Our culture tends to be highly objective when it comes to our value system. We are in an eternal rush to assimilate objects. Money (our official value symbol) is the "objectification of objects", meaning it represents a universal abstraction of the worth of objects, the market value of objects, if you will. Thus, we "objectively" view objects.
In such a culture, our relations to things become abstract. Step 1: What matters is not our relation to the object, how we experience our self in relation to it, but rather the object itself. Step 2: What matters is not the object itself, but the market value of the object. We have reached the pinnacle of Step 2 in our value system. As a result, we have left the most basic and intimate value in the dust, that of experience of the self in relation to the world; in other words, how it feels to live, to be alive. This value, however, is what gives meaning and vivacity to human experience- and we have fled it, dismissed it for our precious "capital".
We have entire sciences dedicated to financial gain; nothing even remotely close to the science of feeling alive, to the science of happiness. Instead of looking inward at this vital area of importance, we progressively search farther and farther away from ourselves (objectification) for a sense of fulfillment. Spiritual being (specifically SPIRITUAL HEALTH) is a topic largely dismissed as useless and trivial. We have essentially become zombies detached from our inner experience. And we wonder why our people are so depressed.
____________________________________________________________________
"What does it feel like to be you? What is your tone, tempo, and intensity? The raw event of existence-- feel this and refuse all designations!"
"Health is an extreme state, an excess; when one has it, one is innocent, careless. The more intense one is, the more there is a love of adventure, a love of going at things with no idea of what is going to happen. The unknown appears laden with charm."
-Michael Greene (Bataille's Wound)
GReat point I beat myself up all the time for valuing money and things too much. I have been to third world countries where people hand crafted there own crutches. Or gave up there only bed to me their guest.
It is so hard to go through each day without worry about paying bills or getting excited at a new gadget. I wish I could wake up every morning and remember I have so much more than most people out there. Basically slap myself in the face and say 'Relax and enjoy life'
I agree but I was driving at something a bit more complex. In many ways, our culture trains us to become calculating, processing OBJECTIVE robots. As we yield to this pressure, we slowly forget the "magic" of life; the inner experience of life, the feeling of wonder, excitement, the charge of our vitality, slowly "dies off" to us. (Caught in the rational, ignorant of the beauty and vitality the irrational has to offer.)
(In fact, enjoyment, I would argue, never walks hand in hand with the rational. When we follow the "reasonable" plan to work for 11 months of the year so we can be rewarded with one month of pleasure, the pleasureful experience itself is far from "rational". Pleasure "FEELS good"; what is rational about a FEELING? (Nothing.) The mathematician who enjoys rational logic, who loves to partake in it; is his experience of joy rational? No- only the "object" of his enjoyment is.)
I agree but I was driving at something a bit more complex. In many ways, our culture trains us to become calculating, processing OBJECTIVE robots. As we yield to this pressure, we slowly forget the "magic" of life; the inner experience of life, the feeling of wonder, excitement, the charge of our vitality, slowly "dies off" to us. (Caught in the rational, ignorant of the beauty and vitality the irrational has to offer.)
(In fact, enjoyment, I would argue, never walks hand in hand with the rational. When we follow the "reasonable" plan to work for 11 months of the year so we can be rewarded with one month of pleasure, the pleasureful experience itself is far from "rational". Pleasure "FEELS good"; what is rational about a FEELING? (Nothing.) The mathematician who enjoys rational logic, who loves to partake in it; is his experience of joy rational? No- only the "object" of his enjoyment is.)