My Rant

[Solivagus]

Balance. That is what the small part of the world I have viewed appears to be based upon. The birth of my brother and sister was a balance for my parents, making up for the misfortune of my existance. My epilepsy and inability to understand certain aspects others take for granted is balanced by my lack of need for many "close" friends. There has been, so far, a suscess to equal every failure, it is just that it is sometimes hard to enlarge the mind to see the entire picture. But then, if I am not simply deluding myself with false perceptions, where is the balance in the rest of the world?

 

All the people dying for reasons that can often only be seen as foolish. Where is the opposing side to that? It can of course be argued that for every death there is a life, that there is no plauge without a cure. Still, it doesn't seem enough. Or maybe I just can't picture it fully. If anyone IS able to see all the sides, let me know? Or if you think I'm just imagining order in a world of chaos, kick me to wake me out of my delusions

[Katzaniel]

I think you're right about balance. I cannot think of a single thing that's good for you that isn't bad when you have too much of it.

 

The way I see it (and mind you I believe in God, even if I'm never quite sure what else I believe in) is that for every premature death, pain/suffering/death in greater amount is avoided in the future. For example, a busload of schoolkids crashes and most of them die, but maybe one of those kids would have grown up to be the most successful and remorseless mass murderer the world has seen, inflicting painful deaths on tens of children, adults, even babies.

 

I also think that God cannot act in the world as much as Satan can, so God acts instead by making good come from Satan's actions.

 

Remember also that for those that believe in God, life on earth is never quite as important as life in the everafter. I don't necessarily see it that way, I find it difficult not to plan for both possibilities (ie enjoy life here and now, but generally try to be a good person too), but many religions claim that the wholesale killing of believers by nonbelievers isn't a bad thing... it doesn't matter that the bad guy won... because all the people who died standing up for their belief went to Heaven.

[Regel]

A teacher once told me a story about a person that only lived on a two dimesional plane (a sheet of paper). In his world he could only understand length and width. If someone who lives in three dimensions holds a pencil above the paper it is beyond his scope and therfore invisible. If the pencil is lowered and touches the page a dot suddenly appears apparently out of no where for our two dimesional friend. If the pencil is suddenly lifted it disappears just as quickly. We are three dimesional creatures and yet time is a fourth dimension that we can only travel linearly. If we could see in four dimensions what a difference that would make. We could see the consequences of our actions (or inactions) and change the course of history.

 

We are limited in our scope and therefore none of us are able to see it all Solivagus. Trying to make sense of everything that is going on in the world is like trying to seek order out of chaos.

[Aardvark]

There is no balance. Anyone who seeks balance is merely holding themselves back. Whether in material, social or mental success, you're holding yourself back. Realise that the world is not abuot balance and equality, but about equilibrium. It's not that a feather and a stone weigh the same, it's that they exist without disrupting one another's existance.

 

Anything that is detrimental to the existance of something else, quite possibly out of equilibrium. Your false sense of worthlessness, for example. Not in equilibrium with yourself. Holding you back. Strangling you. Do away with it, become one with yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Understand them, ensure you know how they relate to yourself. Don't compare or contrast with others, it serves no real purpose. Once you understand and accept yourself, then you can work on either improving yourself or elevating your place in society, whichever is your will, weaknesses be damned.

 

Now that you've read to hear, you should know that there inside me resides the best part of a bottle of black sambucca and that I haven't been a drinker for many many months

[Appy]

He's right though.. *points at Aardvark in a meaningful way* dun dun duuun...

[X-Sabre]

*just nods quietly at Aardvark*

[Vigil StarGazer]

The definition of balance is that we are indeed limited. For everything you do you lost the opportunity to do something else. In the world of only 24 hours a day we can choose to do whatever we want in those 24 hours, but we only got 24 hours to do the things we want to do. You can sacrifice sleep to catch up on studies, but then you'll have a less wakeful mind next morning. You could have studied the exams days ago but you choose to stack off instead. These are all choices and possibilies that is possible.

Hense a chessmaster cannot also be an expert fencer, of if he's both then he's sacrificing another aspect of his time to achieve both objectives. This is only one aspect of the true meaning of balance.

 

The other aspect is portential. First we will have to accept that we are all born different, just like everyone else. Therefore we are offered different but equal choices. Second not all attributes are good or bad, they are just avenues to lead us to our choices to see what we can learn. It could be said that the world is fair because a beautiful person cannot be smart and vice versa. It is partically correct because beautiful person are naturally advantaged so they won't have to deal with some situations. A beautiful person had an easy stroll to go up the pyrmiad of society but the person who used her brain muscles to crawl her way will have a stronger will and intelligence. A person could also be born both smart and beautiful, but she will lack the experence of being rejected, hated, shunned, the capacity of feel lost and pain. She will have to carry the burden of being both smart and beautiful which makes her impassionate at times and might be uncaring, or naive and end up being used. Another example is about a person who has every advantage possible, then how is she able to find a suitable mate? Ever choice is a bad one, she could make no friends cuz no one would understand her. Everything then is about the experience and the wisdom we derived from. Your experience which comes from the attribute and the choise you have made is the definition of who you are. A person who's ugly and stupid would also face the same problem, but she gained from her experience of being hated, dejected, from doing stupid things. She would feel and gain and put her experience in use in the end, and who's to say who's really better off?

