The Fragility of Humanity - Martha Nussbaum

"I have found power in the mysteries of thought,
exaltation in the changing of the Muses;
I have been versed in the reasonings of men;
but Fate is stronger than anything I have known." Euripides, Alcestis, 438 B.C.

"When you get a person to look at the sun as it bakes down on the daily carnage taking place on earth, the ridiculous accidents, the utter fragility of life, the power­lessness of those he thought most powerful—what comfort can you give him from a psychotherapeutic point of view?" --Ernest Becker

[T]he analysis of disgust and shame...shows us that human beings typically have a problematic relationship to their mortality and animality, and that this problematic relationship causes not just inner tension, but also aggression toward others. If ideals of respect and reciprocity are to have a chance of prevailing, they must contend against the forces of narcissism and misanthropy that these emotions so frequently involve.-Hiding from Humanity by Martha Nussbaum

The Fragility of Goodness
Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy:

http://www.amazon.com/Fragility-Goodness-Ethics-Tragedy-Philosophy/dp/0521794722

This book is a study of ancient views about moral luck. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a persons control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives.

Ernest Becker noted, "In the world of ritual there aren't any accidents, and accidents, as we know, are the things that make life most precarious and meaningless...if life can be so subject to chance, it mustn't have too much meaning."

Nussbaum on Pindar : The excellence of the good person, he writes, is like a young plant: something growing in the world, slender, fragile, in constant need of food from without. A vine tree must be of good stock if it is to grow well. And even if it has a good heritage, it needs fostering weather (gentle dew an drain, the absence of sudden frosts and harsh winds), as well as the care of concerned and intelligent keepers, for its continued health and full perfection. So, the poet suggests, do we. We need to be born with adequate capacities, to live in a fostering natural and social circumstances, to stay clear of abrupt catastrophe, to develop confirming associations we other human beings.

"In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. The divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity."
Albert Camus

The absurd, briefly defined, is the confrontation with ourselves--with our demands for rationality and justice--and an "indifferent universe." Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to the endless, futile task of rolling a rock up a mountain (whence it would roll back down of its own weight), this becomes an exemplar of the human condition, struggling hopelessly and pointlessly to achieve something. The odd antihero of The Stranger, on the other hand, unconsciously accepts the absurdity of life. He makes no judgments, accepts the most repulsive characters as his freinds and neighbors, and remains unmoved by the death of his mother and his own killing of a man. Facing execution for his crime, he "opens his heart to the benign indifference of the universe."

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[squamish4244]

@hampusheh It's a common misconception that letting go of emotional attachments makes you passive and withdrawn from the world. In fact, many people, including myself, become more engaged because they are less distracted by their own problems. Matthieu Ricard's "Change Your Mind, Change Your Brain" is a long but very informative video where he addresses all of the concerns you have voiced and presents scientific studies about the various components of spiritual practice as well. He is a PhD.

[hampusheh]

@squamish4244 Yeah, life is a drag sometimes. What's your response to this? Just hide from emotional attachment and bury your head in the sand? I refuse to not be engaged just because this will lower my blood pressure or make me more "at peace". If people didn't get angry we would never facilitate any change in society, anger was behind the civil rights movement and it has done society a great favor.

[squamish4244]

@hampusheh I find being dragged around by fear, anger, jealousy, grief, physical pain, depression, etc. a real drag! They fuel most of the human race's problems. Spiritual practice has helped me enormously with these emotions. The positive emotions are deliberately cultivated and, according to Buddhist teachings, wisdom and compassion are already fundamental to human nature, which is at the deepest level totally free but obscured by the clouds of our attachments and aversions.

[hampusheh]

@squamish4244 Sure, I will add them to my "view later" playlist. On the face of it I think that Buddhism is contrary to human nature and offers a solution to the difficulty of emotions by castrating them. Emotional attachment is what makes life worth living, emotional attachment forms concepts about the world, denial of concepts is denial of emotions.

[squamish4244]

@hampusheh No. Check out Adyashanti, Gangaji, Alan Wallace, Matthieu Ricard, Lama Surya Das, Ramana Maharshi, Ram Dass, or numerous other videos on YouTube that can do a better job of explaining Buddhism or the similar Vedanta tradition of Hinduism and nondual spirituality better than I can.

[hampusheh]

@squamish4244 Oh kinda like bludgeoning yourself over the head until you can't feel the pain anymore. I get it

[vdizhoor]

Occasionally, shit hits the fan. Darkness enters the world. But the days are longer than nights. And even the night is full of light coming from stars so far away. Get high enough and you will see that the Sun never falls either. To learn to recognize beauty in every thing diminishes our losses when we loose some one or thing that is dear to us. Also, worrying about loosing our lives is the problem - not actually loosing them. Life will always Be.

[squamish4244]

@hampusheh Buddhism itself is a concept designed to lead us to a state of mind that exists beyond concepts!

[hampusheh]

@squamish4244 Well what is Buddhism then? Not a concept or idea?

[squamish4244]

To be caught in ideas and concepts is to suffer. Including the concepts of "moral and ethical" or "good and evil", or "meaning and meaninglessness." Any idea we have of how existence should be will cause us to suffer. Yes, I am a Buddhist.