If you haven't read all of the previous posts on this topic, Grief Parts 1 through 4 and there was a Despair that came first, now would be a good time to review those articles. You'll be much clearer about what comes next if you do. (For links to previously published installments scroll to the bottom of this post.)
If you are feeling a desire to run from this story, I think that is a reasonable and rational response — which is one of my main points in writing all of this. We live in a human-created, industrialized society. Rationality rules, and so it's become natural to lean on rationality. Say thank you to this pull to rush back into rationality and ignore it. Try to remember there is more to life than rationality. Life is a mystery. We don't understand it, and denial of that is just an attempt to control life or retreat into rationality. Most of our lives are based in feelings, intuition and more. All of which can be very non-rational.
With rationality we are like the fish in water. Does the fish even recognize the water it swims in? Does the water become a background for the life of the fish? Our industrialized society is grounded in rationality. Our lives are lived in a sea of rationality. Rationality is so pervasive it is like the water to the fish. We rarely acknowledge that.
I started this conversation suggesting there was something to be hopeful about so here are some ideas worth thinking about.
Life is a mystery. Science doesn't know what life is and can't explain where the essence of your loved one goes when they die. Science doesn't have those answers, the process of science won't find the answers. The scientific method is a rational process that doesn't operate on the spiritual humanist plane.
Science also doesn't have much, if anything, to say about the obvious progressive history of evolution. Both the evolution of life and the evolution of the physical universe have proceeded from exceedingly simple to complex. This is not a random direction as science would have us believe. Even more compelling is that this evolution has proceeded faster and faster over billions of years despite the increasing complexity.
Again I say that I have an innate intuition that the universe is a more positive enterprise than what our human culture currently appears to be. If evolution isn't random then who or what is directing the last six billion years. This idea starts to sound vaguely religious or spiritual, and so I want to add that my spirituality has alway been centered around nature. I would go backpacking alone and just be in a place far away from other people. I always felt the human culture fall away and something more elemental take its place. I've never been religious in my spirituality.
For now the main point is that humans are not in control. Something else is.
—David Cutter
- - -
We previously posted articles in this series in:
February (Despair)
March (Grief: Part 1)
May (Grief: Part 2)
July (Grief: Part 3)
August (Grief: Part 4)
If you are feeling a desire to run from this story, I think that is a reasonable and rational response — which is one of my main points in writing all of this. We live in a human-created, industrialized society. Rationality rules, and so it's become natural to lean on rationality. Say thank you to this pull to rush back into rationality and ignore it. Try to remember there is more to life than rationality. Life is a mystery. We don't understand it, and denial of that is just an attempt to control life or retreat into rationality. Most of our lives are based in feelings, intuition and more. All of which can be very non-rational.
With rationality we are like the fish in water. Does the fish even recognize the water it swims in? Does the water become a background for the life of the fish? Our industrialized society is grounded in rationality. Our lives are lived in a sea of rationality. Rationality is so pervasive it is like the water to the fish. We rarely acknowledge that.
I started this conversation suggesting there was something to be hopeful about so here are some ideas worth thinking about.
Life is a mystery. Science doesn't know what life is and can't explain where the essence of your loved one goes when they die. Science doesn't have those answers, the process of science won't find the answers. The scientific method is a rational process that doesn't operate on the spiritual humanist plane.
Science also doesn't have much, if anything, to say about the obvious progressive history of evolution. Both the evolution of life and the evolution of the physical universe have proceeded from exceedingly simple to complex. This is not a random direction as science would have us believe. Even more compelling is that this evolution has proceeded faster and faster over billions of years despite the increasing complexity.
Again I say that I have an innate intuition that the universe is a more positive enterprise than what our human culture currently appears to be. If evolution isn't random then who or what is directing the last six billion years. This idea starts to sound vaguely religious or spiritual, and so I want to add that my spirituality has alway been centered around nature. I would go backpacking alone and just be in a place far away from other people. I always felt the human culture fall away and something more elemental take its place. I've never been religious in my spirituality.
For now the main point is that humans are not in control. Something else is.
—David Cutter
- - -
We previously posted articles in this series in:
February (Despair)
March (Grief: Part 1)
May (Grief: Part 2)
July (Grief: Part 3)
August (Grief: Part 4)
