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Nov 21, 2021
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My participation matter is an affirmation of the preciousness and finiteness of life, and the importance of our active participation in reconciling those.
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“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.”
Confucius
“My participation matters” is an affirmation of the difference one makes in the quality of life. My participation matters is 3 ideas or principles that together make up one overarching principle. And that principle provides a revolutionary context to a meaningful relationship with life; a relationship based on our capacity for Self Authorship.
I have previously called these “forgotten principles”, as our culture as a whole seems to have forgotten them and no longer recognises or values them.
The 3 principles of My participation matters are;
- Your life is precious and has beautiful potential
- But, it is also finite; none of us are going to live forever, and this day is finite.
There’s a tension between these 2 ideas; there always is at the heart of life. The only way to reconcile those 2 ideas or principles is to
- Be a meaningful participant in your life and act as if what you do today matters.
1. Your life is precious
The most important question in life is “what is important to me now?” This principle affirms the value of the person and what is important to them. A commitment to the quality of your life & of life itself. It not only connects us to what is meaningful to us but also calls us to build the capability to bring this into being. Meaning is the “true north” of every moment; its most essential context. This principle is an expression of Meaningful Potential.
2. But your time is finite
Gurdjieff mentions that the ultimate reminding factor ought to be the fact of one’s own death, the remembrance of one’s own death then serving as the present perceived risk which can bring the mentioned shock for self insight and observation. The remembrance of death ought then to serve as the means to stimulate the necessary challenge and demand/need that is required in order to bring the shock for self consciousness.
“If not now, then when?”
Finiteness isn't just an inevitability or a constraint as most people think of it as. It is a call to arms and an essential affirmation of the other 2 principles; “your life is precious, so make it one you love”.
The potential and value of the first principle only makes sense in the context of Finiteness. If we lived forever then any one day would be meaningless. It wouldn’t matter if we turned up. It’s a simple mathematical truth. Any number divided by infinity is zero. This means that the value of any day of someone who lived forever would likewise be zero. What makes our life precious is that our lives are finite.
Failing to recognise the preciousness of the part and finite situation-moment in the context of its infinite wholeness is part of the core problem
- how we live this moment is how we live our life
- Don’t put your happiness off to the future
- The denial of finiteness is procrastination
- ref [[“Hazard” 🔘 and uncertainty]] & entropy
3. Responsibility (or Self Authorship or Participation or being-the-cause-in-the-matter)
You can make it so
So (take the lead to) make it one you love
Our responsibility and capacity to realise it (Reconciling)
- “The opportunity to meaningfully participate in the drama of Life”
- [[Responsibility 🔘/Werner Erhard on responsibility]]
- “::who:: do I have to be to get there?”. To close the [[Meaning Gap 🔘]](Every moment of your life is defined by this)
- You are the cause of your life
- Self authorship
- Affirming the difference we make in our world, and the world
- Our dignity as human beings lies in how we meet the 3 truths.
- (In the face of Rusty Autopilot , this necessarily implies the need for Effort
Choice
- Choice in the moment
Attention (is a choice)
- [[5CBM - 3. Cognition and Decision-making/4. Awareness and Perspective shaping]]
- experience is “chosen” (attention) and co-created. Blind spots. Language as part of your filtering mechanism hence need for new distinctions
- These principles are reflected in my Morning remembrance
From Indulgence vs Investment
- ::Our lives in our culture are optimised for comfort and convenience and the present-moment meaning, and not for (trans-moment) meaning and self authorship:: (and the acknowledgement of our finiteness)
It is a sister of reciprocal maintenance?
I think one of the powers of idojo and MPa is speaking out of a recognisable truth. People already have this truth inside them so it will naturally resonate
The need for meaningful participation
In considering global warming and the state of our world as well as reading Masters of wisdom and considering our finiteness and the uniqueness and extraordinaryness of life I realise that failing to recognise the preciousness of the part and finite situation-moment in the context of its infinite wholeness is part of the core problem. Seeing this requires "being" because perception is constructed. And this in turn requires practice to build our being (self authoring capability)
Aside: value-theories (beliefs) require "work" to see them
References
- [[Finiteness 🔘/The infinite MPo and the finite MVa are 2 parts of a larger whole]]
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