Category: counseling

A Further Comment on Biological and Non-biological Familial Relationship

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My comment to this person who wrote the letter.

Adding to the advice from the response:

Yes, and …

I would stress the importance of not hiding the actual quality of the situation from your growing child. Of course, it appears that the B or not-B appears a very significant aspect of what is arising in your universe.

Be open with your child in the manner he/she will be able to understand and comprehend with respect to their age. And foster the discussion if it comes up as you all grow in life. Honor what comes up for them, their questions and feelings. Honor your own feelings and thoughts as well, even as it may be difficult, as you may be sad or angry.

Though the issue may be bringing up very touchy issues for yourself and partner, I would not suggest sweeping them under the rug or disqualifying that there is some sort of difference due to you feeling there should not be a difference. The difference is already manifest in the issue itself. This does not mean things have to go any particular way, or that mother and child cannot love each other just as thoroughly as any. It only means that while we attempt to change, we must also address what is actually there, what is actually occurring.

Being Modern Mindfully

I have been reading a huge textbook on mindfulness. It is truly a gargantuan book for mindfulness: a thick textbook with everything, from history, through philosophy (East and west), neurobiology…everything about it. Very cool.

One of the things that strikes me, though, about this very academic, clinical and scientific, conventional approach to Being, is the great assumption that is invested in the kind of knowing presented in this book. In short, despite all the uses it finds for mindfulness, for which it recruits Buddhism as well as Husserl and phenomenology, and others, it becomes very noticeable what this book represents by the kind of knowledge it promotes.

Let’s see if I can explain.

The analogy that comes to mind for me is between what is posed in various ways.

There is a, what Husserl calls a Natural manner of experience and Being, and then there is what he famously calls phenomenal reduction aspect. Mindfulness is proposed as a kind of western phenomenalism reflecting or mapped into eastern knowledge.

The issue that comes to mind for me is around or next to what I understand is the core of mindfulness practices. Mindfulness practice promotes awareness without judgement.

I feel this is the best definition to be had. Any other, I feel, loads conceptual artifacts upon the effort.

For example, the extremely loaded ideal that mindfulness is an achievable state of Being. To my mind, any achievable state of Being begs a basic question about Being itself. But that question is larger than this post.

Now my question:

If mindfulness practices are about developing or cultivating awareness without judgement, then what is the notion that there is or we should want mindfulness practices saying about awareness without judgement?

It seems to me that by virtue of its formulation and actualization, it is inherently judgemental. For, by its existence, a judgment is implied about the situation.

So then; what is that really saying about any state of being?

Despite any argument, before we could say anything, just in contemplating and considering what I have laid out so far in this post, we would have to say that the situation itself is a problem.

The reason that this is significant for me is due to my fundamental axiom, a sort of basic or grounding substance from which all things arise. This is: there is nothing wrong.

There is no problem. The basic philosophical assumption that goes into any philosophical work of substance must stem from the ground of, basically, nothing. And, if we are going to translate this into a practical situation, this nothingness must equate to a situation where there is no problem.

( Slavoj Zizek calls this a catastrophe ! )

This is particularly interesting in the context of mindfulness in so much as — at least the author of this textbook, but I have heard many other authors and speakers talk about mindfulness — an ideal state of being that a person can achieve called mindfulness is posited…

…The very idea of that state of being (mindful) is that problem is already handled at all times.

Now, what does this really mean?

Does it mean that we’re happy and content all the time?

While I do love mindfulness as I understand it, which is to say, as the practice of cultivating an awareness without judgment,  I think it is a ridiculous proposition that a human being could achieve a “state of mindfulness being”. It’s like setting one up for failure in the act of trying to help them.

Like I said in the beginning of this post, to me it is an idealism. And what it’s really indicating, what it is really trying to get someone to, is really the fundamental and basic working ontological knowledge that there is no problem.

Because human beings are indeed human beings that are constantly faced with problems, we have to find the moment of this mindful proposition within the context that it is indeed arising in this moment:

Modernity is problem.

Mindfulness is awareness without judgment. 

xxx

The Global Hospice

Passion and compassion.

Reality and truth.

Philosophy and anthropology.

Either/or and And.

These are counter-partial horizontally, and correlational vertically, at least in this post.

