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2010
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- Taking Pleasure In Things #3
- Taking Pleasure In Things #2
- Taking Pleasure In Things
- Work In Progress: Schwinn Paramount
- (A Few Further) Aphorisms: Woman
- Overheard at a Bank
- Work In Progress: 1972 Schwinn Paramount
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- Aphorisms: Woman
- New Reflections on the Working Poor
- The Old (brev. 1972)
- Katastrophenhausse
- Everything But The Girl
- Metaphor
- On Stoicism
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- Ardmore, PA
- Disruption of Tranquility
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March
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Disruption of tranquility. This implies (to me) that tranquility is an ideal state. Do we strive to obtain/achieve/realize tranquility? Certainly we long for it during periods in our lives when it eludes us (i.e. periods of hopeless chaos/incessant noise/frequent unpleasant disturbances). Once it is obtained/achieved/realized can it be duly appreciated? Or, is it some balance between tranquility and hopelessly uncontrollable chaos that is ideal?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the idea of an "ideal". There are different states only, and, for me, some result in my being more productive than others. By productive I mean creation, clear and rigorous thinking, and the tranquil state has been the best state for these activities. Disruptions to this state can be both pleasureful and painful, and sometimes I even look to purposefully disrupt my tranquility (either for pleasure or for pain).
ReplyDeleteSo do not equate disruption of tranquility with any sort of value judgement. These disruptions are only bad when I am trying to create something and they make it difficult for me. That pisses me off, so that is what I would judge as a "bad" state. But then, at another time, I might embrace that very same disruption and enjoy the state it puts me in.
The Stoics had a term for people who had mastered the state of tranquility. They called them "sages" and it was said that there were very, very few of them. They walked the earth and were untouchable. Even death could not cause them to be fearful. From the state of tranquility they ventured out into other states, always returning.
But my problem with Stoicism is exactly what you are getting at: that there is by implication some ideal state to be achieved--that you get there and don't want to leave it. I would rather experience all states both by choice and sometimes by surprise. I do, however, find on the average that tranquility is by far the most preferrable of states.
Accord.
ReplyDeleteWhat is tranquility?
ReplyDeleteAnd how does one achieve it?
Those are the larger questions.
An idea:
ReplyDelete1) Clarity, contentedness, focus, calmness, internal peace, balance
2) Each philosopher will find different ways to "achieve" it. I use term achieve loosely because for many or most, becoming aware that one has achieved a state of tranquility can cause the state to disappear. Tools available to approach a state of tranquility include rigorous exercise, meditation, study, work, sex, music. Each of these things can also, for the same person, be disruptions of tranquility. It has been suggested by people smarter than me that depression can lead to tranquility if it doesn't lead to substance abuse.
Additionally - there have been times in my life where seemingly chaotic events, that for most people (myself included) should disrupt tranquility, have actually aided in achieving it.
ReplyDeleteCrashed on my bike really hard one day. Lots of pain and lots of missing skin.Car needed push started/jump started. Home situation annoying.Living in poverty. Showers would be painful. Riding would be painful.Putting on clothes would be painful. Girls would be put off by the scabs. Ouch. Pain. Blood. Inconvenience.
For the first time, I embraced the pain on my arm and all these other factors, and for the first time, felt tranquility. Felt at balance and at peace. Nothing could harm me, if all these things could not. As a sage for the moment, good health and good fortune were unnecessary externals. My poverty, pain, and any criticism I received could cause me no sorrow.
WANTING WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE
ReplyDeleteWhen you want what you already have you live in a satisfied state. This could refer to people, or things, or skills or, finally, it could simply be the fact of being alive, being conscious. You desire nothing outside yourself in such a state. Such is tranquility.
Contrast this with how most live: desire for new things they don't have, which immediately after attaining them results in new desires for other things they don't have. That moment of attaining the object of desire might be a form of tranquility, but it doesn't last. For those who live in a continual state of desire for what is beyond them, life is mostly difficult and, except for the fleeting moments of contentment and tranquility upon attaining something, one could hardly call such a life tranquil.
But the individual who only wants what he already has will always have his wants fulfilled. Even if you strip this individual of every worldly thing, even his physical faculties, he will still have a life, however reduced. For this man, as long as he lives, can find something to direct his desires and wants, even if it is merely his existence. And by wanting and desiring just to live he will satisfy himself. He will achieve tranquility.
Only when you take his life do you destroy this deep tranquility. He, of course, is not around to lose it. Thus, the world can take nothing from this man. He is untouchable.
This is only rudimentary though. A lot more could be said of the tranquil man. For instance, how does the tranquil man deal with loss (a thing, a person, a physical ability)? How does the tranquil man deal with regret from something in the past? Fear of the future?
To distill this concept further, to be tranquil is to be content. We do not own things; we share space with things, and we experience their presence or absence. We do not posses people (implied if you can 'lose' someone); we are their other as they are ours. The absence of a physical ability is as real as the presence of a physical ability. The recognition of this natural balance, and the abandonment of a desire to posses (due to its impossibility), hence, is tranquility.
ReplyDeleteTo regret is to be foolish, for your existence today is exactly as it was going to be since the beginning of time. To regret is to deny one's own existence.
To fear the future is to waste energy. For 60 seconds from now is as irrelevant as 60 years from now.
A tranquil man has no room in his thoughts for regret or fear. A tranquil man understands that only this moment now matters. This tranquil man also realizes that all he ever has is this moment. The past provides context to understand this moment, and the future, motivation to better understand this moment.
In the spirit of full disclosure, my tranquility was disrupted (violated in fact) about 4 times last night. I regret that it could have been more but wasn't, and fear it will happen again very shortly.
ReplyDelete