 

... and then there's purpose. Everyone has a purpose. Yes! Everyone has a purpose because this is humanity. It's a web with degrees of connection in which we are all connected to a network of relations called society. From the very beginning we have parents, sibilings, and relatives and they are also connected to someone else. We are brother, sister, child, parents, friends, enemies, stranger, lover, whatever. When you grow older you make friends, enemies, lovers, and they are also a part of the web of relations called society. Now your purpose then is your definition of existance. Even if you are a bum on a street or someone who still lives in his parents in the basement you are still that person, and that is your role. It is important? Your parents in turn feed you so they still need to buy extra food and consume extra products which means more money for Walmart, in another perspective if you don't exist then they would have been able to save up to go to a cruise so they money would end up in StarLine Cruise Inc instead of Walmart, or inheritted by your consin or your siblings. You are important because you affect the flow, you are insignificant because you are also a part of the flow. You can will yourself to cause more of a ripple in the web of society by having more connections. You could have a lot of friends so you can affect them all emotionally and carry them through hard times, or you could be related to a million people by being a CEO in a million person company and thus every decision affects those ppl who the company works for.

 

Aardvark brought up a good point about false sense of worthlessness. If you still follow what I said and accept the argument from my perspecting then seeking perfection is an impossible question, because there is no perfection. Every strenght have a weakness, every action leaves you with the possible of another action undone. Knowing yourself is important because you realized your position in the web of connection called soceity. The thing you have to keep in mind is that you are moving to a place you want. If you are sastified with the pros and cons you have then you should be happy; If you are sastified with your place in society then you shall have no other wants. If you move you will have to sacrifice something else.

 

Hense it is funny about humanity. They move and move and run about in life, not knowing what they want. They will see a room of different kinds treasures and tried to grab as much as they can, as soon as they grab something else they will not realized another piece of treasure had slipped from their grasp, or if they notice they will try to grab it back and drop another thing. They will continue to seek like a drowing many grabbing the thin air to prevent them from sinking. Only when they realized they had not ended up where they want to be they are too tired to move to another place and stayed in the rut they ended up in. Then then realized they should have spend more efforts in school instead of slacking off, then start opening a business in university and retired by the age of 30. They will not realized the things they've lost if they had followed the path and then hoped for a second chance. Their second chance in life is their children, because they are the hopes of the future... their future.

 

:wizzie: (Hope it helps Appy, my condulgence to you.)

 

What I've learned from Shaman King... If you strike, then you will be struck back. Do not defeat the enemy; defeat the thought of defeating your enemy. There is no good or evil, only will. Survival of the Fittest. The most important thing is heart.

Edited April 12, 2004 by Vigil StarGazer

[Appy]

Ok so I didn't read the post .. but why on earth is my name mentioned there, vigil? Adress anything you say to Solivagus.. he's the one who wants answers afterall.. sheesh

 

-A grumpy Appy

[The Portrait of Zool]

Here is a more comprehensive source of Regel's 2-D story:

http://www.quantum-metaphysics.com./essay.htm

[Solivagus]

Holy Hannah! And I was told quantam means you just add another 0...

[Vlad]

If you are sastified with the pros and cons you have then you should be happy; If you are sastified with your place in society then you shall have no other wants.

That is basically what your argument boils down to.

And you cleverly slipped it in the middle.

 

But it's so unbelievably wrong.

 

It is human nature to want to succeed. It is human nature to want to be better than those around you.

 

You claim that better is relative, and that only the happy will survive.

We are here today because our ancestors were more agressive, more able, more prepared to pass on their genes.

You and I can argue until we're both blue in the face, but there's no denying it, some people are better than others. And over thousands of years, our genes have been programmed to find the traits that make the best mate.

 

However, if we stay where we are, never trying to better ourselves, then others will pass us. Selflessness is the key to your own destruction, each person should be an end for his own means. If we have no wants, we will have no reason to live. Let me repeat that. If we have no wants, WE WILL DIE.

 

Sorry for hijacking the thread away from your original topic, Solivagus.

Vigil - I'd prefer not to continue hijacking this thread, if you want clarification on any of my stances, my contact info is in my profile.

[Katzaniel]

What if most of what we want boils down to making others happy? What then, Vlad? I think that you're right in saying we need to better ourselves, but I think you're wrong when you say that some people are just "better than others." We all have different pros and cons (although I'd make a different point than talking about ugly/pretty and dumb/smart, I'd say we all have different intelligences and are beautiful from different perspectives, in general, but this is another whole conversation) and some may be better for survival, but we don't need to worry about survival so much any more. Now we worry about creating beauty and discovering our world, among other things, and all different intelligences have a place.

 

And among it all, isn't being happy the most important thing? Because if we can't be happy, and make others happy, then there's no point in this life or the afterlife respectively.

 

Note: Threads are made to be highjacked. But, I don't think that's what we're doing. We're looking into different parts of balance, aren't we?