  WE ARE ABLE to contemplate significant relationships With things other than human beings. And, Yes, a human being is also a universal object.

And, it is also a subject. Modern subjectivity is the current ideological formulation of being in the world, otherwise known as the global religion. This is the case such that any argument which would bring rebuttal or exception to the statement merely argues that what it’s arguing against is the case; in other words, any rebuttal to the statement is telling us that it is a modern subject. At that, involved with an alienation from itself. 

This is not wrong or incorrect, nor does it indicate merely a condition that we must reject, otherwise known as contradiction. It merely shows us some thing that is true of the universe. It is true of the universe; it must be true simply by the basic definition of what we understand is true, and regardless of how we define the notion of truth, because of the condition I just stated. That is, any rebuttal to it merely exemplifies the case it is trying to dispel. This is a truth, and it is a truth under a particular condition, and we call this condition modern.

To decide upon different terms, and define those new terms in different ways in relation to the term that is supposedly indicating something that is problematic or that is in need of changing or adjusting, is what we know of as the modern theological apology That we call postmodern.

We have the parameters of our condition. Because we can identify parameters truly, we are able to identify an object that arises in the universe.

From a subjective standpoint, which is to say, from the unreflective condition of being where a human arises to its occasion in the world to use its intellect for skillful application, and only use during that moment of living, Life is supposed to be, and it is indeed demanded by the individual involved with a passionate existence.

Such passion is particularly individual. It is particularly self-serving. It is possible therefore to define the global situation of humanity, in a general sense, as the negotiation between individuals. And, it is due to this orientation upon universal things, that is, the subjective or phenomenal orientation upon things, that’s the problem in the relationship  with the world is occurring. In other words, it is the and self righteous proclamations and assertions of self-centeredness upon the world which evidences the dysfunction that is our current global situation. Pandemic, post truth, social discord, etc. arise because of this particular manifestation of the human being it’s relationship with the world.

And, somewhat unfortunately, the head or leading proponent of such cosmology is philosophy itself.  it is an orientation upon the transcendent spirit of the human being as the designator an arbiter of all things, such that anything which arises in the world is understood to be arising only within the human being itself. And the problems with this orientation are manifest. 

Anthropology is the honest look at Real universal objects. And due to the constraints which confront our conceptions, and inform our perceptions, the way forward must be compassion. Less the self righteous imposition of propriety upon oneself, as well the grace given to others for their self righteousness, we need compassion for the passionate exercise of excess.

Going forward we should see ourselves in global hospice. 

 Folks, we are dying.

…As usual.
x

Everything exists.

Nothing is something.

This statement holds all the possible ramifications of the assessment of Being to its orientations. And from the dual meaning that arises in this statement, all problems and solutions exist.

It is not merely meaning, because that represents only one of the two orientations then.

But meaning is the main issue through which, if the truth is to be understood, must be confronted.

Something is always something else; nothing is always something.

It is the question of orientation upon the universe. Less what meaning is made, more when that meaning is challenged.

Orientation upon things concerns two basic questions;

what are we dealing with?

What are we trying to accomplish?

If these two questions are not stated, then they are assumed. We thus have one thing we are dealing with: Reality is thus the teleo-ontological assumption of a common sense of being human and the universe.

Without this assumption implicit to every statement and thought, no reality arises. It is then just a bunch of things doing stuff; reality is complicit with an agenda.

So then the next question involved in that truth — it is a truth because no argument can be made against it without implying that its meaning is operative:

What are we trying to accomplish by the assumed common arena ?

—

For this:

We are dealing with the truth of reality for the purpose of Being mentally healthy.

This is a anthropology of philosophy.

Resiliency: Ontological Orientations

ah Reality is overrated. We think that we make decisions, but that statement is redundant. Do we think ever that is not decision? Is there a thought that is neutral and not a representation of a choice in-itself?

Well, most say no, that they don’t know what I’m talking about. And some say yes.

I’d say it’s both. We make decisions that are based in the decision that is us, is the individual. But in reality we don’t behave that way.

In truth, the individual has decided. But in reality we have yet to decide.

The issue for mental health seems to always side on what decision we are going to make now. Now that we come across some sort of mental thing, some anxiety or worry or bad relationship, what shall we decide, but more properly the question of effectiveness, and thus resiliency, is what are we able to decide.

