"All lifestyles are investments"
From the post 'Changing your life'
Deep, Huh?
*A philosopher already subscribes to (and is a proponent of) a particular reality framework. I much prefer the ancient greek root, Philosophos, meaning lover of wisdom; somehow its less judgemental.
Deep, Huh?
*A philosopher already subscribes to (and is a proponent of) a particular reality framework. I much prefer the ancient greek root, Philosophos, meaning lover of wisdom; somehow its less judgemental.
8 comments:
I was not aware of this important distinction! Thank you!
Interesting web site you have directed us to.
Bulb and I were talking about the homeless the other night. I had mentioned that a lot of the homeless people in the US are de-institutionalized mental patients. Also, in the parts of Europe that we visited many of the homeless are homeless by choice, because they refuse to be part of the welfare system. Then we (Bulb) got off on how society has shifted in how it sees odd behavior; what kind of status the mentally different person has. Like now an odd person, people who hear voices, people who talk to thin air, are thought of as sick, where as perhaps two hundred years ago a person who heard voices etc. was thought of as a shaman or profit...Interesting, yes?
I tend to agree with the writer of the blog here. The homeless problem is really more our (people who live in homes) problem with the homeless. Also, if you want to give a person a hand, fine, but when the money leaves your own hand it becomes their money and they will spend it as they see fit, not necessarily as you would. Period, as it should be. If you want to help a person make a life change then that is another matter entirely, but here again we, the helpers have to allow the person who is being helped to choose how they will live.
Human freedom, aint it grand? I like this new site Cheryl, it made me think...I know, you can't really tell that I was thinking much from this rambling comment...
Hi Cheryl,
Glad to see you up and well. :) I tried to post to another blog entry recently, but Blogger decided it wanted the day off.
As for lifestyles, they are indeed an investment. I prefer to invest in savings, and have no life. ;p
If I may, philosopher means "lover of wisdom":
phil - love
sophos - wisdom
er - suffix for person
philosophos means "the love of wisdom", which is rather nice.
For some reason, I find dead languages fascinating. I am working on Sanskrit/Pali these days.
Please take good care of yourself!
Fineartist:
Wow! What felt so 'deep' about this statement is that many people deny the investment they make and lay the blame for their situation entirely with outside forces. The opposite reaction is the one of Scrooges who assert that people in bad situations are there purely by their own fault or decision. Neither is true. Perhaps the quote should be that every chosen lifestyle is an investment*, but choice need not always be conscious. (*Or every personal identity belief?)
Gerald (and Zilla) I am
Gerald (and Zilla) I am ... cut off by blogger! Had to backtrack and copy ...
I am learning all the time. I took my definitions from Answers.com (dangerous perhaps). However I can see that in this day, in order to be called a philosopher you are generally seen as already having a fixed philosophy about something.
Or something.
Whats lovely here is that Gerald and I have disparate drives - I see savings as being a cushion for a rainy day. Sometimes lives get more rainy days than chances to save and sometimes its the other way round. Perhaps, Gerald, when you've invested/saved enough to cover every eventuality in the rest of your own life, you could sort somebody's else's rainy days out? Or see, thats me behaving like the homeowner in Mobile Homemaker's original post, ie I am projecting my values and what would thrill me, onto someone else.
Did I already say I love a learning curve? I guess I'm on two or three of those.
:-)
Cheryl I babbled all around the depth you found. Thanks for showing me.
It's a difficult situation to understand and see clearly. It's difficult, emotionally to see people who are homeless. It causes me to feel shame for having more, shame for not doing more, shame for living in a world where people CAN go homeless.
We don't have a resource problem in this world we have a distribution problem.
When I say that some people choose to be homeless, I suppose it comes off as me saying it's their own fault. That is not my intent. It is not the fault of a single person that our world perpetuates situations where people find themselves homeless.
We do, however, and thankfully, have shelters and welfare agencies that can enable a person to sleep with a roof over their heads if they choose to take the help.
Granted it is not the best situation, but personally, if I had the choice to sleep out under a cardboard box (and sometimes when I was a kid the box looked pretty good.) or sleep in a shelter, I would probably choose the shelter. Until I could get on my own feet.
The system sucks but it's the best we have right now.
Like I said, this is a very difficult situation to articulate about, for me. My mom takes in the homeless and sometimes the worthless.
For me, in my heart I think it's sometimes hope that we lack. Hope that we can make our lives better. But then again, my idea of better will differ from what others believe. I make no sense whatsoever...
Oh gaa, there I go again, chewing my own damned foot.
The worthless, what can I say? Some of them were worthless. Not kind, not willing to do anything, all around not good people who sponged off my mother because she let them.
Fineartist!
You dont sound bad at all.
Look - those who are happy where they are do not ask for help. Those who are completely crushed dont ask either (the really heartbroken are too heartbroken to say they're heartbroken etc...)
When people offer to be rescuers they are going to get a lot of volunteers who like playing victim.
As to your mother's hangers-on, if we take homeless guy's statement to be true, then all you have to do is look at these people and ask what they are investing their time and energy into - is it into standing on their own feet, having pride and dignity and being self sufficient, or are they investing their energy and creativity into getting someone else to do all the work for them so they can lie back, look helpless and have a free ride?
Sounds like the second, so I'm with you in your diagnosis of the whole set up. The really awful question is, is youe mother being used, abused and misled, or is she the user? Has she chosen this life for the power of being the one who holds all the purse strings, the needed one, the god? Abuse victims often grow up to seek affection by offering sexual favours. I wonder what sort of a trip causes a person to seek affection by offering financial favours. Possibly sad.
Huge hugs to you! xxxxxxx
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