions with equal informatino may still come to different conclusions than you do? That they may see something you don't and you may see something they don't and it may remain so for your entire lives ? And that perhaps it is supposed to be this way?

 

June, please explain what you mean by, "And that perhaps it is supposed to be this way?"