Philosophy Now Forum

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:34 am

Nick_A wrote:...

I agree Henry. The spirituality of work IMO is underestimated as a human value now that the world has been taken over by computers. Simone Weil wrote:

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

The benefits of conscious work as opposed to all the emotional reactions normally associated with work is largely unknown in the West

What do you do for a job Nick?

I am an entertaining keyboard player/vocalist. I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better through the use of music and humor. One woman in a home told me that I make them feel alive again. There are worse ways to make a buck.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2019 9:18 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2019 4:18 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:53 pm

You probably learned it was wrong because you were able to work with your hands. The hands don't lie while the heart as the justifier of emotional BS does. Unfortunately it governs government controlled education.

That's a good point: some of my most clarifying thinkin' happens when I'm bein' handy, am laboring (tapping on a keyboard doesn't count, but scribblin' with a pencil does).

I agree Henry. The spirituality of work IMO is underestimated as a human value now that the world has been taken over by computers. Simone Weil wrote:

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

The benefits of conscious work as opposed to all the emotional reactions normally associated with work is largely unknown in the West

It could also be said: The contemporary form of True Greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of working TOGETHER.

Who actually benefits when thousands are slaving while one profits is NOT a sign of true greatness at all, but a sign of a great Truth, in that society. From the days of building the eqyptian pyramids, and earlier, up to the days of when this is written not much at all as changed in this regard. While some will profit and gain, "others" will suffer and perish.

However, from working TOGETHER as One, literally, a Truly great Spirit evolves.

The Spirituality while "laboring" TOGETHER, as One, in order to achieve what it IS that we ALL just want and Truly desire anyway, does bring with it a sense of clarity of KNOWING that what I am doing now is for the benefit of ALL, and not just SOME.

Simone Weil wrote

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

Age wrote

It could also be said: The contemporary form of True Greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of working TOGETHER.

The trouble is that if we don’t know how to consciously work and what is lost through ignorance, how and why could people ever voluntarily work together without the temporary impulse of an immediate necessity? It is a nice ideal but the human condition which values prestige as the greatest good to strive for makes the ideal impractical until a tomorrow which never comes.

That is why Simone's emphasis on the individual is essential. Without it, working together as an ideal is impractical.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:58 pm The trouble is that if we don’t know how to consciously work and what is lost through ignorance, how and why could people ever voluntarily work together without the temporary impulse of an immediate necessity? It is a nice ideal but the human condition which values prestige as the greatest good to strive for makes the ideal impractical until a tomorrow which never comes.

That is why Simone's emphasis on the individual is essential. Without it, working together as an ideal is impractical.

Future Man’s lyric says the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXQmw1m0o8

If they are really sincere
There's an underlying solidarity between them
Which can be expressed
Each one follows without compromise the path upon which he finds himself
For we can only help others to do their duty
By doing what we ourselves believe to be right
It is the one supremely social act

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better

No doubt the sight of you is enough to stop anyone feeling sorry for themself.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:54 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better

No doubt the sight of you is enough to stop anyone feeling sorry for themself.

Harbal! You're back.

Where did you go, lad?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:56 pm
Harbal! You're back.

Where did you go, lad?

I've been wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, IC. I was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel until I realised I was in the wrong metaphor. The next thing I knew, here I was.

Are you still keeping all the heathens on their toes?

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 11:07 pm I've been wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, IC. I was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel until I realised I was in the wrong metaphor. The next thing I knew, here I was.

Well, what goes around comes around, so keep your chin up, never say "die," and que sera sera.

Are you still keeping all the heathens on their toes?

Doing my best...wearing my sackcloth, and beating myself with brambles while I call out in the streets. But everybody's in bed, watching reruns of "Gogglebox."

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:54 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better

No doubt the sight of you is enough to stop anyone feeling sorry for themself.

True

Now all we need is Greta to come back and the army will once again be at full strength.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:42 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:54 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better

No doubt the sight of you is enough to stop anyone feeling sorry for themself.

True

Now all we need is Greta to come back and the army will once again be at full strength.

Can't say I'm lookin' forward to her comin' back.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:58 pm Simone Weil wrote

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

Age wrote

It could also be said: The contemporary form of True Greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of working TOGETHER.

The trouble is that if we don’t know how to consciously work and what is lost through ignorance, how and why could people ever voluntarily work together without the temporary impulse of an immediate necessity?

But who would not know how to consciously work?

And what is actually lost through ignorance, which you are talking about here?

Everyone voluntarily works now, they just voluntarily do different things, which "others" may not see as 'work'?

Let us say you provided a plan that shows exactly how a Truly peaceful world would evolve, which would benefit absolutely every one, then how and why would people not voluntarily want to work together?

What has the "temporary impulse of an immediate necessity" got to do with any thing here?

The fact is the imagined "immediate necessity" and the "temporary impulse" of a not real "immediate necessity" is part of the reason WHY society is in such the mess it is in now.

Let us take a look at the 'immediate necessities' of Life and living. Air, which is clean enough to keep supporting life, Water, which again is clean enough to support life, and a little bit of nutrients, which is in abundant form. All of these things exist naturally, and were in abundance form, that is; before we adult human beings started ruining things with our imagined "immediate necessities", which we have out of greed made only obtainable with money. Oh, and the only other true immediate necessity we need in Life is attention, with the right kind of attention just being love, itself, which, by the way, was also in abundance, that was; until we ruined that also.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:58 pm It is a nice ideal but the human condition which values prestige as the greatest good to strive for makes the ideal impractical until a tomorrow which never comes.