We like to think that we decide about everything. But for some reason, especially when we’re anxious or depressed or have some sort of “mental issue” that we notice, it seems that our ability to decide out of the situation has been compromised.

It is interesting to me then that many mental health approaches seem to represent an orientation upon what the psyche is or what mentality is, and what might be healthy about it, and is always oriented in making a decision out of a condition of decision that has been compromised.

Of course, we have to start where we are at. And so the decisions, the real work, usually takes place by finding out where that ground of compromise is, what decisions we are able to make. And if we can come to that sense of agency, if we can find that level of ability to make a decision within that condition of a compromised ability to decide, then we work slowly to regain our self efficacy and mental health.

That is the overwhelmingly regular and usual method of any kind of therapeutic approach one will usually come across.

It is what we have to do methodologically, because we aren’t dealing with people usually who want to think about things philosophically.

For the practitioners, though, I like to think that education equals intelligence, but what are usually find, what I think we are finding more and more, is that intelligence and education really only have to do with real skills, and not so much with an ability to reflect upon one’s situation truly.

Nevertheless, I would ask into that approach from the standpoint of the practitioner, from one who is implementing a strategy towards mental health.

Perhaps what the compromise is telling us is that indeed there is some underlying substance that is prevented by the kind of resilience we are seeking when we are trying to achieve through the orientation that we have an ability to decide at some level or condition. 

I think this orientation, this real approach, would take the condition where we really have already decided, and move it or apply it to the “either or” situation that is so real, and then take it as a sign of existential futility or contradiction. What I’m saying here is that most people who are oriented in the substance of reality would take the idea that I am already determined in everything that I do as an intellectual decision of futility upon the decisions one must make in real life.

But what I’m really saying is that the contradiction in itself is a philosophical fallacy, based in a real orientation upon things, and not from a true orientation. That From the orientation that reality holds all the cards, all the truth, every way of thinking that is rational and valid.

So in a way, I’m kind of pointing to the issue of mental health may be the inadequacy of our real conceptual models. The inadequacy of hanging on to a version of the human being in the world that is inadequate and basically faulty, and thus the preponderance of mental health issues in our modern society

Maybe.

x

A Holiday gift: Objects and Subjects

“The true substance of things lay in the depths, while the dramatic power of material churns and crashes like waves on the surface.”

A paraphrase of Graham Harman, I commandeer his polemic to notice a felicity to the actuality of the situation.

We are taught, both religiously and philosophically, that The truth of things lies in our subjectivity. We are taught that all the drama that’s occurring, all the argumentation, The passions, the perceptions And conceptions, the interaction, is where we are to look for the truth.

We tend to ignore post-structuralism’s critique as merely another subjective argument. Namely, that post-structuralism as a philosophy appears to arise from nowhere, has no basis, ultimately having no substance that could’ve made the argument or pointed out the various things.

And everyone seems to just take that as a given. Indeed the whole comment of Post-structuralism is that subjectivity itself, while involved in these various negotiations of historical and discursive elements, is ultimately repressed by them, the truth of the very interaction repressed, is denied, is excluded from the negotiation itself as subjectivity, the knowledge-power. The conclusion that we tend to rely on and work with is that, well, the truth of the matter must be that human beings and the world lie only in their subjectivity.

The radical truth which begins to describe the fallacy of orientating substance upon the exchange of materials concerns objects, and ultimately, the truth of the situation.

As this rephrase tells, true substance lay in the shadowy depths.

So ironically, it is a counseling, it is an anthropology, as I call it, which uncovers the true substance of what we’re dealing with between the Selfand the world, what true universal objects are in themselves.

Conventional Philosophy. becomes ultimately this place of politics, this place of “playing around”, at once comedic, at once tragic. We find d that a group of human beings which attempt to find itself and themselves in a substance of material negotiation – ultimately these human beings become fucked up. They don’t know how to behave. They begin to collapse in upon themselves, to create discord and problems everywhere because ultimately the source of “there being” it problematic in insubstantial.

The failure of the enlightenment is the victory of ideological power which subjugates human beings to its whim despite themselves.

It is not “we” that are subjects of ideological power. It is that we are involved with a faith that ideological power is synthetically a priori not only to our own very ontological substance…

….And the substance of everything in the universe

X

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