Or Inside Out. Or Something.

Ever try turning one of your basic beliefs upside down? It’s weird. And I don’t mean something as simple as pretend you’re a Democrat (Inky) or imagine yourself to be a fan of Dick Cheney’s. Although these may be a good place to start, I’m thinking more of lifelong beliefs held close to the heart for some reason.

I got to thinking about this a few years ago when I realized I just didn’t have it in me to agree that life was great at all costs. I know that’s a real taboo in this society – one must LIVE, and LIVE LARGE, and COLLECT A LOT OF STUFF, and ENJOY LIFE but I just wasn’t so sure. In fact, I believed that we kind of overvalued life, and have reduced it to the sentimental, sticky, pink-heart fluff of love. But God Forbid I should say that. I would get drummed out of all the groups I hold dear.

This led me to ponder what else I held on to because someone else had taught it to me, but that perhaps I had all screwed up or else had lost its utility.

In my family my dad was a big, gregarious guy much loved by everyone around us. Inside the family he was also big and gregarious, and although we mostly loved him we were also scared to death of him. He had a temper as big as all outdoors and you had to be pretty careful if you didn’t want to be the one to set him off.

He loved “The Golden Rule” and used it to beat the bushes of our childhood thoughts. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he’d bellow right before he’d smack my brother upside the head or across the butt with a belt. This philosophy went into my psyche slightly askew. Well into my 40's I realized that I grew up with a slightly twisted view of the Golden Rule and it went kind of like this: Do unto others in order to get them to do unto you in the same way.

Be nice to others so they would be nice to you. Give your new toy to Jimmy so he would share his toys with you. Give your guest the extra cookie so you can have the extra cookie when you go over to her house. I didn’t catch the nuances until I was quite grown up and living in my own house with my own husband and my own kids and they totally did not get the drill. Here I was doing all this stuff for them and not a single one of them understood that they were supposed to be doing stuff for me!!

Dammit! I was ticked. What kind of bargain was this? Fortunately for me, through some pretty good therapists and friends and some lucky coincidences I got to examine this and rethink it. As opposed to just picking up my toys and leaving them all behind, which was my default position (and I have to say this did occur to me many times).

“Take care of yourself” was no longer a motto for the uber-selfish. It was actually a smart and sustainable way to live in the world. “Be nice” wasn’t about manipulating someone else into being nice, I could choose to be nice because I liked myself when I was nice.

Doing unto others slowly emerged as something that I could choose to do because it was a basic guideline for decent behavior. It was not about getting someone else to do something…. I cannot tell you how long it took me to get it, but once I did I continue to be amazed at how easy it really is. I mean it’s pretty easy to choose to do things because I like to do them. It is hard as hell to get other people to do things that I think they should do.

So, as weird as it felt to examine this basic belief it turned out to be a good thing.

I have yet to figure out if there is something good about being a fan of Dick Cheney, and I’m not sure I want to try that one yet.

I think I’ll work on Osama Bin Laden first.

Kong Fuzi

is patience. By nature, I am a very impatient person. Nothing happens fast enough for me. Only late in life have I discovered that taking the time to do it right - and in the process, discover what is right - is far more expedient than simply getting it done.

stance of some kind? AND a close call, in a manner of speaking, i.e., there's at least a colorable basis to hold the contrary position. You can sorta see why GOPers like me find Dick Cheney persuasive even today?

Ethical/normative, because we can't invert, even for the sake of a thought experiment, certain categories of basic beliefs---like one of my own that two plus two equals four. Can we? And "close call", in that we can't really pretend to adopt a view sanctioning wanton rape and murder. Can I?

I guess I'll start by holding my nose and really giving non-Creation Science a new look.....

he just got re-flushed. But I don't believe that would have happened without me and Ted pointing him out, to the point that it managed to appear even in Moderator Magoo's discernment-window.

Bullshit, Inkberrow. Who do you thinks e-mails Jeremy every time one of denny's sock puppets shows up? Who do you think got 3 folks to e-mail Jeremy yesterday?

(hint -- it wasn't you or Ted)

on what you believe. If your belief is a belief in the proposition "two plus two equals four" then of course we could simply change the meaning of the words in the proposition such that you would believe exactly the same proposition but only in a trivial sense. We could make the word "two" pick out 4 things or 100 or an elephant and then just reconfigure the language in any way we needed. If you think about beliefs that way then you can imagine changing your mind about "two plus two equals four" quite easily because it's only a contingent fact that those words pick out an analytic truth and if the picked out a completely innocuous/useless truth you probably wouldn't even bother believing or even thinking it.

Please, ma'am, may I have another?

(on PFray, if you like, where I responded).

Inkberrow to MA -- So what took you so long to make report?

What makes you think yesterday was the first time? And of course I linked WIP to its puppetmaster.

As to whether or not this is the last of the puppetmaster, that depends entirely on the freditor, who is the only one with the computer ability.

(on PFray, if you like, where I responded).

Would you consider deleting those last two posts of yours on PF?

is more of a personal-experience rather than a thought-experiment. But, if you're more comfortable with the latter then by all means go for it.

I think if you examine sanctioning wanton rape and murder, and you come to the conclusion that your beliefs against it (I mean that is a pretty universal belief) are not natural to you, but feel forced then go for it. But the point is not to convince anyone else that you're right, or that they should agree with you.

The point is to challenge your OWN attachment to the belief, and perhaps find that you don't actually believe that at all.

I mean, I was living my life out of a bargain-mentality. Even though I had convinced myself I was a "good" and "nice" person what I really discovered is that nearly everything I did had attached to it an expectation that this would get me something I wanted, even if it was just nice behavior back.

That really struck me between the eyes because consciously I had no idea that is what I believed ... yet there I was acting on it day in and day out.

I have suggested to JTM that he treat Procrastination much as he does Poems Fray in that we have a group of people here who have declared this a decent board, not just BotF2. That we want to have reliable access to conversation and discussion, not bloodbaths of historical and hysterical proportion.

I don't know if he will agree, but I think you've done a good job over there and would like to see it happen here as well.

I'll delete. It's soiling a page that really jumping right now with Pinsky et al and a new poem.

My view of you has adapted---but not JTM so much!

impatience in my life was very much tied up in my assessment of (read that judgment of) the "fact" that other people aren't "doing it right" - whatever it and right happen to be at the time.

I had someone tell me one time "You may be right, but it's irrelevant." Took me a dozen years to even imagine that that sentence could make sense. Since then it gets profounder and profounder.

BTW, not sure what you mean by the other "success" you noted, though!

Definition of "basic beliefs" is a gatekeeper.

No true-isms? No a prioris?

Personally, I learnt it backwards, but whatever works.

My father always said, "Son, do not expect anything in return and God will bless you with plenty, and men will say: behold, there goes a righteous man! And they will shower you with gifts, and offer their daughter's hand in marriage."

And boy, was the old man right! Otherwise, who would have listened to his superstitious rambling?