But the imagination that imagines things are not possible is the only thing that stops things from coming to fruition. Reality is based on what is imagined possible not on what is imagined not possible.

Humans natural condition does not value prestige at all. Human beings have been conditioned to value prestige, that is all.

Humans natural condition is to just care for and love their young. That was; until human beings were ruined by being conditioned to care for and love their own personal self before "others".

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:58 pmThat is why Simone's emphasis on the individual is essential. Without it, working together as an ideal is impractical.

But you just said the ideal of working together is impractical anyway, until tomorrow, which you say "never comes", so one person's emphasis on the individual as being essential for working together is just a contradiction in terms. Either you believe working together as an ideal is practical, or impractical.

You can not have it both ways. One to refute what I say, and the the other to support your love and admiration for some "other" human being.

By the way what is there to emphasis in relation to an individual anyway? Is it not plainly obvious that each individual is an actual living proof that individual's exist?

So, there are obviously individual beings, which are a part of and belong to the One group of beings. Also, obvious is if these beings work together in harmony for the same One goal, then this will produce a much more conducive of Peace for Everyone, then working separately and apart from each other would.

Obviously if individuals are only working for a separate goal, which they individual want and, which takes from "others", then they will be striving all their life. And just as obvious if we are ALL working together on and for the same goal, then this will just be as easy and simple and living and breathing is. This working together is obviously naturally how Life, Itself, works anyway.

Age

But who would not know how to consciously work?

And what is actually lost through ignorance, which you are talking about here?

I'm not being critical since apprently you have not been exposed to the concept of conscious work. It is more commonly known in Buddhism.

The idea is that we have three primary means of experiencing and interpreting the external world. We do so through our senses, our emotions, and our associative thoughts. They would be consciously connected as inner unity in a conscious human being. The fallen human condition has made it so that they are connected by imagination. Consequently we are not conscious to the experience of life - we create it in our imagination. Conscious work is a means for reconnecting thought, emotion, and senstion so as to function as a conscious whole as we experience daily events. But as we are, sometimes we are either lost in thought, expressing negative emotions or closed to anything but the strongest sensations. Have you ever questioned the difference between feeling cold and sensing cold? Even though they are different we use the same word for both.

A person can consciously work when learning to play the piano. Doing so requires thought, emotion, and sensation to work together. Our mind reads the music. Our emotions try to express the emotions of the composer and our posture and hands support the ability for our emotions to be expressed through sensation.

Learning piano has a goal which encourages conscious work. But we lack a goal which inspires conscious work in life so we are free to just react according to our whims. We lack the inner unity to realistically experience life with the whole of ourselves so depend on imagination.

IMO the only people capable of voluntary conscious work during daily events for any extended period are those with the goal of experiencing truth at the expense of self satisfying imagination. Obviously such people are rare. How many can be able to sacrifice the pearls of self satisfying imagination for the pearl of great price which reveals objective human meaning and purpose. Yet becoming cpnsciously human as opposed to a creature of reaction requires a quality of consciousness only few want so all the hypocrisy you see in the world must continue as is.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:34 am

Nick_A wrote:...

I agree Henry. The spirituality of work IMO is underestimated as a human value now that the world has been taken over by computers. Simone Weil wrote:



The benefits of conscious work as opposed to all the emotional reactions normally associated with work is largely unknown in the West

What do you do for a job Nick?

I am an entertaining keyboard player/vocalist. I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better through the use of music and humor. One woman in a home told me that I make them feel alive again. There are worse ways to make a buck.

That's very cool, and bet rewarding work (has meaning). May I make a suggestion?

Old folks like "old stuff", i think such a place (old folks home) - would like to have both "old music" (Vera Lynn (still alive 103? now)/Glen Miller/etc, and replay of the great OTR (old time radioplays - which i disscoved 20 yrs ago via the binaries group on Usenet (now all on Internet Achive).

X-minus one, dimension x, the whistler/etc............audiodramas are now a lost and forgotten artform,

sadly.

Mars is attacking...

-Imp

gaffo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 2:53 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:09 am

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 1:34 am What do you do for a job Nick?

I am an entertaining keyboard player/vocalist. I make people in nursing homes and senior centers feel better through the use of music and humor. One woman in a home told me that I make them feel alive again. There are worse ways to make a buck.

That's very cool, and bet rewarding work (has meaning). May I make a suggestion?

Old folks like "old stuff", i think such a place (old folks home) - would like to have both "old music" (Vera Lynn (still alive 103? now)/Glen Miller/etc, and replay of the great OTR (old time radioplays - which i disscoved 20 yrs ago via the binaries group on Usenet (now all on Internet Achive).

X-minus one, dimension x, the whistler/etc............audiodramas are now a lost and forgotten artform,

sadly.

It is rewarding. Someone like me is hired to do an hour show usually between 2 and 3 in the afternoon so I am limited as far as radio dramas. However I like to play the oldies of their generation along with the fifties with energy rather than put them to sleep, Also many of the assistant workers are from Jamaica and love to dance. Of course the residents like to watch so I do some dance music. I've learned that the important thing is not to be boring. "Bill Baiiey won't You Please Come Home" with a little kick will never die.